Oh the PAIN

Yesterday morning I dropped the kids off and headed to work like any other day. Once I got to work I started to not feel very good. I had some pain (like a dull throbbing pain) in my lower left area from the front all the way through to my back. Thinking that maybe I was having cramps I took some IB profen and tried to get busy working. The pain got increasingly worse although still just uncomfortable. I decided to page Bret twice. By the time he called back I was much worse to the point of tears. I described the pain to Bret and answered several of his questions. Dr. Heskett's over the phone diagnosis....kidney stones. Prescription: Drink LOTS of fluids, call my doctor to make an appointment, and continue to rotate Tylenol and IB profen every three hours.

So I called my OB (because what women actually has a primary care doctor and because it could be something to do with that area) and made an appointment. I tried to stick it out at work but decided that since the last three people I saw asked me if I was ok and if anything was wrong that I wasn't hiding my discomfort well enough so I headed home. I am really glad I left when I did because someone would have had to drive me home if I had waited.

By the time I was driving home tears were flowing because of the pain. Once home I thought that maybe if I laid down and watched a show I had DVR'd that maybe it would eventually go away. Not so. I drank until my eyes were floating in my head and writhed/paced/cried for 2 hours until finally I could tell that the pain was starting to lessen. A couple more trips to the bathroom (and more water) and it was gone. I felt like I had given birth with no baby to show for it.

Mind you that I have had surgery (albeit minor) 3 times, a c-section, and a regular delivery. I have a pretty high tolerance of pain because after all of these the most I took was extra strength Tylenol. This attack was by FAR the worst pain I have ever felt ever. Worse than gall stones, worse than getting out of bed the first time after my c-section, worse than the worst contractions while dilating to 9 without an epidural. It was AWFUL. So today I have CT scan to see if (God help me) there are any more waiting to come out or anything that they should be worried about (like if one might get stuck or something). The fear of going through this again is enough to keep me up at night. My only solace is to drink more fluids. The more fluids I drink the better chances of passing them more quickly, not developing them anymore, and most importantly passing them a little easier. Bret and I both agree that if it was him they would have to hospitalize him and sedate him. He would have died yesterday from the pain. Instead he felt bad and went to the store and bought me several jugs of cranberry juice (the mixed berry kind) and several other types of low sugar drinks (because I am not a big fan of water). The good news is that I hear beer works pretty well to so I plan to get that in this weekend too!