My back had been bothering me off and on for awhile, but that's nothing new and I didn't think a whole lot of it. Then one night I had a hard time sleeping because my lower right back just felt swollen. It kind of bothered me off and on all day. Around 6 I finally said something to Bob and brought up the idea that we may have to go see a Dr. But, then I figured maybe I could just rest and sleep it off. I'm always afraid of going in and the dr's thinking that I'm some sort of hypochondriac or something because my chart is so thick! About 1am I gave up on sleeping and finally admitted to myself that I was going to need some help with this one. I woke up Brandi and asked her to drive me to the ER. I didn't want to have Bob bring me because I figured he may as well get some sleep since he had to work in the morning. Once at the ER they did a bunch of the regular tests and discovered that I had a stone completely blocking my ureter tube and an infection. They decided that I needed to be transferred to Virginia Mason in Yakima and have surgery ASAP. I tried to convince them to just let me drive to Yakima but they weren't having it:/ So we woke up Bob, who got down to Prosser shortly before the transport arrived and he followed the ambulance down to Yakima. The driver had a bit of a led foot and Bob wasn't able to keep up with them on the freeway but was able to catch up by the time we got to the hospital. They brought me straight into pre-op and within 30 minutes we were in surgery! They put a stent into the ureter tube and were able to blast the stone with lithotripsy. They left the stent in and we were back home again by 9:30am:) On Tuesday I went in to have the stent removed and was warned that in about 15% of the cases, once the stent was removed their could be significant swelling in the tube which could cause things to shut down again. Sure enough, that night I ended up back in the ER with the ureter tube swollen completely shut again and preventing the kidney from draining. Some more tests, some anti-inflammatory's and some pain meds and 5 hours later we were back at home again. One of the things I always dread about medical procedures is the IV/blood work. My veins are just not cooperative and it usually takes a few attempts and some talented lab people to get the job done.
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