The Story of a Stone

Well that was unpleasant. I have been having attacks of lower abdominal pain for the last few days. I just have not felt right. Sometimes it comes on strong and then goes away after an hour or two. Last night I woke at midnight feeling very uncomfortable. The pain increased over the next few hours until I finally accepted the fact that I would have to go to the hospital. This was our first experience at NHS hospitals in the UK so we did not know what to expect. Off bwo drove me to Kingston General. It's not too far to the south of us. Think of Meir in Kfar Sava but with nurses that speak accented English, rather than Hebrew.

By the time I got to the hospital it was 4am. Luckily it was very quiet and they took me straight away. They brought me some pain killers and took a blood sample. All the time the pain got worse until I could not stand still and needed to pace up and down. Eventually they gave me a pain killer suppository, unpleasant but effective. Anyway it was decided that seeing as there was nothing more they can do, they ordered me a CT scan and sent me home.

Once home I suddenly was able to pee again (just a sad dribble came out before, no matter how much I drank) and almost immediately I felt a lot better. The hospital called and arranged the CT scan for 2pm. So after a 2 hour rest, off we chuffed once again to Kingston General. We just got home (6:30pm). The CT took just a few minutes and gave us a false sense of optimism that all would be over soon. We then waited and waited for the results and explanations. This took forever, as the A+E (accident and emergency - ER) was very busy by this time. (And they seemed to lose our papers once or twice).

It seems I still have a 5mm kidney stone in me. It has passed from the kidney through the ureter and is at the top of the bladder (The passing through the ureter is the sore part apparently). I need to drink a lot to get it to pass completely. They gave me some pain killers (tylenol) and something called Tamsulosin (loosens the bladder and makes urination easier). Well at least I am currently not feeling too sore, so there's that. At least the whole A+E deal is free, which is nice.

Hopefully peeing out a 5mm stone will not cause masses of pain and screaming. As I tell my kids, hopefully "this like all else, too will pass".