Well, that's 7mm off my bucket list
Apr. 5th, 2018 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexThis is about medical stuff that might upset some people so I'll cut-tag it. tl;dr I'm OK but now have another ongoing situation to deal with. As with all medical things, please consider the context before bringing this up in conversation.
Tuesday night I felt a little "off". Not a big deal given that I was underslept and overstressed and coming off a bad back episode. I decided to punt the political/social gathering (sorry MizA) and stayed home. Ate a normal dinner and things seemed to settle down until a bit before 10PM when I started feeling a lot of intestinal discomfort.
I have reflux, and gas issues and whatnot so I'm used to this. I know that being stressed upsets my stomach. I take antacids and Tums and will often eat a neutral protein like bland cheese or a simple carb. That's a little trickier during Passover so I started off asking Pygment to find me something while I used the toilet.
That took a while and was basically unproductive; by the time I came back downstairs symptoms had escalated to cramping and sharp pain in the lower right abdomen. I asked Pygment to look up appendicitis (I still have my appendix) and my symptoms matched. We decided it was time to head to the ER as the pain was escalating. Pygment put together an overnight bag. Meanwhile I went to the bathroom again and threw up, pretty hard.
If you know me, you know that I basically don't vomit. I hate it. Given a choice, I won't. Didn't have a choice here. Had another episode on the roadside on the way out; fortunately none after.
Got to the Lahey ER and pain levels were consistent 8. They got me started quickly and did the basic BP/temp (no fever, which leans against appendicitis) and EKG because men my age have heart attacks. Then we sat in the waiting room for a surprisingly long period. The helpful front desk person said they likely were cleaning a room for me. By the time they were ready for me to go in I could no longer walk under my own power.
Nurse got me hooked up for IV and then a doc saw me. Questions and prodding - my abdomen was tight and the various prodding hurt. But it also shifted the pain up and to the back. That surprised me, but the doc's suggestion that it was likely a kidney stone suddenly made sense.
My brother has endured 2+ years of dealing with really nasty painful stones, all of which have required extensive medical intervention. He's gone through high enough levels of pain that they've had to pump him full of Dilaudid - anything less than that doesn't control it.
For me they tossed an anti-nausea med into the IV and then some Toradol. Holy miracle drugs, Batman! It's an NSAID and sadly only available in IV form, but wow did it work well. Not only did it neutralize the severe pain, it took out my base level back pain, about which more below. There were also some emotional effects, see farther below. They then hooked up a big bag of neutral saline to hydrate me for the CT scan. Depending on whether it was a stone or where it was, not having fluid in the system might have hidden it. So I lay there and tried not to be too bored or cold while I waited ("till you feel like you have to pee but not so your teeth are swimming" - leave it to me to get the sarky nurses, who I adore).
Pygment stayed put, despite my repeated urgings to head home. "I wouldn't sleep anyway," she noted at one point. Eventually I got the CT scan done and though they estimated an hour to get the scan read they actually had it processed and evaluated in about 10 minutes. Of course by now it was after 2AM, so I had to have the doc give the explanation twice, slowly, and then repeat key bits back to him.
Single stone, but it's a doozy at 7mm diameter. It's "at the start" of the journey and it's likely to hurt like FSCK when it gets lower down. Joy. See above about no oral Toradol - I'm on 600mg Advil every 6 hours plus a daily after-dinner pill to help try and dissolve the stone. The doc gave it 50-50 odds of passing without direct medical intervention but based on my brother's 0% success rate I'm not hopeful. And his stones were smaller. I also have an Oxycodone scrip but I'm not using it unless the pain gets unmanageable.
I'll start seeing a urologist from next week because even if there are no other stones present now, I'm at high risk over the next at least 5-6 months for more stones forming. So basically, I take more pills and drink a lot more water and we wait and see.
Lots of people don't know that I run with a base level of pain. Mostly that's from my back, some from the arthritis. I generally don't medicate for it because I don't like the med side effects. I just deal. But as Pygment pointed out, "just dealing" consumes a lot of energy and makes me less resilient to dealing with pain flare episodes and having less buffer for other things. It's kind of the spoons model, I guess. Pygment has suggested a couple times that I could qualify for a medical marijuana prescription to get some relief without the intestinal side effects. I'm not as opposed to that as I was in the past but I'm not yet convinced it's a good idea.
Once the Toridol took effect and I felt better I started to feel a sort of euphoria. Part of it was "Wow, I'm not actually in pain" and part of it was "Wow, I'm not actually going to die." Having gone into the ER thinking it was appendicitis I was mentally preparing myself for surgery or something and while I realize that actually dying from a burst appendix is very rare in developed countries, particularly when one is a privileged member of the economic classes that get first-rate medical treatment and can reach that treatment in time... all that is cortical thinking, My limbic system had, apparently, convinced itself we were going to die and when it became clear we weren't, WHOOSH all the feelings ever.
I understood why people fall in love with their rescuers and why near-death experiences cause people to reevaluate their entire emotional make-up. My feelings were not that intense, and fortunately I had Pygment there to be a natural target of my positive emotions, but yeah, I got an insight into what that might be like for some other people.
I'm familiar, of course, with drugs one takes to enhance emotional experience. I just didn't expect that as a side effect of this situation. Inside the Greek chorus that is my head there was a very amusing set of interactions among All The Feels and The Bemused Observer and The Scientist Taking Notes and The Philosopher Trying to Understand. It being well past bedtime and into "I'd be loopy if I stayed up this late anyway" time helped, I'm sure.
