Watson, our cat, is walking around the house, making his morning announcements. I pry my eyes open, and see that there is the faintest hint of soft, grey light pushing itself against the edges of our bedroom shades.
I don’t feel too tired, surprisingly, and I lie in bed while I decide if I’m going to just go ahead and get up. I have a commitment in the evening, and I’ll probably be really wiped out by the time it’s over, but on the other hand, I won’t be struggling to fall asleep before midnight … unless my brain pulls the same bullshit it’s been pulling for weeks.
The next thing I know, the sun is blazing through the windows and I can hear Anne. She doesn’t sound good. She’s breathing heavily and making sounds like she’s in pain. So I get out of bed, and I’m in the other room before I’m fully awake. She’s clutching her side and writhing in pain.
“Something’s wrong,” she says. “I need you to take me to the emergency room.”
That’s all it takes for my brain to throw off any lingering sleepiness. Before I realize it, I’m dressed and ready to leave. We drive to the emergency room, and she’s in so much pain now that she can’t stand up. She tells me that her hands are getting numb and she feels like she’s going to pass out. The ER receptionist doesn’t seem to think any of this is serious, and barks at me to sit down and wait.
I know that everyone who comes into the ER is certain that they have the worst thing that’s ever happened, and I know that it gets tiring for the receptionist. I also believe that if you can’t be compassionate and patient, maybe it’s not the best job for you to have. I also know that there’s no point in having an argument right now, and my energy is better spent trying to help my increasingly panicking wife.
So another hospital guy comes over and asks what’s going on. I tell him, and he calmly listens. He tells Anne that she’s going to be okay, and he’ll get her into triage as quickly as possible.
There, I think, that wasn’t so hard.
Time takes on the strange malleability that comes with intense stress. It slows down and speeds up and doesn’t seem to move at the fixed rate I’ve come to expect from a lifetime of existence. After some amount of time that isn’t as long as I think it is, but not fast enough for me, we are in triage. The nurse is gentle and compassionate. She asks Anne lots of questions while I sit quietly and try to stay out of the way. They take her vitals. She has no fever, but her pulse is as high as you’d expect.
We are moved into a room, and they put her in a bed. She’s crying harder than I’ve seen in over twenty years together. I remember the last time we were in this ER, our roles reversed. I vaguely recall that Anne remained calm, and it helped me, so I do my best to do the same.
A nurse puts a needle into her arm and draws blood. Another nurse comes in and puts some morphine into her. It doesn’t help, so they give her more. That helps a little bit, but it’s still not enough. They can’t do anything else until a doctor gives the okay, and someone has just come into the ER who is in a more life-threatening situation, so we wait.
More time passes, and a doctor comes in. He gives her all the same tests she’s already been given. She continues to endure the worst pain I’ve ever witnessed in our twenty-plus years together. “This is worse than both times I gave birth,” she says, trying to make a joke to the doctor, but the clear agony in her voice claws at my heart. She’s suffering and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Finally, the doctor orders some more morphine, and now time becomes very clear because I count each of the twenty-seven minutes she waits until someone brings it in for her. I know that she isn’t in life-threatening danger, and we both know that the ER is very busy, but our emotional brains and our rational brains are experiencing that knowledge in very different ways.
She gets another push of morphine. The nurse tells us that once the morphine starts to work, they’re going to get a urine sample and then do a CT scan. Another twenty minutes goes by, because everything happens in twenty minute increments when you’re in pain but not in danger. They take her to get a CT scan, and I walk out to find something to eat.
It’s a beautiful day. It’s one of the most beautiful days we’ve had in a long time, sunny but not too hot. We had planned to spend it working in the patio garden, and building a window box for our front porch that will get filled with sunflowers. I walk up the street and into a cafe, where I get a coffee and a sandwich. A lady behind me is impatient. She has the voice and body language of someone whose experience at the hospital is not as routine as ours is. I pay as fast as I can so I can get out of her way, and I silently wish her well. I get my sandwich and my coffee. Neither is as good as what I’d make at home, but I don’t complain. I remember the lady behind me, the people in the ER who have sick babies, the woman the ambulance brought in who had a stroke, and doesn’t know her name or where she is. Her adult daughter, who is more tired and sad than worried.
