Monday, June 3, 2013

Another Surgery... and a Painful Wait

If anyone who reads this could pray for me, I am having surgery tomorrow for 3 kidney stones that are coming down but stuck on the right side. About 6 weeks ago I started feeling some pain and thought it might be a kidney stone, but it took awhile for me to confirm that it was a stone and not pain from the Crohn's Disease. After I started getting these certain bladder pains that I always get with the stones, I knew. Well, I tried to just let them pass at home, but that didn't work, so a month later I had an appointment with my urologist and we decided to do ESWL (Shockwave Lithotripsy) to break up the stones, and I was pretty surprised to know that I had not one, not two, but THREE stuck and one of them is a large one that is blocking the flow of urine and causing swelling and lowered kidney function.

To make a long story short, my pain started becoming unbearable and there weren't any meds that I could take at home that could help the pain. I had to go the ER, but they sent me home after "doing what they could" with some IV pain meds because they said they don't admit patients just for pain control. What?!?!?! (Later I found out this is not true; if they would've contacted my urologist, he would've admitted me.) So I'm supposed to just sit at home with 10 out of 10 pain and no one can help me? Yes, that's what happened. Too many miscommunications with the ER not contacting my urologist, and my pain management Dr. not helping because his opinion is that taking extra pain meds won't help anyway and that I just need to get the stones out. Well, the hospital only has this special shockwave machine once every TWO WEEKS so I had to wait! I couldn't believe I had no way of getting help except if I went BACK to the emergency room.... but, by God's grace, I got through the last 5 days just barely, and now surgery is tomorrow morning.

If you could pray specifically that I will not only have a perfect surgery, but also that the stones after being blasted will pass cleanly through without them having to place a stent (a thick wire going up from the bladder to the kidney to help the stone particles pass down) because last time they placed a stent, I had so much pain I ended up in the ICU. Some people don't tolerate the stents and I already had so much inflammation in there from being in the hospital and them trying to "flush the stone out" with IV fluids and it just sat there rattling away in my ureter, yeah, that was NOT fun. The worst pain of my life for about 6 hours. I might've written about it previously but I can't remember. Other things to pray for: perfect pain control when I wake up because of my high tolerance of pain meds since I already have to be on a continuous level for my back problems, no anxiety before the procedure, safety throughout the procedure and for everyone treating me to be empathetic, kind, and fantastic at their job! Also, I am in quite a bit of pain right now at home and am praying that God will just take the pain away and let me rest tonight before the procedure.

Thanks so much for anyone who is able to pray, I know God is with me and I am trusting in Him to take care of me!

1 comment:

Elizabeth said...

Praying for you beautiful woman. Praying for wisdom and mercy and grace for those that serve you in the hospital. May God miraculously change your body so that this does not occur again. Peace and sweet sleep for you tonight for the dawn and spring is coming, winter has passed. It is time to rejoice!