More Medical Drama

Monday, January 27, 2025

Written by Kodi Wolf at 12:45 PM

Remember all the medical drama with my wife back in October? Well, I guess it was my turn (not that hers is over).

The urologist who did the emergency surgery to put in her stent was the same one who did my lithotripsy back in 2018. So since we were going in to see him anyway for her, I decided to go ahead and make an appointment to see him myself because I'd been getting twinges of kidney stone pain for several months even before all the stuff that went down with my wife.

I was hoping I was being a hypochondriac, but after they did a CT scan, he came in and just told me to follow him and I was like, "Oh, that sounds ominous." And then he pulled up the scan on a monitor that showed I had a 14mm kidney stone in my left kidney (shaped like a footprint) and another 3mm one in my right.

He offered me lithotripsy or laser lithotripsy, saying the laser one was more effective but also more invasive, so I chose the regular shockwave lithotripsy because I'd done it before and it had gone fine, and he agreed.

To make an incredibly long story short, it did not go fine this time.

They ended up having to call 911 after I came out of the mild sedation because I was in so much pain and they couldn't get it calmed down. It turned out I had a hematoma (bruise) on my kidney, which at first they were worried might be an active bleed, but thankfully it wasn't (I stayed overnight in the CDU for observation to make sure).

Unfortunately, they'd only managed to get the kidney stone down to 8mm x 8mm, so then the plan was to schedule me for the laser lithotripsy to finish the job, but I didn't have an appointment to see my urologist for another week, so they wanted me to manage my pain until then, though I would still have to wait until the actual procedure could be scheduled.

That went about as well as the lithotripsy and I ended up having to call 911 myself later that night when the pain meds weren't doing anything because I was afraid I was going to go into shock.

After spending the night in the ER, the doctors agreed pain management wasn't going to work, so they scheduled me for the laser lithotripsy later that day.

Thankfully, that procedure went a lot better and they were able to cut up and remove the largest fragments of the stone left over from the previous procedure, one of which was stuck at the end of the ureter and was probably causing me the most pain.

They put in a stent to keep my ureter open in case inflammation tried to close it up.

They also discovered I'm allergic to another antibiotic (gentamycin, got hives all over my neck and face), so yay. When I was coming out of the sedation and they told me, I was just like, "Of course I am."

I spent another night in the hospital and then they finally sent me home.

I was able to get the stent removed at my original follow-up appointment with my urologist a few days later and peed out the remaining 1mm and 2mm stone fragments once I was back home.

I've had a few twinges of kidney pain since then, but I'm hoping everything's okay now. I have a one-month follow-up next week, so we'll see.

Anyway, so between my wife nearly dying and me being out of commission, the website and the membership software update have taken a backseat, though I'm proud to say I somehow managed to get my writing done each day and haven't broken my streak (9 years and counting).

It was close a couple times, but I got at least 100 words every day (even in the hospital, my wife brought my laptop) and I've actually had several 2,000-word days, so I'm currently above my goal of averaging 500 words a day.

We're both still trying to get back into some semblance of a routine, but it's been hard. She's still constantly exhausted and I still have fibromyalgia, so at this point, I'm happy just getting basic life tasks done, like making dinner and taking a shower.

I have no idea when I'll be able to get back to updating the website with the new membership software, let alone new content.

But I am still writing, so one way or another, there will be updates at some point.

It's just going to be awhile.

But like I said before, if you need the latest epubs for any of my stories, just send me the info for your membership, so I can verify you're a member, and I'll send you the files.

And I'll make sure to post updates here to keep everyone informed, since I don't have an easy way of mass emailing everyone right now.

I hope everyone's doing well (or at least better than we are :) ). Take care.