I finish my sandwich on my way back to Anne’s room. She isn’t there when I sit down. I open my phone and start reading a book I’ve been wanting to read. Another twenty minutes goes by and they bring her back in. The meds are working, and she has her humor back. She isn’t as pale. She looks like my wife again. We wait for an hour (three blocks of twenty minutes) for the test results. Patients fill up the hallway, and we’re grateful that we have a room with just one bed in it. A woman in the room next to us can’t stop throwing up. Someone at the nurse’s station has an alert on their phone that sounds like the Hanna-Barbera running in place effect when they get an alert, and they seem to be getting one about every thirty seconds or so. A nursery rhyme tune plays in all the overhead speakers, because someone has just given birth. I email the people I’m supposed to be working with in three hours and tell them I have to cancel because I’m spending the entire day in the emergency room.
Anne drifts in and out of sleep, and I read until my battery dies. The doctor comes in and tells her that there isn’t anything on the CT scan, or the MRI, and that her blood and urine are all clear and normal. She’s presenting all the symptoms of someone who has a kidney stone, but they can’t find anything in her tests to confirm it. Apparently, this happens in thirty percent of cases. That seems like a lot of percent, I say. The doctor is not amused. I shut up and try to disappear again.
They give her more pain meds because we’ve been there so long, the first two doses are wearing off. We have to wait another hour, and then we can go home. I get my notebook out and break a story that I’ve been thinking about for awhile. I get up and walk around a little bit. I begin to worry about my wife, because she’s clearly having a problem, clearly in distress, clearly in all kinds of pain, and the doctors and nurses can’t tell us, definitively, why. I decide that she’s suffering because of a small dwarf, or spirit, living in her stomach. I am not amused. I get a brain zap, and realize that I forgot to take my antidepressants before we left, and I have just about ninety minutes (twenty times four plus half of twenty minutes) before the dizziness, nausea, and other fun withdrawal starts. I don’t tell this to Anne, because she doesn’t need another thing to worry about.
An hour later, we get ourselves together so we can leave. A lady I haven’t seen before wheels in a computer and tells us we have a co-payment. She’s friendly, but all business, very different from the rest of the staff. I pay her. She gives me a receipt and I tuck it into a folder that we’re to take to our doctor within three days if Anne doesn’t improve. Neither of us knows that we’ll be at the doctor in less than 24 hours, because she won’t be better.
Anne leans on me as we walk out of the room. I’m ready to get home, eat some real food, and take my brain pills. Sounds are starting to feel louder than they are, like they’re echoing down long metal tubes. I’m going to have a headache soon. In the next room over, the vomiting lady is asleep, the stroke lady is holding her daughter’s hand. Down the all, a little boy who broke his arm is looking at his cast over tear-stained cheeks. A guy about my age who looks beaten up is in a gurney near the end of the hallway. There are two cops standing next to his bed. “I think I’m going to throw up,” Anne says. I try to find her a barf bag, give up, and ask a nurse for help.
The nurse brings her a bag, and Anne sits down in a wheelchair that is luckily next to her. The nurse is kind. She gets Anne some medication that helps with nausea. She doesn’t vomit. We both thank her, and I wheel Anne out into the parking lot. The sun is on its way down the western sky, the hospital casts a long shadow over the parking lot. I help Anne into the car and take the wheelchair back to the entrance, where an orderly takes it from me.
We get home. The dogs are on alert when we walk into the house. They can tell that something’s wrong with their Alpha Female. The sniff at her, follow her back to our bedroom, lie down at the foot of our bed when she gets into it. They don’t move until it’s time for them to eat, later, and then they go right back to where they were.
