Saturday, March 29, 2014

Using Pill Bottles As Tea Leaf Readers

A day or two after my last post, I had left flank pain hit me like someone holding a hot torch to it. I hadn't thought about anything being wrong with me medically until two of my prescription refills had stickers on the bottles saying, "call your doctor." Last posting was a result of that obedience. It set me up for one more follow up next week to go over results.

Then the pain happened on cue. Six hours later, with an IV and pain meds on board, plus an MRI indicated I had a kidney stone that was fairly large - too large to let drain out as nature had intended.

"Here's more pain medication and antibiotics," they said. "We'll have the urologist set up an appointment for an outpatient procedure. Meanwhile, no milk or foods you like and call us again if the pain returns before the end of the weekend."

Sure enough, kidney stone(s) confirmed in two different spots. He'd go for the small one in the bladder first and the larger one in the kidney the second procedure and maybe "blast" it. By then, I had heard everyones' war stories about kidney stones. One of my best friend's wives told me, "forget about it being the equivalent of childbirth pain; I've had both and it's worse!"

First procedure done without a problem, except I found a great need not to hesitate before emptying my bladder, and taking aim and actually hitting the target was a re-training effort.

Now the second procedure is scheduled for next week to go after the bigger stone. I'm sure this whole thing was a side affect of reading those stupid bottles in the first place. I thought I heard someone in recovery talking about bringing in a backhoe next time. I might be mistaken.

At any rate, I am not going to read anymore prescription pill bottles ever again. They just lead to trouble! Being dumb and happy isn't all that bad.

Gary

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