Living with Kidney Stones

This was several years ago, after the birth of my third child. I woke up on a Friday moring with some mild cramping on my left side. One of my daycare moms said maybe you are ovulating (huh?), but I tried to stick it out thinking maybe I had pulled a muscle or something. As the day progressed, the pain worsened into this throbbing, shooting, knife in my side pain. I was down on the floor, rolling around and crying. At that point, my hubby took me to the walk-in clinic.

The Dr. there said “It’s only a kidney stone”, handed me a basket and told me to go home, take Tylenol and ride it out. So I figured that I was a big wuss and went home. I had some Vicodin from my last c-section, so I took that and barely made it until Monday. I didn’t go to the ER, I figured that the Dr. knew what he was talking about and I would be told the same thing at the ER.

Monday morning, I couldn’t take it anymore and I went back to the walk-in clinic where they made me wait for over an hour, literally rolling on the floor. Finally, I went downstairs to my regular Doctor (who didn’t have an appt available) and pitched a royal fit. Apparently I was pretty scary, cause they took me right away and gave me a shot in the butt for pain (which didn’t even help BTW). They ultrasounded my kidneys and the left one was completely blocked with a pea sized stone. They admitted me to the hosptial where I had my stone surgically removed that night. Relief!!!! My lesson learned: don’t let any Dr. (no matter how busy they are) dismiss you as either over-reacting or tell you that the problem isn’t that bad. If you are in pain, stick up for yourself, darn it!