I am grateful to be home, and remind myself that we didn’t have it nearly as bad as some of the people around us today … but the worry that something more serious is going on with the most important person in my life, something that I can’t do anything about, something that I can’t identify … that worry begins to really flare up. It will continue — is happening right now, 36 hours later — and there’s nothing I can do about it but hope for the best. I take my pills, and twenty minutes later my brain is more or less back to what passes for normal in my skull. I go to the pharmacy and fill her prescriptions. I get her some soup. I come home. I make myself a basic dinner and give her canned soup because that’s what she wants when she doesn’t feel well.
I eat my food, and try to watch TV, but I can’t really focus on much of anything. I try to read more of the book I started, but I realize that I’ve gone through several pages without paying attention. I tap around on a mobile game until midnight. I wake Anne up to give her more pain pills, and then I go to sleep, myself.
It is 9am, and she’s in bad shape. We call the doctor for a 1045 appointment, which I cancel at 10 when she can’t get out of bed because she hurts so much. I finally take her at 2pm, and the doctor tells us the same thing the ER doctor told us: he doesn’t know what’s going on, but it doesn’t seem to be more serious than a kidney stone. All she can do is manage the pain and wait for the stone to pass, if that’s actually what it is. Here’s a pile of pills to try. Good luck. I am not satisfied, and want to know more, but he doesn’t have any more answers. At least he doesn’t seem concerned, so I do my best to put my trust in his professional knowledge. It doesn’t work as completely as I hope, sort of like the meds they’ve been giving Anne.
I take her home, go and fill more prescriptions, and give her more pills when I return, hoping one of them will work.
The twenty minutes I wait to find out if she’s feeling any relief seems to stretch out forever, so I sit down and write out the last 36 or so hours, because that’s how I process things.
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Mr. Wheaton,
My wife deals with kidney stones on a fairly regular basis. With the most recent one, the Urgent Care doc gave her something that prior docs had not. Flomax (Tamsulosin hydrochloride). This sped up the process of passing the stone for her considerably and since things were less inflamed/swollen it passed easier and with less pain than the prior stones.
Don’t want to get to personal, but if they felt it was a stone they should have sent you home with a strainer too, I’d recommend having it tested for composition and depending on the type there are some foods you can avoid and things you can do to prevent or reduce frequency of further stones.
Hang in there. I know it can be rough. I’ve had a few nights/days where I’ve spent many hours with her in the emergency room watching her get ashen, not really have her pain attended to, vomiting, etc. Its hard esp when you have your own anxiety/depression issues like we do.
OK. Did they rule out gall stones?
I’ve had two kidney stones. The most staggering pain of my life. I want to second the idea above by Theron Croissant about getting some Flo Max. It’s the stuff they give to guys with enlarged prostate, and it dilates the ureters. One pill every 24 hours. Shortened the duration of the agony from eight days to two-and-a-half days. I keep Flo Max with me. I take it along when we travel, because the earlier you start it, the less likely you are to create swelling and inflammation in the ureter.
TMI follows here: I was also very willing to use a strainer. They gave me a little cone-shaped thing that was way too hard to use. I found a plastic bowl in the cupboard that could fit under the toilet seat, and then used the strainer. The magic of peeing out a tiny grain of sand were two of the best moments of my life.
Once the stone (I’m going to assume it’s a stone) leaves the ureter and is in the bladder it can bob around for a while before you finally get rid of it. That part is a little annoying, but not anything like the pain of the stone in the ureter.
I cried and make wild animal noises until it was over. My best wishes to you both. I’m sending strong brain signals to her ureters. You know, why not?
PS to Theron Croissant (what a great name). My endocrinologist did a rotation in stone clinic. After two stones he asked if I’d like to never have another one. Duh. OK. He put me on triamterene/HCTZ and I haven’t had another stone for several years.
