Kidney Stones Support Group

Well...I had stone surgery after being Kidney Stoned for about 8 days. I had been obsessed with filtering my urine as directed the entire time...never produced the 4.5mm stone that was confirmed by the CT. scan at the emergency room the week prior. Surgery was to be cancelled if the stone showed itself. It didn't so I went into outpatient surgery without confirmation that the stone was still there i.e. no additional x-ray or scans to prove it's continued existence. Surgery proved to be meaningless as the stone was not found (Doc says "must have be re-absorbed by the kidney??? or already passed by me somehow???)which I have to say seemed impossible because I was obsessed with my pee the entire week. Anyhoo - the surgery was tougher than usual. My urethra/passageway was small so I was told and yet they crept up all the way to the kidney to check things out - saw nothing and got out leaving a scorched path that required a stent.

Now - I hadn't heard of this stent business much before. It is a term that one hears used at times when various procedures are referenced. It is one of those terms that has a mechanical-part sort of sound...reminding you that the treatment of the human body is often only slightly, if any more subtle than the care of your basic machine made of metals, like your car or air conditioner. The difference is...the human body is comprised of soft tissues and subtleties that modern machinery can't meet in the middle. Needless to say, I woke from my first general anethetic under which I left the earth-plane listening to the soft sounds of kind nurses re-assuring me everything was going to be dreamy...into what felt like two minutes later a seemingly hurried,couldn't-be bothered sort of voice blurting ineloquently "surgery was a little difficult...the passage was smaller than usual, you even jumped on the table under the anesthetic as they performed the surgery so they put in a stent...the doctor will be in to talk to you in a while...and quickly rolling me into a semi-dark in a room where I was to be abandoned. THIS in the most excruciating pain, the most awkward, personal, precisly-miserable feeling I've yet felt. I was reeling from the shock and unexpectedness of this pain I was feeling. It had been mentioned to me in passing during the pre-surgical interview that this "stent" was possible, but never explained. I couldn't believe it. Now I'm pretty tough... I've had endometriosis, terrible cramps most of my life, a herniated disk, exploding cysts near my utereus that feel like being stabbed thirty times in the middle of the night and last but not least - the stone....which had landed me in the emergency room only a week or so before. However, the experience of the surprise stent was the most traumatic medical experience of my life. The combination of the incredible discomfort, the surprise and the initial, utter lack of assistance or empathy from the nursing staff made for the perfect tri-fecta of terror. I couldn't understand why they didn't just zip some pain medication into my perfectly functional. I.V.

Living with the stent was absolutely unbelievable. The first void I was forced to make was without a doubt, like being a human flame-thrower. I was sending flames, not urine through my scorched passageway. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't lay in the unforgiving hospital bed. I just stood there for an hour, in shock...waiting for the ridiculous suppository they gave me to work long enough to retrieve my clothes and get the hell out of the house of horrors. I couldn't (and still really cannot) sit. I had to lay on my side or stand up all of the time. I began to uncharacteristically scarf my pain pills almost to the fullest extent prescribed. Passing urine became this sick game where you were dying to pee, but knew you would suffer for it before, during and even worse afterward. Once you accomplish a trickle of flaming urine, it is immediately followed by the most urgently compelling sensation of needing to urinate one has ever felt...the crying-because you need to void-so bad sort-of vibe. That's after you accomplish it, and you have to wipe, get up and leave the table in that condition every time. You also have to consume inhuman amounts of water if you intend to mend yourself therefore causing your whole life, again, as it was with the obsession of passing your stone, to revolve around your urine. I was so miserable. I begged for it to be removed, a procedure that was blissfully granted less than a week of pure hell later.

Now, back in the house of healing (the hospital otherwise known as the scene of the crime...) I was told by my Urologist verbatim, just before the surgery "You may have a little bit of back pain but you should be feeling better soon."

Huh. True, I woke from my "Twilight sleep" after the surgery asking for my make-up bag. There was a nurse who seemed to posses a real human heart chatting with me and transitioning me back into the real world. I was clowning around - giving the single nurse tips on how to pick a decent man and things seemed right, or at least better - with the world until. Spasm. A spasm so bad that it was not to be believed. There I was, rolling back and forth in my portable torture bed, begging once again for mercy. The pain was every bit as bad as the unbearable pain of the original Kidney Stone that put me in the E.R. two weeks before. I was in total disbelief. My back hurt-alright just like the doctor said it would. In fact, my back, my front, my insides...pretty much every organ and part included in the right side of my torso was in violent revolt. As I pleaded for pain medication I was already consipiring how to get hopped up enough to get my clothes on and get out of there but-fast. This third time was where the hospital struck out with me. I did take them up on the wheelchair method of egress this time...when I had the stent in I couldn't sit in it and had to use all of my gumption to just walk out.

Now at home I have experienced additional episodes of spasm that blew my mind and the mind of my poor, traumatized husband. I take the pain medication as much as I can stand it and as needed. I try to consume water all of the time and be good. I am really dying, however, to get my life back. I am still too sore to go a day without pain pills and not able to sit in a chair for very long. I have to lay down often to relieve pressure from my screeching urethra. It is inhibiting my ability to work and behave normally and I resent the slowness with which the healing is progressing. I am looking for wholistic (meaning no doctors allowed.) ways to heal myself. After all, my trust is now non-existent. Suggestions anyone?
Posted on 06/08/09, 10:06 pm