What a crazy week it has been. I can't believe it is Monday again already. So last week, I had 4 exams..that wasn't too bad. Well, it was kind of rough, but it was rough for more than just the exams.
On Monday last week, (Day of exam #1) I was not feeling well at all. Occasionally I'll get something in my food that is not Fern-friendly and it makes me sick and so I concluded there must have been some weekend cross-contamination and that the sick feeling would leave in a day or so. It didn't.
Tuesday I woke up feeling nauseous and exhausted. I had two exams to worry about that day so I did my best to push it aside. I wasn't hungry and attempted water in the morning but found myself throwing up and thus decided that eating and drinking nothing would be my best move for the day as the exams were most important. On my way to my first class of the day I found myself experiencing quite a bit of pain on my left side in my back. It wasn't a muscle.. it was a more internal pain. I only have one kidney and it resides on my left side and automatically assumed it was kidney related. Sometimes I get pain there and it generally leaves after a couple minutes so I pushed that aside too. Except it got worse. After my first class was done I called my mom and had her read to my kidney stone symptoms so I could get an idea for what might be going on. While it was quite painful, it didn't feel worse than breaking a bone and so I wasn't sure what it was. I felt quite hot and my classmates told me I was white as a sheet. I just felt awful. I had two exams back to back and so when I finished my last one @ 4pm I walked straight to urgent care and checked in. In the 40 minutes that I waited I imagined that my kidney was finally giving out on me after 21 years of faithful service.
The doctor at urgent care ran some tests and asked some questions. She said everything pointed to a kidney stone but they wanted more tests done so she sent me to the ER.
My lovely sister who is a nurse, lives only 20 minutes from me and offered to come drive me to the ER so I didn't have to be alone. I accepted her offer and shortly thereafter we found ourselves sitting in room 20 waiting for the next doctor to come ask questions and such. It wasn't too long before the med student came and did his interrogation as well as poking and poundings on my back and tummy. After he left, my sister decided to entertain herself by opening the drawers to the desk in our waiting room and explaining to me what all the instruments were as she pulled them out and held them up for me to see. It was during one such moment that she was holding some odd contraption in her hand when the med student came back and she quickly shoved the thing back in the drawer and halfway got it shut before the fellow walked in. He kindly asked for clarification on one of the questions he had asked earlier and then turned to leave. He hesitated some and turned to say to my sister, "you can go back to exploring" and then left.
After going through all the drawers, my sister was bored again and decided to use the whiteboard medical chart for pictionary. I was a great guesser. :) It was while she was coloring on this board that the med student returned again and this time, with a doctor.
The doctor asked her own questions and then decided to do a CT scan to find the stone and also an IV as well as a painkiller via IV. Needles are not kind to me and my veins are difficult to find and so I wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of an IV. While waiting again, my sister decided to show me how to find veins for IVs and thus opened one of the drawers she had previously explored and pulled out a tourniquet and we thus practiced on each other. Fortunately, no one caught us this time. :)
 |
| Bruise from bad IV 5 days later |
The second attempt at IV went great and I soon got to sit and wait while the bag dripped steadily and supplied me with fluids.
After all the hours in the ER it was discovered that the kidney pain was related to my bum intestines being swollen and pushing on my kidney that is also quite large on account of if doing the work of two kidneys. Well thank goodness my kidney still functions properly. That would have been a bummer thing to have to replace.
However, in the meanwhile, I have to take some potions that help my intestines along as well as eat fruits. Since I haven't been eating fruit the last 4 months on account of the sugar, it has been a rough week having to eat it because it makes feel so sick. I'm going to see a GI specialist on Thursday and hopefully I'll get more things figured out soon. For now, the kidney pain stopped yesterday and the nausea left yesterday evening. Hopefully this week I feel a little better. :)
Also!! Last weekend we had out Bible study's God stories night!! My roommate and I just had a sleepover at our house and hung out, ate food, played some games and told our God stories. What an awesome night!! How our unity has strengthened even from just telling our stories and the hard things we've gone through and are going through and will go through.
These girls are awesome!! They have really done a great job in making each other feel welcomed and I can sense the love and unity that they all share with each other. I know the Lord is going to do great things this year in our study! How blessed I am to be a part of such a great story that is being written!
No comments:
Post a Comment