Ugh! I’m so sorry to hear Anne (and you) have been going through this. I passed two kidney stones last fall (the second one right after the election – blerg). But it was the Galstones last spring that really took me down the path of worst pain I’ve ever experienced. ER trip with my hubby was excruciating for both of us, and waiting 24 hours for the surgery sucked. I hope Anne feels better very soon!
Gallstone pain was worse than childbirth.
Dear God. Gallstones were the worst pain of my life. I was in so much pain that another person in the ER complained on my behalf. “Are you going to sit there and let him die, or get him to the back?” The initially misdiagnosed them as acid reflux. Yeah,fixed that when I was back a week later at 5am. I was on blood thinners so went 3 months before getting that damn thing taken out. It did introduce me to the wonders of a morphine injection for extinguishing pain in about 5 seconds. Unbelieveable. No wonder people become addicted.
Oh Wil. Sending you and Anne so many hugs. This was us last week. But thankfully they were able to tell it was a kidney stone. Watching my husband in so much pain and feeling so helpless to make it better hurts right down to the deepest reaches of my heart. I hope you find out what’s wrong soon. We’re sending lots of digital hugs to you guys and wishes for a swift recovery. hugs
Wil – this was scary to read. I cannot imagine what it was like to experience. Pain that’s so bad it causes vomiting – been there. I hope Anne is better soon and that it doesn’t come back.
Oh man, that sounds so hard and scary. It sounds like you’re doing a good job of managing it, though. I hope this gets better for both of you soon. <3
Oh no. I’ve been through kidney stones, and will tell you I have been advised to tell doctors this before answering a pain scale now. Nothing hurts like them, and there’s no real accurate way to describe it. The pain killers dulled it, but mostly I just laid in bed and tried to sleep between doses for three days, until finally it passed. I was lucky the nurse I had was really nice, because I was basically just cussing him out for more pain meds the entire time I was there. Mine didn’t show up on the tests either, but they ‘knew’ what it was, and oddly enough were right.
Here’s hoping it’s nothing more serious, and that you and Anne can be well and relaxed again soon.
Sending healing thoughts toward you both. You’re such excellent and inspiring humans.
My brother had been in the ER on 2 separate occasions with severe pain in his abdomen. He’s the type of person that shrugs off most pain so you knew it was horrendously painful for him. The doctors told him he was likely suffering from severe constipation and would be fine. They gave him pain meds, an industrial laxative and sent him home. On the third visit, the doctor thought maybe he was suffering from an appendicitis. They rushed him in for surgery and his appendix burst as they were taking it out. If Anne continues to to have symptoms like she is and still has her appendix, you might ask the doctors to check it out just to be sure since they can’t confirm kidney stones. Love and thoughts are with you both!
Been there with the kidney stones but never one that was invisible to scans. I thought blood in the urine was a definitive test. The pain can be tremendous and worse than childbirth female nurses have told me. Took 3 different pain meds to handle the pain last time. Other times it was just over the counter stuff.
Sincerely hope that is the problem and nothing worse. You might try going to a urologist for a specialists opinion. Best of luck.
Oh, Wil, I hope Anne feels much better real soon! Sorry you guys are going through the health care mill nightmare. Sending warm wishes and prayers for relief and answers for Anne and for peace of mind for you both from the East Coast.
Wow. I’m so sorry you guys are going through this emotionally for you and physically for her – and am thinking of Anne and wishing her well.
That was beautifully written….
Much love, peace, and kindness to you both.
O. M. G. So sorry to hear. Ann is so right about the pain. Had kidney stones for the first time in my 63 years last June 25. Now have wonderful urologist. He inserted stents into kidneys to hold off three weeks til my later surgery. Supposedly there were 4 monsters plus gravel. After three days in patient I was sent home with the gosh awful stents. Horrid pain even worse than stones that would not pass. After surgery to break up and remove got new stents to pass the sand he turned the stones into that was left behind. Was miserable 3 more weeks with new stents. And that was how I spent my summer vacation.
