I’m writing this entry so I can mentally process what happened and how I ended up in the ER today. Last summer or fall, I got a UTI. I went to urgent care and got antibiotics. My PCP said that when I completed the course of antibiotics, I could just assume I was fine because “it’s not like you get chronic UTIs.” One thing about me is that I tend to have an extremely hard time communicating how bad things are. I don’t know why. I feel like I’m screaming at people that this is a major problem and I need help, but somehow they get the idea that I’m totally fine. Anyway, I kept getting a UTI at least every couple of months, and they kept telling me that because it wasn’t a chronic problem, I could assume I was fine when the antibiotics were completed. I got to where I just assumed that at any given time I probably had a UTI, and when it got unbearable, I would go in for antibiotics.
Anyway, about a month ago I got a kidney stone. This is a common problem for me as well, but this was definitely the worst kidney stone experience I’ve ever had. They thought it was a UTI and treated it with antibiotics, but then an emergency room trip and a CT scan revealed a stone blocking my left ureter. The totally invalidating part of all this is that the stone is literally 3mm. It is the smallest stone in the history of stones. I feel like a failure that I couldn’t pass it on my own. But anyway, when I went to the ER for the second time, they put in a stent to bypass the stone and let out the backed up fluid. This helped with the pain, but it was really uncomfortable. I told my doctor how uncomfortable I was, and he said that when you have a stent, you just feel “crappy.” He scheduled me for lithotripsy and to remove the stent on July 11; it was later than would have been ideal, but they couldn’t do it this week because of the 4th of July.
So anyway, I just lived with being miserable because I was trying to stick it out until July 11. I had already missed five days of work for this stupid baby kidney stone, and I was going to have to miss two more for the next procedure. More importantly, it didn’t occur to me that something might actually be wrong. My urologist had specifically said that my symptoms were normal and everybody always got this when they had a stent. Besides, I had just completed three different courses of antibiotics including cipro, so I figured there was no way I still had the UTI.
It was getting hard to walk on Monday because every time I did, I had a burning/stabbing pain in my groin. My doctor had told me to be on the alert for a yeast infection because of all the antibiotics and I’d never had one, so I figured it was that. Then, yesterday (the 4th of July) it became excruciating to the point of being almost impossible to walk, and I was in severe pain even sitting still. I figured that if I didn’t go to urgent care, something really bad would happen to my reproductive system (become I thought it was a yeast infection). So I went to urgent care, and they insisted on a urine sample. I knew it would be mostly blood because I’ve been peeing blood for weeks, and there was no way I had a UTI, but I complied with protocol.
In good news, I had zero symptoms of a yeast infection. In bad news, I had a UTI that was so bad that basically it was past the maximum threshold that their instruments could measure. Apparently a stent can cause a UTI, which I don’t remember my urologist mentioning, but I was in agony during that appointment so I was having trouble focusing. The urgent care doctor seemed nervous and said I really needed to pick up my antibiotic that day, even though most pharmacies were closed for the holiday. I made it happen and picked them up.
I told myself that the antibiotics were helping. I was able to walk. Then I was at work today and it got hard to walk. Then it got really hard to walk. I mean, it wasn’t like physically strenuous, it was just shooting pain up between my legs. So I couldn’t deal with it anymore and told my job that I was going back to the ER. For those keeping track, I have pretty much been at either urgent care or the emergency room at any given time for the past month.
My boss was nice, but I’m worried about my job. I’ve been out way too much and I don’t think they’re going to be able to keep me if this keeps happening. I’m also worried because obviously this infection is never going to go away ever, and I don’t know if that will make it harder for them to get rid of the kidney stone that is still in my ureter. I’m starting to worry that this is how I’m going to die.
So here I am, in the waiting room, with my 500 new friends who are also in the waiting room. They’ve actually got three waiting rooms open, and the other two are almost standing room only because they’re so absolutely packed. The chairs are right next to each other and every one of them is in use. You walk past and it’s like this sea of intense misery and suffering. For some reason, I’m in the third waiting room. I think they explained that they were going to move me to one of the others eventually. It’s like there are so many people here that we have a multi-step waiting room process. It’s nobody’s fault, and I want to be thankful that people will eventually help me. But my left flank hurts and my groin hurts and I’m just tired of being sick.
