My Kidney Stone Ordeal: The Five Possible
Worst Days of My Life
You know, I understand that life
is “not without a struggle”, but why can I not live my life in one piece more than
a whole year without any obstacle?! My experiences by far at Stonehill have
truly been some of the happiest days of my life. At the same time, it has also been a true
roller coaster! For a period of time, life is great and the people around you
become even greater. You find yourself
high off life; floating like a butterfly, you become invincible (at least you
think). And then the next moment, you get a rude awakening and it brings you
back down to reality. It is almost as if God is telling you to stop getting too
far ahead of yourself. But anyways, enough of the philosophical talk. The point
is, my experiences at Stonehill by far have been bitter sweet. What are the
sweet times? Becoming a member of ALANA-A Big Brother Big Sister (ABS), the
Peer Mentor team, and getting to experience the 2012 Spring break in NOLA New
Orleans. And then came the bitter, the rude awakening of a lifetime; losing a
friend/hall mate in the worst way known to man. Like DAMN Stonehill, what else
do you have in stored for me over the next few years? I mean, should I even be
looking forward to my junior year? Absolutely! But seriously, how annoying! At
the same time who or what should I be annoyed by? God? The world? Society? My immune
system? I can’t really say God because God is after all the reason I’m still
here in the first place. The reason I am able to keep pushing through my struggles.
I can’t really blame my immune system either. Well, because it’s not always
that I get that sick. As a matter of fact, never have I been that sick, at
least as long as I can remember. Kidney stones? What the hell is that? My usual
illness is coughing my life away once every random period of the year. Colds
don’t even have a chance because I usually kick it to the curb. And then all of
sudden Kidney stones? I guess I’m not nearly as immortal as I think I am after
all. My unusually painful discovery of Kidney stones was that reality check I needed,
unfortunately. A few Wednesdays ago, the 19th of September was truly
one of those days I’ll never forget. Sitting in my Elementary Spanish class,
waiting for the last 20-minutes of class to end, I started feeling a pain in my
lower abdominal, Physicians would say. I
completely underestimated the pain, even after class. Went to get breakfast, a
cup of fruit to be exact, no help. Used the bathroom, no help. Took my keys and
decided to take a trip to the health services. It became the longest 3-minute
walk of my life. I had to stop twice to make sure I wasn’t going to lose my
balance; by the second stop, the pain had moved to my left lower back. Oh boy,
I thought that was the end of time for me. I walked into Health Services and
within 5-minutes they called the ambulance and I was admitted to the hospital.
Admitted to the hospital? In an ambulance? When had that ever happen to me?
Never! Like they say, there’s always a first time for everything. There surly
is a first time for everything because from the uncomfortable ambulance ride,
with IV stuck in my arms and oxygen in my nose even though I didn’t even need
it; to life in the ER for about 5-hours. After rolling around for a solid half
an hour, I was finally given meds to slow the pain. During the 5 hours I was in
the ER, I came across about 5 or 6 different physicians, all specialized in
different things. From an IV by a student nurse, to a blood drawing, to a urine
test, to a CAT scan. The CAT scan and the Urinary specialist who was my main
nurse were my personal favorites. They had personalities much like mine;
relaxed, friendly, outgoing and always wanting to get to know more about
someone on a personal level. I pretty much became best friends with the CAT
scan dude. Quick facts: He was this small built man, born and raised in Haiti
until his sophomore year of high school. He played soccer for a couple years
and could have gone on to play in college but chose not to. He chose to focus
on the academic aspect of college instead of the social life of a varsity
athlete. This was where we connected because I personally also had the choice
to play a varsity sport, football but I chose to focus more on the academic and
leadership aspect. He then went on a rant about
how I made the right decision because of how short an average football player
career is, and how even with college football you aren’t guaranteed a spot at
the pros. He then made a very important point about how he’s been in the
business for 12-years and can go on for another 30-years if he wants to, unlike
a pro football player. So how did I find the time to know all this about the
specialist and have such a life conversation? Well, this all happened between
him giving me two giant plastic bottles of what he called “banana smoothies” and
the trip to the CAT scanning room, and in the middle of undergoing the
treatment. I am not sure if this was all to distract me from the pain, but it
most definitely worked. As for my lady nurse she just wanted a pee sample and I
just could not pee! For hours and hours of being drugged up, I just kept
knocking out and waking up. I felt like I needed to pee but it just wouldn’t
come out. She would come in like, “do you have to pee yet?” The usual response
was “nope!” I was then finally discharged with Percs for the pain and who knows
what else, to smooth out my 2-millimeter Kidney stone. The nurse came in once
again like “still haven’t peed yet? All I want is a tea spoon!” This made me
laugh a little even though I wasn’t in this best mood to laugh. She sounded
somewhat frustrated but I did end up giving her what she wanted and got out of
there as fast as I could. What amazed me the most that day was the amount of
teamwork it takes to diagnose a problem. Everyone came in, did what they needed
to do and left. It was pretty cool to see everything I’ve learned in healthcare
so far in full action. I mean of course I would rather not have seen it take
place on me, but hey what other options did I have? What I did take away at the
end of my overall ER experiences was how terrible of a customer care system the
Good Samaritan Hospital has. It wasn’t necessarily the specialists, because they
were all great people, it’s the hospital system. I haven’t been to enough
hospitals to judge based on all hospitals, but from my short-terms personal
experiences, I am willing to make the judgment against the Good Samaritan. I
realized that my second trip into the ER for extreme nausea. For a solid day
and a half I could not stop throwing. I probably puked about six times between
Thursday night and Friday until I left for the ER. I thought it may have been from
the hard medications, but nope, according to the doctor it was effect of the pain.
