Hi there! Man, let me tell you, I would never wish the last week on another soul, definitely. So, all of this talk about recovering from a kidney stone in 48 hours? Bull-hockey. A few things my doc didn’t tell me:

1. Save the stone. Nope. He just told me what it was going to look like and to look for it. After the fifth person asked me “did they send the stone off for diagnostics?,” I felt like a pretty big fool for not saving it on my own. Hopefully, it’s not hereditary and whatever dietary changes I make as a result will keep me from having another one.
2. Sometimes the pain afterward is just as bad, or worse, than the pain before. My Aunt passed that one along to me (and I’m very grateful. I thought I had another one and was terrified). I passed the stone on Monday and spent Monday night taking a hot shower every hour just to get relief…finally got to sleep at 4 am and then went to work on Tuesday.
3. Patients (women, in particular) should have 48 hours of bed rest after passing the stone. I should have been home on Tuesday and Wednesday not doing anything. Instead, I went to work and worked full days. I’m sure that did WONDERS for my muscles in my side and back, as well as my torn ureter, etc.
4. It can take two weeks to heal…I have two friends to thank for that bit of knowledge. I had to call the doc again Thursday to ask him to call in another hydrocodone prescription for me so I would have more pain relief since his “48 hour” healing time didn’t pan out that way.

So, thanks to family, friends, and extensive internet searches, I’ve spent yesterday and thus far today doing precious little. Joey didn’t let me out of bed at all yesterday, save for an hour at dinner time to eat and watch Jeopardy and 1/2 of AFV. I just made it out to the recliner about an hour ago, and thus far, I’m not having much pain and haven’t had any hydrocodone since 4:30 this morning.

I’m thinking about trying to find a new PCP…I’ve been staying with this one because he’s the same guy I’ve had since I started college ten years ago, so I have history with him, but I don’t like feeling like I didn’t get a full picture of what I would be facing with this. I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job over the past year of the anxiety/depression treatment of not being afraid of the doctor anymore, but no one likes having something wrong with them and not knowing either what it is or what to expect. I’m also pre-hypertensive and stress also manifests itself in a physical way with me. I might need to switch to someone who’ll listen to me and help me to be actively involved in my own health. I guess it’s something to think about.

Well, that’s about all I’ve got right now. Schoolwork is done for the day. I’m going to relax.