Saturday, February 16, 2019

Birthday Stones

This is not a post about my birthday.
And it's not really a post about Tyler's birthday.
That will be later.


Because all festivities were put on hold for Kidney Stones.


On my birthday (five days before his), Tyler noticed something was up. Not the good kind of up either. The blood in your urine and slight pain in your side kind of up.


The day before HIS birthday, things hit the fan. I got a call at 7:30 in the morning from a frantic Robyn who was with a Tyler in serious pain. I drove out there and we went over to the hospital. The stones had decided to make their presence known. This was not a very happy day for Tyler as seen by his expression.



Luckily, Beth was nice enough to come take kids back to the car and June drove the truck home. She also took Daisy out to her ballroom competition and I joined her later. (What would I do without good friends?)

There was a CT scan and Tyler was told there were two stones about 5mm each and that perhaps he could pass them on his own. So they gave him pain meds and sent him home telling him to come back on Monday.

That was a long weekend, and needless to say, we did NOT celebrate his birthday the next day. Monday rolled around and they decided to schedule a lithotripsy just like the last two times. But they only do them on Mondays so they scheduled him for the following Monday. The lady laughed at Tyler when he asked if they could just do it that day. And so, he hung in there for another week. Not the best week of his life.


By the following Monday he was starting to feel okay. The stones must have moved to a less painful spot, but we knew they weren't gone, so we went ahead with the plan to blast them to oblivion. Does this look familiar? We might have been in the same room as last time for all I know.


Tyler was annoyed at me for taking silly pictures, but I like to make him laugh. Buck up little cowboy. It'll be alright.


The procedure went much the same as last time. I sat in a waiting room until the doctor came out to get me. He said they did a great job blasting them down, but he decided to put a stent in this time to make sure the kidney could drain properly. Tyler came out of anesthesia a little groggy, but he is always up and moving quickly. However, he did NOT like the stent.


It made him feel like he had to go to the bathroom all the time. They told him he could take it out on the weekend, but he decided Friday would be the day. Out came the stent. Can you believe how long it is?


The stent seemed to have been blocking the sand, since he didn't find any until after it was removed. Since then, he has been feeling pretty good and we finally celebrated his birthday fifteen days late. (But whos counting.)  


It has only been three years since the last episode of stones, so this is much too soon for Tyler's comfort. He is planning on getting a full work up on his kidney and an analysis of the stones so we know better what to avoid and what dietary adjustments to make. Hopefully these will be the last stones he sees for a while, and certainly no more on his birthday.

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