Kate’s Kidney Stone

  Kate awoke early Friday morning with a pain in her kidney. The pain wasn’t intolerable (about a “4” on a scale from 1 to 10), so she got ready and began the drive to her office.  She texted and told us that the pain was starting to get worse and that she might start driving for the hospital; a few minutes later she let us that she had gone into the ER.

  A CT scan showed that there was a kidney stone in the ureter, but that it wasn’t obstructive.  It was approx. 5mm which is a little bit more than the size of a BB.  Because of its large size I began saying she had a kidney boulder.

  By the way, this is her third kidney stone and she’s never been able to pass one of the stones in the past.  The doctor said that there was only a 20% chance that she’d be able to pass it.

At the ER

  The urologist couldn’t really do anything over the weekend, but give her pain medicine, so they gave Kate the choice of leaving the hospital and then coming back next week to have the kidney stone busted up through lithotripsy.  Well, who wants to spend the weekend in a hospital?  They gave her some more pain medicine through her IV and gave her prescription for Vikodin.

 

  After picking up the meds we went to our Civil War dance lesson, but only the three us boys danced; by the time that we left Kate was in a lot of pain  (7-8) and while we drove to the hospital her pain went to a 10.  After signing in at the ER her pain went back down to a 4 and it was a good thing too, because it was an hour before we got a room.  After being in the room for more than half an hour nobody had come into the room and her pain went back up to a 10.  We buzzed for help, but I’m sure it was close to 20 minutes before they got a nurse into the room and administer her meds.

Kate stayed in the ER for a few hours early Saturday morning before she was moved to a hospital room.  On Saturday they put her on Dilauded for pain, but it made her vomit for most of the day.

Bad IV job

    The picture to the left shows how poorly one of the nurses put in an IV.  The blood soaked through a bath towel, a blanket, a sheet and the fitted sheet. It had even taken her 20 minutes to do.

    Kate was switched to Perocet and she didn’t feel nauseous from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon when she was dismissed from the hospital with pain medication.

Leaving the Hospital

   She took Percocet for pain on Monday and she had the lithotripsy surgery done early Tuesday morning.  Other than the general anesthesia, the surgery wasn’t bad and they used subsonic waves to bust up the stone.

Recovering from anesthesia

2011 Thus Far…

  If this looks like a long post please remember that this s the past 61 days…I mean 59 days…in just one post. Our first two months of this year have brought so many changes it’s hard to imagine what the rest of the year will bring (and that’s including a month that was short changed a couple of days.)  We’ve mainly just been dealing with health and nutrition problems that have been coming up. 
Up until just a few weeks ago my Mom had been having severe health problems especially since December that would make her not able to get out of bed at all for days on end.  She’s gotten some new health supplements that worked in the past and has been feeling great and full of energy for the past couple of weeks.
On January 6th, I sprained my ankle and even now am still having trouble running on it. 
On January 17 Benjamin had a close call when he fell through the ice and into the deep creek a long way from home.
A few weeks later Noah broke his big toe and had to keep pressure off of it for a few weeks.  
A couple of weeks later we had a family meeting about trying to incorporate some healthier food options into our diet over a few month’s time.  Last Thursday I started running a fever and since then until yesterday I’ve been very sick with the flu.  I had some very high fevers and coughing and have pretty much stayed in bed the entire time.  It feels great to be up again, though I am very weak.
Yesterday was 6-month anniversary of my Dad’s death and we’ll be putting flowers on his grave in remembrance.  It’s amazing how many things have happened since then, yet it still seems like yesterday.
Benjamin caught a beaver in his trap, but he also caught my flu and he’s been in bed all day today with a fever.  Kate’s showing signs of being sick too, so Mom and Noah ran some errands today and got some extra groceries just in case the flu keeps on going around for awhile. (You’ve just got to admire how are generous family shares things with one another.)
By the way, I added a post about the Christian Archer's Dinner that you may not have noticed because it was retro-actibely posted.

Jan 7-Snow on the Roads

My foot felt a better when I woke up, but my Mom wanted to get some X-rays just to make sure that the ankle wasn’t broken.  She’s always been adamant that we access our injury to possibly prevent complications down the road.

Speaking of road…the drive to Urgent Care was very beautiful and the snow flakes looked really neat and the snow wasn’t sticking to the road at all.

We were in and out of the urgent care in an hour and a half and after looking at the x-rays the doctor said that I just had a sprained ankle and nothing was broken. My right ankle is immobilized now and will have to stay that way for a couple of weeks. Mom rented crutches for me to use for a couple of days until I can “get back on my feet.”

We picked up my brothers at the house and went to a meeting. However, the snow started coming down really quickly and the roads started looking pretty bad.

Before we started heading home our Grandma called and let us know that the highway was very slick and that there were a lot of cars that had slipped off the road.  We waited awhile to allow some time for the roads to be cleared before we went home.  There had been a 6 car pile up and a couple of other cars getting towed.