Well, I’m not dead and things are not as bad as I’d thought. I spent the night in the ER last night, and they discharged me this morning. This is how it went down:
As background information, I got the ureteral stent put in under general anesthesia. I did not understand why the surgeon didn’t talk to me afterwards. However, looking back, I’m pretty sure she must have talked to me when I was still too drugged to be able to form even a fragment of a memory of the conversation. So, I definitely missed some important information. If I weren’t completely alone in life, maybe a friend or family member could have been there for the conversation, but alas.
So, during this most recent trip to the emergency room, lots of providers asked me basically the same questions. A resident from urology came and was asking the questions and asked if I’d had any fevers lately. I said not that I knew of, but offhandedly remarked that I had just moved and had yet to find most of my belongings so I didn’t have access to a thermometer.
“I see,” said the up-and-coming resident, “You haven’t been lifting a lot of boxes or anything, have you?”
“Well, actually, now that you mention it, the excruciating pain did start while I was carrying around heavy boxes.”
APPARENTLY, you’re supposed to limit physical activity when you have a stent in your ureter. I legit had no clue that that was a thing. Now it makes sense why the pain always got worse at work, because I was carrying around babies and generally doing physically demanding things. When I explained that I worked in a daycare, it was like a light bulb went off and all my providers were like, “Well there’s your problem!“
So, the good news is that I don’t have an infection and I’m not going to die. The bad news is that it’s apparently pretty hard to build calluses on the inside of your ureter, so now it’s so irritated that it’s painful just to walk between rooms. The other bad news is that I can’t go back to work until July 13, because the stent gets removed on the 11th and they’re also doing lithotripsy and you can’t go back to work until two days later. I am very freaked out because I will have missed a total of eleven work days by then just for this stone. My boss has not yet confirmed that I’m not fired. I’m trying to use “coping skills,” and I also dug up my supply of Vistaril that I had for an emergency.
The even more shitty part of all this is that my turtle is still at summer camp, so I’m lonely. I have a sudden urge to take up vlogging just to have someone to talk to. I may do that, but I was mid-way through unpacking when I couldn’t deal with the pain anymore, so I have a huge pile of cardboard boxes in the kitchen (it has grown since the video) and I can’t even keep up with basic cleaning because it hurts so much to walk. So, for now, I’m sticking with regular blogging.
Which brings me to my water challenge. I am embarking on drinking a gallon of water a day between now and when I go back to work. This is not for energy, weight loss, or clearer skin. The instructions I got when I discharged from the emergency room said to drink “>2L per day” of water. I do not do well with vague instructions. If I need to drink more than two liters a day, there are an infinite number of numbers that are greater than two. I can never achieve the goal.
Of course, there are also complicating factors. First, I sweat a lot. Like, a lot. I’m sure some of it has to do with medication, but I swear it’s mostly genetic. My dad was never medicated and he used to sweat more than any other human I’ve ever met. When he came back from exercising, it was like he’d jumped in a swimming pool with all his clothes on. Unfortunately, I seem to have inherited this gene. I don’t know if it’s gotten worse because I’m getting older or because I gained a lot of weight, but it’s definitely an issue.
And, it’s hot in my apartment. I was going to get an air conditioner, but it turns out that hauling a large appliance up to my third-floor apartment is not in the cards until after my procedure. The outdoor temperature here is in the 90s F and it’s definitely humid. Most of my windows are painted shut and maintenance still hasn’t come out to fix them, so the temperature inside is ridiculous. Thank goodness for my pedestal fan, but the excessive heat has definitely contributed to dehydration.
So I sweat a lot generally, it’s hotter than Satan’s housecat, and I’m supposed to be producing two liters of urine daily because of my present complicated urological situation. I have no idea how they expect me to know how much urine I produce, because obviously there’s no way to measure that without severely compromising both cleanliness and my human dignity. So, I did a whole bunch of googling about what the maximum amount of water is that you can drink before you get water intoxication, and it seemed like I should be safe with two gallons. However, when I went on YouTube and looked up drinking two gallons of water daily, the only people doing that were young male extreme athletes. The search did bring up a whole bunch of female YouTubers, but they were all drinking one gallon. So I’m setting my sights on one gallon.
I got a Brita filter at Walgreens while I was picking up my prescriptions, and brought it home and washed it and got it all set up. I already had a 64oz glass mason jar that I’d been using in an attempt to prevent another stone after the January episode (unsuccessfully, obviously, but I wasn’t exactly consistent). I had two 1L bottles of water that I also got at Walgreens, so I started the first day of my challenge two liters in. I filled up my mason jar. And that is when I remembered the joys of living alone.
I closed the blinds in every single window and stripped completely naked. I moved my pedestal fan to the bathroom. My phone charger also stretches to my current location. I’ve got my mason jar on the side of the tub. I sat down on the toilet, pointed the fan directly at me, and this is where I’m planning to spend the rest of my evening. It’s actually working out pretty well; I got through six cups of water while writing this and only have two left to go. It’s an unfortunate side effect of the stent that I permanently feel like I urgently need to pee all the time, so if I’m drinking a gallon of water a day, there’s just going to be absolutely no way to know whether I actually have to go or not. So, this is working for today. I forgot how much I love having my own space!
With regards to the 3mm freaking dwarf kidney stone that’s ruining my life, I figured he should have a name. Back in January, I named that stone after an ex-boyfriend who also shows up sporadically and at inconvenient times. My thoughts on my current stone is that he is pathetically small but he thinks he’s big stuff and he does not want to leave to the point where he’s causing as much destruction on his way out as possible. So, I named him Donald.