Feeling your pain Ann so be real nice to her ok!
Having spent far more than my share of time anxiously waiting in ERs while my wife is in agony, I can only empathize and wish for the best for you both. May it be a kidney stone and not something more serious.
It’s a peculiar hell, that helplessness, when every primal instinct is pushing you to do something for your wife, to defend and protect when all reality allows is to worry and wait. I wouldn’t wish that kind of mental anguish on anyone.
Rest when you can. Do whatever is needed to help, but please rest. It’s the best you can do to keep yourself ready for whatever comes.
So sorry for what you and Anne are experiencing. Keeping you both in my thoughts. Best wishes, Matt
Good thoughts to both of you. I’ve been the ill person (pancreatitis a few days after childbirth, fun fun fun), and the parent with a kid in serious pain of unknown origin, so I know how hard and horrible and scary the whole hospital thing is. I hope this resolves quickly and that Anne gets the pain meds she needs to be comfortable.
If Anne feels she can handle it, a hot bath may give her some relief. They were the only thing that helped me get through my kidney stones. A heating pad might help as well. If she’s having trouble sleeping because of the pain make sure to check on her often in the bath. I kept falling asleep in there because the pain was finally tolerable. Gave my husband a good scare a couple of times.
Love to you both and I hope Anne is on the mend soon.
Thank you for share-processing. Best wishes to you both.
Something like this happened to me 12 years ago. They kept insisting it was a kidney stone and sent me home with all the medications to deal with a kidney stone and a urinary tract infection. I was in so much pain and couldn’t keep any food down and my friend took me back to the hospital because I couldn’t even sit still due to the pain I was in.
The first the hospital treated me like I was just seeking drugs but they finally agreed to do another CT scan and this time with contrast. And I found that my adrenal gland was about three times the size it should have been and that was causing all of the problems. It was good to finally have answers.
I hope they figure out what’s going on and stop writing it off.
I hope things get better for both of you! Sending love and thoughts your way!!
I hope they figure out what’s wrong with her. I’d give you a hug if I could because I know how much this kind of thing sucks ass.
My husband suffers from severe migraines and watching him go through one just KILLS me because there’s nothing I can do other than to try and help him manage the pain until it passes. A couple of times I’ve found him passed out on the floor, usually in the bedroom, because he just didn’t have the energy to make it up onto the bed. Sometimes the pain is so bad it makes him nauseous and he spends hours wrapped around the toilet, just lying on the floor and trying not to puke his guts out.
Does sound like a kidney stone. Been there and it’s some major pain. Good luck.
Best wishes to Anne and you; take good care of her, but don’t neglect your self-care. You got this. #nonjudgementalninja
I hate to hear about anyone going through passing a kidney stone. I’ve passed three in my life and the pain was second only to having my small bowel rupture. The first time I woke up in excruciating pain in my side, I thought my Crohn’s had flared up. I got to spend a beautiful summer Saturday at Ochsner Medical Center’s ER waiting to be seen. They did the blood and urine samples and it didn’t take long for them to conclude I was passing a kidney stone. So they made me an inpatient and sent me to a waiting room to chill until the room was available. It was just my luck that I was there while New Orleans was suffering from a Flu epidemic which packed the hospital to capacity.
In the hours it took to find me a room, I writhed in agony on the waiting room floor. They said there was nothing they could do for me until I was in my room. I confessed to being bin Laden, JFK’s assassin, the Lindbergh baby kidnapper, and so on. The pain was so intense I would have admitted to anything to get it to stop. Then, Hallelujah!, I finally got a room. The nurse came in and started the pain meds into my IV and within a few minutes, I could breath again without screaming. The doctor stopped in to say they’d take me down to remove the kidney stone shortly. A few hours later, I was nicely sedated, waiting to have this Kamikaze invader removed. The doctor went to put in the probe and out slid the damned stone.
