Kidney Stones and Surgery

I ended up in the emergency room on the Tuesday we came back from Maine. I hate going to the ER. Not because I'm sick enough to go, but because I hate dealing with ER doctors.

They got all excited because I'm a 36 year old woman with metastatic breast cancer. They're excited because they think it's going to be something exciting and they think that they can somehow cure me. I see the doctor and I tell him that I have kidney stones on both sides. He didn't believe me. He said it was rare to have stones on both sides. I told him "I'm not your usual patient." He was telling me that the pain could be caused by blood clots due to my "history." They were so focused on the cancer that they didn't want to treat the stones. It's so frustrating.

Went for the CT Scan and got the results back. Guess what? I had kidney stones on both sides. Didn't see the doctor again, I dealt with the Physician's Assistant for the rest of my stay. I couldn't even rub it in that I was right and he's an idiot.

I had a 1.3cm stone on my left side, along with smaller ones, and a 0.6cm on my right. I opted for surgery on my left because it was too big to blast, it would take 4 or 5 sessions to blast it, so I just wanted to get it over and done with.

Had surgery of the 5th. This has been the worst pain I've been through yet. I ended up staying in the recovery room for a little longer than expected and I was only supposed to stay in the hospital overnight, but it turned into 2 days because the pain was bad.

I'm home now and feeling a bit better. I mean, I do have a hole in my back, so it's not fun. My parents came over today and brought over tons of food, it was awesome to see them. Thanks mom and dad!

I have the next week off to recover.

Thanks to Libby and Melissa for stopping in to visit me at the hospital, in all my glory!