Kidney Stone

The last 2 days have been a blur of pain and morphine for me. It all started on Sunday morning with what I thought was a simple bladder infection -- they are very common during pregnancy and while I haven't had one in years, I do know the feeling of one coming on. I called the dr on-call and picked up an antibiotic. By Sunday night, I was in A LOT of pain and decided it was time to go to ER. But after speaking to the dr on-call they sent me home and said just to wait for the antibiotic to "kick in". I wasn't running a fever, I wasn't having contractions, I was just in a lot of pain.

Sunday night was miserable. I got about 2 hours of sleep and spent the night taking Tylenol and hot showers. I figured the prescription I had picked up was wrong or I was just being a pansy.

By 6:00am Monday morning I couldn't take it any more. I called the same dr on-call and couldn't even speak I was in so much pain. This time she said to go right to ER, something was wrong. After I got to the hospital the doctors narrowed the list to -- a bladder infection with a difficult strain of bacteria, a kidney infection, a appendicitis, or kidney stones. At this point the pain meds were SLOW coming as the doctors wanted to know my symptoms. After my labs got back the doctors quickly diagnosis kidney stones. The good news -- my white blood count was normal, my urine didn't have bacteria in it, I wasn't running a fever, I wasn't having contractions and the baby was doing well. The bad news -- I was in for 24 hours of pain which many compare to labor.

Let me say this about the "labor" vs "kidney stone" comparison. When you are in labor, you get an epidural, a ton of wonderful support and it ends with a beautiful baby. When you have a kidney stone, you get a lot of confused doctors, morphine, and it ends with a rock coming out of you. Are they both painful? Extremely. Would I go through childbirth again? Of course, the end is worth it. I wouldn't wish a kidney stone on my worst enemy.

So yesterday I spent the day at Cottage Hospital and after lots of "labor" gave birth to a lady bug size stone at about midnight. They sent me home this morning, a new person. One happy momma glad to be back with her family. Hopefully I won't be back until little baby "chance" is ready to come out in 4 to 6 weeks.