Saturday, March 07, 2015

Oh, Darn It

     Seems I'm sick again.

     Off to the doc.

     Update: Because of both the hour and my symptoms, "doc" was the closest ER.   The diagnosis was not what I expected and, in fact, the personable young physician said, "You nearly fooled me; the symptoms matched but you were much too calm."

     Apparently, most people with kidney stones don't drive themselves -- and they usually demand and are put on IV pain meds early and often.

     Hunh,  And he'd even asked me about the "trigeminal neuralgia" that pops up at the head of my electronic file, which is fancied-up doc-speak for what I prefer to call migraines.  In fact, I hadn't taken any ibuprofen this morning, in case my innards were already working overtime, and the throbbing in my head was duking it out with the fires down below and making a pretty good showing.

     Unlike several characters in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle,* I am not going to undergo lithotomy -- just a course of medication designed to dilate the channels, along with powerful modern painkillers and -- by the physician's command -- plenty of good old Vitamin I. 

     This, too, shall pass.  It had damned well better.
___________________________________________________
* Utterly brilliant historical-fiction SF that out-steampunks steampunk seven ways from Sunday.  I already liked Stephenson -- Cryptonomicon settled that -- but this three-volume, eight-book story made me a total fangirl.

19 comments:

Roberta X, remotely said...

Still don't know what's up. It wasn't what I thought.

Roberta X said...

Kidney. Stone.

My "food poisoning" of two weeks ago was probably an even more intense version of the same thing. The symptoms match.

BGMiller said...

So kidney stones and a migraine and you drove yourself to the knife and gun club.....


Damn.


Got a little Agent Franks in you?


BGM

Old NFO said...

Your pain tolerance is WAY too high... And glad you at least now know with some level of certainty what's going on. Get well soon!

rickn8or said...

"So kidney stones and a migraine and you drove yourself to the knife and gun club.....


Damn.


Got a little Agent Franks in you?"


Didn't you know? Roberta has been know to go grizzly bear hunting with a willow switch.

Hope the docs are on the right track this time and getting the problem fixed.

Drang said...

And this, class, is why a too-high tolerance for pain is not necessarily a Good Thing.

Get better!

SJ said...

You've read the Baroque Cycle, too!

That particular scene was pretty scary.

And it's a good thing that doctors now have better ways of handling kidney stones.

I hope you get better.

Anonymous said...

They will pass, and I hope quickly. They may leave you sore for a day or two, and there may be some bleeding.

Good luck

Garrett Lee said...

The thing I don't like about Neal Stephenson's works is the long lead time. You finish one as it comes off of the presses, ask for another - and it's like ordering a Trabant, the wait is so long...

That being said, had you heard his latest book is supposed to be out in a couple months?

Harvey Morrell said...

Flomax is a good thing. Says he who passed a 5.5 mm one in December.

Unknown said...

Better have them check your gall bladder too.

drjim said...

BUMMER!

One of my best friends has been plagued with those over the years, and it's not fun.

Hope things improve soon!

Anonymous said...

Hope that you have a speedy and complete recovery.

As for your ability to handle pain...

DAAAAAYUM!

Ygolonac said...

Condolences - I've suffered kidney stones before (and may have been building up to one last week :( ), and until I start getting localised pain it always acts like food poisoning to me too.

The only reason I ended up going to the urgent care on the second (!) for-sure stone was because I thought I might have blown a disc or something - after a couple bags of fluids and IV ibuprofen, I was human enough to drive home again. ("We'd have to send you out to ER for x-rays.")

Of course, next day when the pain started getting bad, I drove myself over to ER *before* it got unbearable... and was told I'd need a ride home. (Thank you dilaudid.) Also, "You have one in each side. And your bladder is full of gravel." :catstare: (Yes, that's a direct and accurate quote. (shudder))

So yeah, get better y'all, and if you feel it coming on, try not to get stuck way up at North Campus or whatever, OK?

fast richard said...

Having passed several of those darned things, I can sympathize. They can be extremely painful, although some are not so bad. Having a similarly bad pain from the migraine at the same time sounds awful.

NotClauswitz said...

Hope it's over-with quickly!!

Anonymous said...

Ugh. Best wishes with that. Hope it passes. Truly.

Mine ended up needing surgery after 4 days in the hospital.

Broken bones are a piece of cake compared to kidney stones.

Malamute

Chas S. Clifton said...

"This too shall pass" was one of my Dad's favorite sayings. I don't think that he was thinking of kidney stones, but I will in the future. Best wishes for a quick rocovery!

Will said...

I thought they used some sort of ultrasonic unit to break up those stones. Hmm, been a few years since I heard that.
Dad had them a couple times. Last one(I think), they just prescribed Percodan, which would knock him out for 12 hours (early 70's). Stuff didn't work well at all for me, with a shattered wrist. Could munch on them like candy.