It was a small little pebble that was hard to associate with such intense pain. The doctor showed it to me under the microscope. Holy Sh!T!!!!! I saw why it hurt so bad. That little sucker was barbed with sharp edges that looked like blades used by the Obsidian Order on Cardassia. He was going to send it off to the lab but he was confident that it was a calcium oxalate stone. I was very happy to have it out of my kidney & urinary tract. I was on some IV antibiotics during my 24-hr stay but I left the hospital feeling 1000X better than when I had arrived.
The point of my story is that yes, kidney stones hurt like a bat’leth in the gut, placed there by an angry Klingon warrior. The good news is that they will pass… eventually. Until they do, just keep on the meds with plenty of fluids. Obviously, if her temp hits 102 degrees or higher, call the doctor’s office as she is battling an infection. Otherwise, be there to comfort her as best as possible. Then pray to the Great Bird of the Galaxy that you never experience a kidney stone yourself. They are not fun. Good luck to Anne and a quick recovery!!!
Best wishes for you two. I went through something similar with my wife and her first kidney stone. it’s nerve wracking watching someone you love be in pain.
I’m pretty sure I’ve had gallstones be pushed out of my gall bladder at least twice. Whatever did happen, the incidents were very painful. The second time was especially thought I might be having a heart attack or some circulatory issue, but my pulse, breathing, and heart rate were apparently normal, so at the very least I went to an urgent care facility to figure out WTF was up, as the pain wasn’t going away. Except by the time I had finally seen the doctor it might have subsided. The doctors took some chest x-rays (as the pain was near my heart, but oddly toward the back), but nothing really came up on any of the tests. I can only say it was likely gallstones because that diagnosis is the only one I’ve found that fit my symptoms. The pain certainly wasn’t near the kidneys. The doctors might have suggested gallstones as a possibility, but I don’t know. They certainly were not willing to confirm one thing or another. When the pain was highest, sitting still felt extremely uncomfortable. Only moving around eased the pain. It was so weird. I hope Anne gets better soon.
You are such an amazing person! I hope everything sorts itself out with the least anxiety, pain, and stress possible. Love to your family from Utah!
So sorry you are both going through this. That kind of pain is scary. Mine was for my ex-gallbladder. Good thoughts for a quick and positive resolution to you.
Dear Wil,
I am sorry to hear about your wife’s pain. It must be hard to be so close but not have the answers. Here is to a speedy recovery
Wenona
Wow I can’t imagine all of this that you are both trying to deal with. Prayers to you both and I hope they figure out what is going on and soon. Take care of yourself too as hard as it is when you are worried about her.
Lean on your kids, Wil. And let them lean back.
Exact thing happened to my husband – all the symptoms of kidney stones but no visual – get a cultured urine test, he finally did but was too late to save kidney from urothelial cancer tumor – has she been tested for Lynch Syndrome- genetic test, predisposition for those types of cancer. Don’t let it go.
The first time I had a kidney stone the pain was so bad I was beating my fist against the wall of the little room the ER put me in. I used to get a kidney stone about once a year, before I learned the secret to never getting them again. There’s a trick to passing one if you get one. Get a six pack of cheap American beer and drink it down while you steep in a hot bath. The bath relaxes your abdominal muscles and the beer pushes the stone out. Works every time. Make sure you take the pain meds first. The trick to never getting another one is to drink a couple glasses of water each day with enough fresh lemon juice added to make it tart. What this does is keep the oxylates from binding in your kidneys. I told the nurse in my Urologists office about this and she said everyone who works there does this. Hope Anne feels better soon. The only good part of a kidney stone is the drugs. Well, that and that moment you pass the stone a wave of relief washes over your body.
Oh yeah…we had to put another cat to sleep. We had Bungie for 19 years and she was just an absolute joy to have had in our lives. I told her just before she died that she passed the test this time and now she never has to come back here and do this again.
