Barb’s Burblings

Spam emails have new meaning for me. I was going through my work spam email when I noticed that a number offered Percocet for me without prescription. Ew, I thought. No way. Because now I have had firsthand experience with Percocet, thanks to my kidney stone.

Yes, I had a kidney stone. Yes, I am only 31 years old. My body has decided that I am, in effect, 50. (It actually decided that a while back, which led to me having a colonoscopy. Nothing like having one of those when you’re in your 20s!) Last Sunday night, I felt an odd pain in my lower left side. It went away after a while, and, being an optimist, I figured it would never come back. Yay!

Only that was not to be. About 45 minutes later, the pain came back. And it hurt worse. So I called the number on my insurance card and talked to a nurse, who told me to call my doctor, but since there weren’t any other symptoms, not to worry. Just take Advil. So I did. Which…didn’t help the pain so much. And then came the vomiting! When I called back with that update, I was told to head to the ER.

Now, I have to say, the time to hit the ER is apparently around midnight Sunday night of a holiday weekend. It was very quiet. I was seen immediately (making me two-for-two in ER visits this way; I only had to wait minimally the last time, when I had to get stitches on my thumb) and got to experience a CAT scan. Whee? Luckily, the pain had subsided again by that point, because that was slightly awkward. So I spent a fun 2.5 hours in the hospital, mostly reading (when I wasn’t curled into a little ball of pain). (Also, now I associate Roald Dahl with this, because I finished Going Solo and started The Irregulars, about his time in DC during World War II. So, that’s kind of weird.) The doctor was fab and everyone was lovely and I was home by 3 a.m.

And then I spent the next 3 days in a haze of pain, nausea, and sleep. A fab coworker came over and filled my prescriptions for me (and experienced the joy of me yarfing). Apparently, a side effect of Percocet is nausea. Now, I don’t know if it was the pain or the Percocet, but I could just not keep anything down there for a while. Which led to the incredibly TMI anti-nausea suppositories. I don’t want to think about it. But it’s at the point that I can only now start to think of juice without wanting to vomit.

But I slept a LOT and on Wednesday night passed the stone, which, according to my nurse coworkers I showed it to, is HUGE. The urologist I saw today was also somewhat impressed. (Want to see a blurry picture of it?) And now I have something like a 50% chance of getting another one. So, you know, something to look forward to.

Hopefully by that time, they’ll have something other than Percocet for the pain.