Throwing up is apparently a usual reaction to pain caused by Kidney stones.
Well it surely was great to hear that, because my girlfriend (MaryCharlotte Buck) and Stonehill’s
health services thought I was dying or something. Well anyways, now that I was
back in the ER, I could not get a bed! I waited for a solid TWO hours along
with my friends who I feel like I owe my life to: MC, my roommate and brother
from another mother Austin Alfredson,
his girlfriend Tori aka Vicki Kane
and Julia Kennedy. While sitting
around waiting for medical attention, the meds had worn off and the pain had
kicked in. The longer we waited the more the pain progressed. I suppressed the pain, took a nap, woke up, and still no
help. When I finally did get a bed, it took me another couple hours to see a
doctor. I got there at 5-ish and didn’t
see a doctor until 10:05PM to be exact. All I wanted was quick medical
explanation to why I had been puking my life away and how to prevent it. A
process that could have been dealt with really within 20-minutes! Such torture
I went through that night. I understand that with hospital systems, services
are not always given on first come first serve basis. It is mostly based on the
intensity of a situation, or who is in need of the most medical attention.
Which is completely understandable as a Healthcare Administration Major, but
all I wanted was some type of meds to knock me out! I didn’t mind lying there
peacefully or waiting patiently until those who needed more medical attention
were taken care off. The problem was it was not a peaceful wait! As my
girlfriend saw, I was rolling around on the bed, in pain like I’ve never had
before this whole ordeal! I would love to have been exaggerating this
situation, but exaggeration is the farthest thing from the pain I felt those
first couple days. There’s really no way
to actually describe the kind of pain Kidney stone patients endures. A student
IV nurse told me he’d met a few parents who have had kidney stones in the past
who said it was more painful than giving birth in most cases. That is pretty
much the best way to articulate the pain caused by kidney stones. Looking on
the bright side, that night was really the last night of the most painful
stages of my kidney stone experience. I do remember the nurse stating that the
pain level would drop as soon as the stone falls into the bladder. What she did
not specify was how I was going to feel next.
UTI anyone? Urinary Tract Infection? Yes UTI! Men much like me before
this experience, wouldn’t know a thing about UTI, but women can surely attest
to everything I am going to say about UTI. So after my last night (Friday) at
the ER, I realized the difference in pain. It was no longer the giant cramp
kind of feeling down my lower Abs; the pain became more of a constant burning
sensation. The most uncomfortable stage of passing Kidney Stones; From Saturday
morning until the passing of the Stone on Monday evening, I felt as if I had to
pee every second. Imagine the feeling you usually get in the middle of the
night. The feeling of wanting to pee really badly. The experience that causes
you to wake up in the middle of the night and run to the bathroom. Imagine that
experience but every second of the day.
And did I also forget actually having to go to the bathroom every
fifteen minutes of the day? And waking of 3-4 times a night to use the
bathroom? How else can I express how miserable I felt? The Monday evening after
my Urologist appointment, I passed the stone. No pain like many people
expected. What shocked me the most was the color of the fluid I saw coming out
of my body. It was not pee for a fact. Someone once told me it may have been
blood; it did not look like blood! This fluid was more mud water looking than
anything; brown! With the brown fluid came the Stone of course, which I was
able to keep track of. I had to pee in a medical funnel for the entire five
days. Attractive isn’t it? I did not use it at all times of course because I
refused to take it with me when I finally left the house. I just hoped it
didn’t pass when I was out; the physicians wouldn’t have been so happy with me.
What I found even more interesting was the before and after effect; the night
and day feeling. I came from having this painful sensation in my bladder to
being alive again! All within seconds. That particular experience was quite
strange, but it made me the happiest man alive. So why and how did I get a
Kidney stone? Long story short, it is really a matter of luck. Luck because
Kidney stones are made from a high consumption of calcium. Since when have
calcium been a negative effect? Dairy products? Ice cream? Vitamins? What?! Did I also mention high consumptions
of proteins? I am African for Christ’s sake. All we do is eat meat! Well
according to the Urologist, I have a 10% chance of getting another one within
the next 10-years. His recommendation? Drink, Drink and Drink! Not alcohol of
course, but lots of fluid. You don’t have to tell me twice! Not going through
that again.