My thoughts for the two of you! You’re both wonderful people, and I love the things you represent and stand for.
20 minutes is a life time in the ED. I’m a RN. Your appreciation and patience is almost unheard of. Thank you. Having had the mistaken confidence of thinking I could handle an ED trip alone, because this is my jam, man, I am so glad you were there for her.
Oh Wil. I hope that Anne passes the stone soon. I love you both & hope that things work out beautifully.
So sorry for all you guys have gone through the last couple of days. I hope Anne can find some relief from that horrible pain. I wish her a speedy recovery, and you both a restful night’s sleep.
I’ve seen how awful kidney stones can be in others, so I really hope that Anne’s medicine works well and keeps her pain as low as possible, and that she passes it soon. I know that feeling of helplessness as you watch your loved one endure something that you can’t stop. You have us all supporting you both as much as we can. Make sure you remember to take care of yourself during this, too! ❤
My son, Mikey. His senior year knocked on my bedroom door waking me up. He was clutching his side. We thought appendix and took him to urgent care. It was kidney stones. 2 weeks later, he still hadn’t passed them. Prom, senior trip was coming up so they went in after the stones. Poor kid! He has great pain tolerance. When he was 12, he had an AVM rupture and that resulted in a minor stroke. Yeah, he doesn’t do anything easily. I guess what I am saying is it will be okay. Anne, drink and drink and drink some more. Lemon aid is good. Wil, believe me I know it is hard when you feel helpless. Keep up with the small things. It will really help more than you know. <3
Hope she feels better soon.
As far as my antidepressants go I always keep a dose in my wallet, never know what might happen in CA
Burst cyst – ask about that. Could show up as barely visible fluid on an ultrasound. The symptoms sound identical to my own experience. Ovarian cysts are very common. Wishing you the best of luck.
Wil, I am hoping Anne is better soon.
I did want to add that this is a good piece of writing. It captures so much of the the hospital experience, and the helplessness of being with someone you care about when they are ill. You may have written just to help you process what happened, but it’s well done.
I don’t have any medical knowledge, and everyone is going to have their .02, but I can offer best wishes and imaginary get-well flowers for Anne. It may not help with the pain, but she has the love and support not only from you, but from this caring community.
The majority of my husband’s family have polycystic kidney disease. They get stones alongside it. I keep my eyes and ears tuned to kidney research. The most recent article I read was about roller coasters and stones. The g force helps break them up. Clearly not something you feel like doing when you are in the throws of it but maybe a good (and fun) preventive measure
I hope Anne feels better really soon! My husband had kidney stones a few years ago, and the pain on his face was nothing I had ever seen on him before. His stones were still in the kidney, and had not progressed, so they did laparoscopy. I know you are getting a ton of advice, but ask about gall stones, which are also very painful.
“Kidney stones” is such a bland name for something that causes such excruciatingly intense pain. My husband has suffered from them twice, and we had to go through the whole ER/morphine/home/pills/back-to-the-ER thing because the pain came close to putting him in shock. It’s scary as hell, but rest assured, it will pass, and she’ll be fine.
Did they do a CT of her urinary tract with contrast? Because you should see a stone there. If this is the test where they said eh sometimes it doesn’t work, consider another hospital.
What about her gallbladder?
I wish Anne a speedy recovery and better doctors.
Sending care and support. I’ve seen this happen with my significant other, and I know what a nerve-wracking experience it can be. Wish there was something more concrete a total stranger like me could offer, but hopefully knowing people care helps
in some small way!
Sending healing light. Went through the same myself. Eventually, the kidney stone showed itself.
Btw, orgasms were the only thing that really helped the pain. No joke. I’ve had half a dozen stones.
Oh man that sucks so much. I’m really sorry and hope Anne is feeling better soon. Mojo to you both. <3