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Last Saturday morning (Oct. 30th) around 8:15 a.m. I was driving around trying to find the church building where I was supposed to meet up with my stake for a stake service project. I couldn’t find the right building (there were too many to choose from), so I decided to just go home. My abdomen was also starting to hurt a little, so I didn’t feel too horrible about not finding the service project. On the drive home the pain got worse. At home I thought it would help to curl up in fetal position, but nothing helped and the pain got worse. I called my mom thinking I had a bladder infection or something. Then I called my boyfriend, Andy, because he is going to pharmacy school and is very knowledgeable about the body. He told me that I probably had an infection, so he was going to come over to take me to Insta Care. It took him a little while, and later he told me that he got a speeding ticket on the way over. (He doesn’t normally speed.) He had to come help me off the bathroom floor since I had vomited a couple of times from the pain. He found me in a cold sweat and I could barely walk.

I think we got to the Insta Care around 9:30. We had to wait about 20-30 minutes before being admitted. Andy helped me fill out the paper work, and then he tried to comfort me while I was in extreme pain. It was so bad that I couldn’t find a comfortable position, and I even laid on the floor in the waiting room. I started throwing up more in a bag, so finally they got me into a room. There I was attended to by a whoopi cushion who told me that I probably had kidney stones. The doctor came in later and said the same thing. After giving a urine sample, they gave me a shot in both of my lower back cheeks (one for the pain and one for the nausea.) They also took a blood sample, which was very messy when the girl took it out. Then they told me that they were going to send me to the hospital next door to have a CT scan. They loaded me up in a wheel chair and took me over.

On the ride over I noticed the medicine starting to take affect. However, I started to get really cold and was shivering uncontrollably. We filled out some more paper work. Then I had to leave Andy to go in for the CT scan. Thankfully they put some warm blankets on me, so that helped some. By the time I was lying on the table, the pain was not that bad. They did a couple scans, but I guess they couldn’t really see the stones. So they had to put an IV in me and put in some contrast to color my kidneys. The technician then left me to do the scan and the pain came back all of a sudden. I was nauseas again as well. The tech came back and gave me a bucket to throw up in. He told me that the contrast was probably making the stone move. The pain subsided after a minute, so we were able to do the CT scan again. He then wheeled me back to the waiting room where we waited for the results. I was also given more warm blankets to stop my shaking. This is when Andy decided to take pictures of me. 30 minutes later I was told that I have 2 kidney stones. The bigger one was at the bottom by the urethra. It was the one blocking the kidney and causing the pain. The other one was at the top of my kidney and shouldn’t cause much problems.

I was going to work today, but I figured the slight pinching feeling might mean I’ll pass a stone today. I also decided it was best not to try and teach while I am on pain meds. I did have to go to work this morning to get things ready for a substitute, but now I’m just sitting and waiting. I’ve had many people tell me that passing a stone is worse than childbirth, so it is kind of a scary thing to wait for. But I think the pain medicine will help a lot. Sorry this is so long. If any of it doesn’t make sense, just know that I wrote this while I was drugged up.