What Do These Have In Common? Vegas, Kidney Stones, & Pancreatitis
Well I'm back from the hospital and what an adventure it has been. Here's how it started:
February 26, around 10am: I get a striking pain in my left side that goes from the middle of my lower back to the front and down to the groin. It's a very unusual pain and after a few minutes, I realize this isn't getting any better. Within half an hour I'm taken to a local hospital via ambulance, where I am given morphine while they check my CT scans and blood. Turns out the pain was caused by a kidney stone, which is fairly common. However, the blood test also shows extremely high levels of lipase, an enzyme in the pancreas. Normal levels are 16-63. Mine was at 861. Not good. That's a dead giveaway that I have acute pancreatitis.
All of this is happening while I am about to leave Las Vegas, so I tell the doctor that, although I understand the sense of urgency and seriousness of the matter, I need to get back to LA. I'm told not to eat anything, so I take a bottle of water and unsweetened ice tea on the road and head back.
February 26, 7:30pm: Finally home, I leave for Cedars-Sinai with my parents. When we get to the emergency check-in, we see that it's insanely packed. Oh well, let's wait it out.
February 26: 10pm: A nurse finally comes and gets me to go inside. One step closer to being pain-free. I lay down and wait, and wait... and wait. It takes about an hour and a half to get any attention. They do all the same things even though I have the paperwork from the previous hospital. They finally say I need to spend the night and get me a room.
Quite honestly, everything from February 26 to March 3 (when I finally checked out) is a long blur. I know I was in excruciating pain and 4mg morphine shots became my dear friend. I know I got an ultrasound, x-ray, CT scan, and MRI.
One of the major problems was that I had three doctors. One was my main doctor, who, after meeting me for roughly 2 minutes, told me he is leaving on vacation and will have one of his partners take care of me. My general doctor ended up changing 3 times. I also had a gastrointestinal doctor and urologist.
The GI doctor was in charge of my pancreatitis, and so far we still don't know what caused it. The only way to lower my enzyme levels was to rest my digestive system, which meant that I could not take in any water or food. The IV became my friend as together we endured 3 days of not eating or drinking.
As for my kidney stone, the urologist was concerned. It was only 3mm, which would have hurt like a bitch when I passed it, but it should have passed in a couple of days. After it not having passed for about 3 or 4 days, he decided it was time for an intervention. We had to operate.
My GI doctor had scheduled an MRI slightly before my urologist had scheduled the surgery. I endured about 45 minutes in the MRI as I tried to stay awake and fight the desire to knock out from the morphine shot I had just gotten. Then came the final part of the MRI, where I was told to breathe regularly. As I focused more on my breathing and how the machine would make difference noises when I was inhaling and exhaling, I started to drift from reality. I was starting to hallucinate, but I did my best to continue. Finally, it was over and I was rushed to the surgery room.
After receiving my margarita shots from the anesthesiologist, I was out cold. They went in with a scope and found my stone. Then they took a laser in there and shot the stone. Unfortunately, one of the fragments shot back into my kidney. They couldn't find where it went! So they used a longer scope, and still no stone. What to do? Just leave it! Yeah, that's what happened. I still have a small stone stuck inside somewhere.
When I woke up, I was in pain from the catheter that had not been removed yet. After dealing with the pain of that being taken out rather abruptly, I was taken back to my room.
Then I had to urinate.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well it was the single most painful event of my life. I screamed, I shouted, I bit into whatever was nearby. All that came out was dark blood. After what seemed like forever, I laid down and knocked out from the fresh shot of morphine.
The next day I was doing better, and by Saturday, the doctor said I'm good enough to go home! I was still in a lot of pain and discomfort, but I was really looking forward to leaving the dreaded room that had become my prison.
It sure feels great to be home!
February 26, around 10am: I get a striking pain in my left side that goes from the middle of my lower back to the front and down to the groin. It's a very unusual pain and after a few minutes, I realize this isn't getting any better. Within half an hour I'm taken to a local hospital via ambulance, where I am given morphine while they check my CT scans and blood. Turns out the pain was caused by a kidney stone, which is fairly common. However, the blood test also shows extremely high levels of lipase, an enzyme in the pancreas. Normal levels are 16-63. Mine was at 861. Not good. That's a dead giveaway that I have acute pancreatitis.
All of this is happening while I am about to leave Las Vegas, so I tell the doctor that, although I understand the sense of urgency and seriousness of the matter, I need to get back to LA. I'm told not to eat anything, so I take a bottle of water and unsweetened ice tea on the road and head back.
February 26, 7:30pm: Finally home, I leave for Cedars-Sinai with my parents. When we get to the emergency check-in, we see that it's insanely packed. Oh well, let's wait it out.
February 26: 10pm: A nurse finally comes and gets me to go inside. One step closer to being pain-free. I lay down and wait, and wait... and wait. It takes about an hour and a half to get any attention. They do all the same things even though I have the paperwork from the previous hospital. They finally say I need to spend the night and get me a room.
Quite honestly, everything from February 26 to March 3 (when I finally checked out) is a long blur. I know I was in excruciating pain and 4mg morphine shots became my dear friend. I know I got an ultrasound, x-ray, CT scan, and MRI.
One of the major problems was that I had three doctors. One was my main doctor, who, after meeting me for roughly 2 minutes, told me he is leaving on vacation and will have one of his partners take care of me. My general doctor ended up changing 3 times. I also had a gastrointestinal doctor and urologist.
The GI doctor was in charge of my pancreatitis, and so far we still don't know what caused it. The only way to lower my enzyme levels was to rest my digestive system, which meant that I could not take in any water or food. The IV became my friend as together we endured 3 days of not eating or drinking.
As for my kidney stone, the urologist was concerned. It was only 3mm, which would have hurt like a bitch when I passed it, but it should have passed in a couple of days. After it not having passed for about 3 or 4 days, he decided it was time for an intervention. We had to operate.
My GI doctor had scheduled an MRI slightly before my urologist had scheduled the surgery. I endured about 45 minutes in the MRI as I tried to stay awake and fight the desire to knock out from the morphine shot I had just gotten. Then came the final part of the MRI, where I was told to breathe regularly. As I focused more on my breathing and how the machine would make difference noises when I was inhaling and exhaling, I started to drift from reality. I was starting to hallucinate, but I did my best to continue. Finally, it was over and I was rushed to the surgery room.
After receiving my margarita shots from the anesthesiologist, I was out cold. They went in with a scope and found my stone. Then they took a laser in there and shot the stone. Unfortunately, one of the fragments shot back into my kidney. They couldn't find where it went! So they used a longer scope, and still no stone. What to do? Just leave it! Yeah, that's what happened. I still have a small stone stuck inside somewhere.
When I woke up, I was in pain from the catheter that had not been removed yet. After dealing with the pain of that being taken out rather abruptly, I was taken back to my room.
Then I had to urinate.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well it was the single most painful event of my life. I screamed, I shouted, I bit into whatever was nearby. All that came out was dark blood. After what seemed like forever, I laid down and knocked out from the fresh shot of morphine.
The next day I was doing better, and by Saturday, the doctor said I'm good enough to go home! I was still in a lot of pain and discomfort, but I was really looking forward to leaving the dreaded room that had become my prison.
It sure feels great to be home!
Labels: hospital, kidney stones, morphine, pancreatitis
2 Comments:
how much were you drinking in vegas? a night of hardcore drinking can precipitate a pancreatatic event, but generally occurs in the setting of gallstones that block the pancreatic duct + alcohol.
Actually alcohol wasn't really a factor and they couldn't find any gallstones, so it's a bit of a mystery as to why it happened...
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