Tell me now, was your Tuesday more productive?

Monday night I woke up with a horrible pain in my left side. Knowing it to be the familiar kidney stone problem I got up and took some percoset. It was a full week until my next appointment, so I wanted to wait it out. If I could deal with the “it hurts when I pee” pain…I thought I could deal with this.

To be fair, the percoset kept me from crying and screaming in pain. Instead I couldn’t sleep and paced around to stop the pain. At 5 am the pain lessened enough for me to sleep for an hour.

I called into work sick (yeah sick time!) and called the doctor. I had to beg for an appointment. This is a specialist and like most, he’s super busy. But when I told her the percoset did nothing she got me the appointment.

I drove there and got my x-ray first thing. Not a problem. Then I waited. Eventually the nurse came back and told me to go back to imaging. I needed a CAT-scan. Yeah me.

So back again…the technitian was nice and cheerful, he got me through the scan quickly. Then I went back to waiting.

I’d like to thank the ipod touch app, imahjong for keeping me busy during this waiting period.

Finally I saw the doc. He brought me to the images of my body and showed me the stone. “It’s stuck, and it has to come out today”. So I peed blood in a cup and began waiting for the nurse to take me to the next step.

This is were another doctor walked in. He thought I was someone named Kathy and began discussing a problem I didn’t have. When I informed him I wasn’t who he thought I was he left. But, Kathy, that girl has problems.

Then the nurse came back and brought me to the lab for more tests. Here I was informed that my blood-pee was enough for tests. Then I was sent to surgery.

The desk-lady here wasn’t very communicative. When was I having surgery? 2:30pm. K…the doc said 3:30. Yes, said the desk-lady. But you just said 2:30pm. No that’s prep time.

“Look,” I said crying. The pain at this point wasn’t killing me but made very unreasonable. “I’m here by myself. How long do have to leave, get someone and then come back? And if I’m here at 2:45 will you still do the surgery?”

“Oh sure,” says the desk-lady. So I drive off, making phone calls to J. to tell him what’s up, to my gma to make sure she can be my ride and I think I called my sister. I don’t remember if I did or not.

Aia was sneaking around her grandparent house at this moment and overheard mom and surgery. She’s a smart kid, so I had to explain to her what that meant and why she shouldn’t worry. My nephew, Little Man, was only concerned with the Rabbids and shooting them. He was afraid that if I took Aia home he couldn’t do away with the menaces on his own. So after assuring Aia that her mother would be find and assuring Little Man that his Rabbid killing partner was still had her gun un-holstered, we drove back through the construction mess to the clinic.

Once there, the desk-lady had all my paperwork laid out to sign. I signed away some rights I’m not sure I really had in this day and age then after short wait I was whisked back to the prep area where I was give an embarrassing gown, booties and a shower cap. Once attired, my grandmother was brought in I was give an IV and an antibiotic. The we talked about my health and how soon I’d wake up from anesthesia. Then they wheeled me to the operating room.

Now for the fuzzy part. They moved me on to the operating table and started to strap me to foam pads that were not strapped to the table. They put an oxygen mast me. It was too high so I asked the lady to get it off my eyes. “This is only oxygen, just breath, I know it smells funny.” She kind of picked it up and let snap back…so it only covered the left half of my mouth and nose. I finally moved it myself. No one seemed to notice. Another person began attaching round stickers with wires to my chest.

Then the guy with the happy drugs came in. “This’ll burn,” he says. Then he puts something in my IV. “Night, Night,” says the nurse. And suddenly there was pain shooting up my arm.

“It doesn’t burn, it hurts!” I yelled. But no one could hear me.

Then nothing. No dreams, nothing. Then I opened my eyes and some other nurse said “Here, I’ll get you ice chips. The tube does that.”

Soon I was dressed but groggy, and they led me to a green recliner with juice and some cheese crackers. My grandmother came in and they explained the no exercise, that I have tubes in me that will need to be removed in a week or so, and that I’m going to get very swollen inside. They also wanted me to know the peeing blood till the end of the week was normal…so was the pain as my organs squeeze the tubing.

Yeah.

So I went to my grandmothers house spent some groggy time with the kids and the sister.

So far…I’ve just been soar. J. laments that he can’t hold me down and tickle me in this condition and that he’ll waste away as a result. Of course he also thinks it would be more fun if I had Ebola. No, I don’t know what his fascination with that is. My throat hurts from the throat tube, my arms hurts, my back hurts all over, my kidneys, bladder and natural tubing are not happy with me. I did stop peeing blood and I’m down to one percoset ever six hours. Yeah me.

My knee hurts too…dammit.

Otherwise I’m a wooze okay. I’m not supposed to be lifting a lot… but I had to get the trash out. I see the doc next Wednesday.

Whew.