Tuesday night I felt a little "off". Not a big deal given that I was underslept and overstressed and coming off a bad back episode. I decided to punt the political/social gathering (sorry MizA) and stayed home. Ate a normal dinner and things seemed to settle down until a bit before 10PM when I started feeling a lot of intestinal discomfort.
I have reflux, and gas issues and whatnot so I'm used to this. I know that being stressed upsets my stomach. I take antacids and Tums and will often eat a neutral protein like bland cheese or a simple carb. That's a little trickier during Passover so I started off asking Pygment to find me something while I used the toilet.
That took a while and was basically unproductive; by the time I came back downstairs symptoms had escalated to cramping and sharp pain in the lower right abdomen. I asked Pygment to look up appendicitis (I still have my appendix) and my symptoms matched. We decided it was time to head to the ER as the pain was escalating. Pygment put together an overnight bag. Meanwhile I went to the bathroom again and threw up, pretty hard.
If you know me, you know that I basically don't vomit. I hate it. Given a choice, I won't. Didn't have a choice here. Had another episode on the roadside on the way out; fortunately none after.
Got to the Lahey ER and pain levels were consistent 8. They got me started quickly and did the basic BP/temp (no fever, which leans against appendicitis) and EKG because men my age have heart attacks. Then we sat in the waiting room for a surprisingly long period. The helpful front desk person said they likely were cleaning a room for me. By the time they were ready for me to go in I could no longer walk under my own power.
Nurse got me hooked up for IV and then a doc saw me. Questions and prodding - my abdomen was tight and the various prodding hurt. But it also shifted the pain up and to the back. That surprised me, but the doc's suggestion that it was likely a kidney stone suddenly made sense.
My brother has endured 2+ years of dealing with really nasty painful stones, all of which have required extensive medical intervention. He's gone through high enough levels of pain that they've had to pump him full of Dilaudid - anything less than that doesn't control it.
For me they tossed an anti-nausea med into the IV and then some Toradol. Holy miracle drugs, Batman! It's an NSAID and sadly only available in IV form, but wow did it work well. Not only did it neutralize the severe pain, it took out my base level back pain, about which more below. There were also some emotional effects, see farther below. They then hooked up a big bag of neutral saline to hydrate me for the CT scan. Depending on whether it was a stone or where it was, not having fluid in the system might have hidden it. So I lay there and tried not to be too bored or cold while I waited ("till you feel like you have to pee but not so your teeth are swimming" - leave it to me to get the sarky nurses, who I adore).
Pygment stayed put, despite my repeated urgings to head home. "I wouldn't sleep anyway," she noted at one point. Eventually I got the CT scan done and though they estimated an hour to get the scan read they actually had it processed and evaluated in about 10 minutes. Of course by now it was after 2AM, so I had to have the doc give the explanation twice, slowly, and then repeat key bits back to him.
Single stone, but it's a doozy at 7mm diameter. It's "at the start" of the journey and it's likely to hurt like FSCK when it gets lower down. Joy. See above about no oral Toradol - I'm on 600mg Advil every 6 hours plus a daily after-dinner pill to help try and dissolve the stone. The doc gave it 50-50 odds of passing without direct medical intervention but based on my brother's 0% success rate I'm not hopeful. And his stones were smaller. I also have an Oxycodone scrip but I'm not using it unless the pain gets unmanageable.
I'll start seeing a urologist from next week because even if there are no other stones present now, I'm at high risk over the next at least 5-6 months for more stones forming. So basically, I take more pills and drink a lot more water and we wait and see.
Lots of people don't know that I run with a base level of pain. Mostly that's from my back, some from the arthritis. I generally don't medicate for it because I don't like the med side effects. I just deal. But as Pygment pointed out, "just dealing" consumes a lot of energy and makes me less resilient to dealing with pain flare episodes and having less buffer for other things. It's kind of the spoons model, I guess. Pygment has suggested a couple times that I could qualify for a medical marijuana prescription to get some relief without the intestinal side effects. I'm not as opposed to that as I was in the past but I'm not yet convinced it's a good idea.
Once the Toridol took effect and I felt better I started to feel a sort of euphoria. Part of it was "Wow, I'm not actually in pain" and part of it was "Wow, I'm not actually going to die." Having gone into the ER thinking it was appendicitis I was mentally preparing myself for surgery or something and while I realize that actually dying from a burst appendix is very rare in developed countries, particularly when one is a privileged member of the economic classes that get first-rate medical treatment and can reach that treatment in time... all that is cortical thinking, My limbic system had, apparently, convinced itself we were going to die and when it became clear we weren't, WHOOSH all the feelings ever.
I understood why people fall in love with their rescuers and why near-death experiences cause people to reevaluate their entire emotional make-up. My feelings were not that intense, and fortunately I had Pygment there to be a natural target of my positive emotions, but yeah, I got an insight into what that might be like for some other people.
I'm familiar, of course, with drugs one takes to enhance emotional experience. I just didn't expect that as a side effect of this situation. Inside the Greek chorus that is my head there was a very amusing set of interactions among All The Feels and The Bemused Observer and The Scientist Taking Notes and The Philosopher Trying to Understand. It being well past bedtime and into "I'd be loopy if I stayed up this late anyway" time helped, I'm sure.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-05 06:41 pm (UTC)What I do know, from living in Washington after pot legalization, is that relatively small amounts of either marijuana (enough to get me high, and calibrating that is tricky with the amount of THC in the plants these days*) or even smaller doses of THC to try to deal with spasticity didn't seem to make much different for my knee pain.
However, your mileage may vary, and it might be worth trying.
*I don't think this quite deserves a "back in my day" label, but it does feel odd to put it that way.