Kidney stone
Tonight, 020611, we were at church for the Super Bowl fellowship. Rick was very restless. He didn’t eat well at all. His leg started jumping (which is usually a sign of nervousness about something) I took him to the bathroom, my first thought. But that didn’t seem to make a difference. He continued to be agitated. After he ate all I could get him to, I took him into the room where the men were watching the game. I thought he would enjoy being with them. After awhile, Pastor asked me if Rick was ok. He said he just wasn’t acting right. So I took him to the bathroom again. He always did something, but it didn’t take away his agitation.
I sent him to the center the next day. They didn’t say anything about him being different. But he didn’t eat well that night either. Alicia said he groaned like he was having some pain. I called a nurse friend of mine, Della, and she and I decided that we would wait thru the night to see how he does. He slept fitfully and so did I. I wondered if I should get up and take him to the ER. But I didn’t.
I was able to get an appt with our family doctor at 10 am that morning (Tuesday, Feb 8) so I felt that was the right thing to do instead of going to the ER. She did blood work and said she would let me know the results and then I would take him to get a chest x-ray. It was about 3:45 pm when she called me saying, “He’s in kidney failure. You need to take him to the ER.” How devastating was that. When I hear kidney failure I think of dialysis and death. Needless to say we all were rather upset and crying.
It was probably about 4:30 when we got to the ER. They took us right back for the check in and triage. But then we waited an hour or so before we went to a room to be checked by a doctor. Then they did a chest x-ray and a CT scan. I thought it was going to be a scan of his abdomen but instead it was of his head. I’m not sure why they did that. They said they wanted to rule out a stroke. But he didn’t have signs of stroke and did have signs of abdominal distress.
Finally Cheryl and I were able to convince them Rick needed an abdominal scan. They were afraid to put dye in his veins for fear it would do more damage to his already compromised kidneys. But they finally did one using an enema type dye. Then they found out he had a ‘small’ kidney stone. 30 minutes later they came telling me they were going to take him to surgery. ?A small kidney stone? I would have thought it could pass without surgery.
They took him to surgery at 3 am and brought him back at 6 am. Needless to say, I was exhausted. They told me that the size of the kidney stone is relative to who is talking. A urologist, who has seen stones large enough to fill the bladder, would say this stone is small. But it was big enough to block the ureter and urine was blocking up in his kidney causing it to swell. That is why they did the surgery right away.
So Rick was in the hospital from Tuesday to Sunday.
I sent him to the center the next day. They didn’t say anything about him being different. But he didn’t eat well that night either. Alicia said he groaned like he was having some pain. I called a nurse friend of mine, Della, and she and I decided that we would wait thru the night to see how he does. He slept fitfully and so did I. I wondered if I should get up and take him to the ER. But I didn’t.
I was able to get an appt with our family doctor at 10 am that morning (Tuesday, Feb 8) so I felt that was the right thing to do instead of going to the ER. She did blood work and said she would let me know the results and then I would take him to get a chest x-ray. It was about 3:45 pm when she called me saying, “He’s in kidney failure. You need to take him to the ER.” How devastating was that. When I hear kidney failure I think of dialysis and death. Needless to say we all were rather upset and crying.
It was probably about 4:30 when we got to the ER. They took us right back for the check in and triage. But then we waited an hour or so before we went to a room to be checked by a doctor. Then they did a chest x-ray and a CT scan. I thought it was going to be a scan of his abdomen but instead it was of his head. I’m not sure why they did that. They said they wanted to rule out a stroke. But he didn’t have signs of stroke and did have signs of abdominal distress.
Finally Cheryl and I were able to convince them Rick needed an abdominal scan. They were afraid to put dye in his veins for fear it would do more damage to his already compromised kidneys. But they finally did one using an enema type dye. Then they found out he had a ‘small’ kidney stone. 30 minutes later they came telling me they were going to take him to surgery. ?A small kidney stone? I would have thought it could pass without surgery.
They took him to surgery at 3 am and brought him back at 6 am. Needless to say, I was exhausted. They told me that the size of the kidney stone is relative to who is talking. A urologist, who has seen stones large enough to fill the bladder, would say this stone is small. But it was big enough to block the ureter and urine was blocking up in his kidney causing it to swell. That is why they did the surgery right away.
So Rick was in the hospital from Tuesday to Sunday.
posted by Unknown at 4:29:00 PM
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