He woke up this morning with some strong pain on the right side of his belly button. We got ready to go to our NARFE meeting in Plant City anyway and left the house at 10:45. At that time, he was still in pain, but he felt that it would go away.
During the luncheon meeting, he started to feel REALLY bad. He looked bad to me, and I asked him twice if we needed to leave the meeting early and head to an ER. He said no, but as soon as the meeting was over, around 2:15 or so, he said he was in extreme pain and ready to go to the ER.
We drove straight to the Osceola ER because that's our "neighborhood" hospital and where we knew our family doctor had privileges. He tried to get an appointment at the doctor's office, but they didn't have anything left for the day.
Well, we were pretty pleased with our treatment at the ER. They had an efficient, electronic sign in system. He scanned his driver's license, added a little bit of other information, and sat right down. It was only about 5 minutes before he was called up and got his name bracelet. About 10 minutes after that, he was in triage having his BP, temp, and history taken. Then we sat about another 10 minutes before he was called back. All in all not too bad, I thought. Everyone we had encountered so far was very efficient and polite.
A paramedic took him back inside the ER and asked me to wait in the waiting room a little longer. He had blood drawn, a urine specimen taken, and an IV set. Very soon he was back waiting with me for a bed to open up. It didn't take long. He was assigned to Hallway Bed 2! I commented on that, and they said when they were crowded they had to use the hallway. There were no chairs for anyone to sit by those beds, but he was fine sitting up and sharing the bed with me.
The doctor examined him and sent him for abdominal CT scans. We were all concerned about the appendix or the gall bladder. Surprisingly, the tests all came back negative and so did the blood work. His urine showed a small amount of blood in it, so the doctor thought maybe he had passed a very small kidney stone today. Maybe...but we remain unconvinced. Mark has gone through phases where he has had blood in the urine and no reason has ever been discovered. It has been awhile since it happened, so this wasn't too surprising for us. He's also had pain in the abdomen in the past and many CT scans and Upper and Lower GI tests with drinking the contrast. Nothing has ever shown up. The reason today concerned him more was that always before these pains were on the left side and today's pains were more intense and on the right.
So, we were in the ER for a total of three hours, from 4-7 p.m. and we felt that the hospital and its staff did a good job. No one wants to go to an ER, but I've had worse experiences in the Laurel hospital before. During those three hours, Mark started to feel better, but as soon as we started walking to the car, the pain increased. We went to dinner at a Ruby Tuesday, and he also had pain after dinner walking back to the car.
We shopped at Publix on the way home and got home at 10 p.m. It's been a long day. Currently, he is sitting comfortably in front of the TV, watching an original Star Trek episode. He said he is in no pain right now. We are hoping that he wakes up tomorrow with no symptoms.
Thanks to everyone who sent their love, prayers, well wishes, and support to us via text messages, Facebook, and emails. It really kept us going during the long three hours in the hospital. Social media, technology, smart phones, they all really do help in situations like this.
BTW, It's National Ice Cream Sandwich day. I'll be having mine shortly.
Becky,
ReplyDeleteI'll be thinking of Mark tonight. I hope that he gets better soon. My husband has had a few kidney stones in case that is what Mark had. They are very painful.
I hope that he doesn't have any more pain, but if he does don't hesitate to get him back to the ER. It was not uncommon for people in our city to have to go to the ER more than once to finally get an issue resolved.
I will keep both of you in my prayers tonight.
I have had severe kidney stone issues on three occasions: 1984, 2001, and 2003. In 2003 it was surgically removed. Once they discovered the tumor on the parathyroid gland and also put me on allopurinol, I never had another episode. He never seemed to have THAT kind of hideous pain, so that's one reason I'm skeptical that it was a kidney stone. He never felt like he had a bladder infection or felt like pacing or felt like he had to urinate with pain all the time. Those were my symptoms. I wss screaming and had to have morphine! If he had a stone, it must have been darn near microscopic to have caused so little pain, in my opinion. Still, I guess anything is possible.
ReplyDeleteBecky,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry as I didn't realize that you were "experienced" with kidney stones. I was always used to taking care of people that were screaming in pain from kidney stones while on Morphine or Dilaudid pumps in the hospital. I was kind of surprised a few years ago when my husband got his first one and he was just maintained on Vicodin at home. The man who used to be the pastor of our church is 65 and gets kidney stones regularly and stays at home with them and takes Vicodin and does fine too. I think the size and shape and location of kidney stones makes some difference in the severity of symptoms. But the important thing is that I hope he stays alright and free of pain. I hope you guys have a great day today.