Kidney Stone Update

I intended to do this Wednesday night. But I was so darn tired, I went to bed early. And last night, after a Relay for Life meeting, I caught up with email and Facebook instead of blogging. So, today I'm finally updating you on the plight of the stone.

Well, I learned this. The average human can only pass a stone up to 4mm. Only SOME people can pass stones that get up to 5mm. So, there was NO WAY that Jeff was passing a stone that was 6.6mm by 8.2mm. The reason he had to wait until Wednesday to have his stone removed is because that was the first day that the urologist had surgery hours.

So, all of Monday, we kind of expected Jeff to pass this stone. He was so disappointed when they told him he needed to stay in the hospital until Wednesday morning. Tuesday, he was down-right miserable. I know this because he was on more medication than Monday and he was WAY meaner. Between the pain and the drugs, he was an absolute BEAR.

Twice, he kicked me out of his room. I was upset, of course, because I'm an emotional being. But on the positive side, it gave me the opportunity to go outside and enjoy the glorious day. At first I thought I was just going to take a walk so that I could blow off some steam and get a breath of fresh air. But it didn't take long, my friends, for me to truly appreciate being outdoors. By Tuesday evening, I was feeling a little better and Jeff was handling his pain a little better.

I rented a couple of movies and took my laptop to the hospital. After visiting with a couple of friends, Jeff and I had movie night. It was BY FAR the best part of the day. We watched "Taken" with Liam Neeson, where is daughter is taking a vacation in France and is abducted. It was really good. It made for a late night though.

After saying good night's and I love you's, I headed back to God's Country and Jeff was drugged back to sleep. When I got home, I packed some of Jeff's things and set my alarm for early.

I was back at the hospital again by about 6:15am. Jeff had to be at Jasper Memorial by 8am and the roads through Ireland are still closed due to high waters. So, we were going to have to travel through Loogootee. Jeff was NOT in a good mood, did NOT want to be out of bed, and felt EVERY pothole on HWYs 50 and 231. At the same time, I was thinking that I could have used a couple more hours of sleep myself, but I appreciated the fact that the potholes were keeping me awake.

We arrived at Jasper Memorial at 7:45am. The lady at the reception desk said that we were really early. I'm thinking, only like 15 minutes early. She then told us that Jeff's procedure wasn't scheduled until noon. I asked her why on earth the surgeon would want us there four hours early. She had no answer for that.

Nevertheless, we were ushered back to a pre-op room. Jeff was accustomed to getting toradol every six hours AND dilaudid (or nubane) every two hours. His last dose of the dilaudid was at 6am when we left Daviess County Hospital. So by 8am, he was ready for another dose. Well, that wasn't to be. It wasn't until about 9:30 that he even got his IV. At around 10, they gave him .5cc of dilaudid. That's 1/4 of the dose that he was getting every two hours in W'ton. He simply glared at the nurse administering the meds.

But honestly, Jeff was really pretty quiet in pre-op. Whereas Tuesday he was loud and angry and everyone was feeling his pain, Wednesday he was moaning and mumbling and kinda/sorta sleeping. I'm guessing that his mind and body were just so absolutely exhausted by this time.

At any rate, Jeff was pulled into surgery at noon. An hour and a half later, I was called into the consultation room with Dr. Foertsch (pronounced furch). He said that the stone was huge and hadn't moved a bit since the CT scan in the ER Sunday night. He also said that a ureter is normally the width of a pencil and Jeff's had the diameter of a nickel due to that stone. He said that the ultrasound shock-wave thing only proved to knock some of the edges from the stone, but did nothing to break it up. He then turned up the laser and 'cut' the stone into three pieces. So, they'll have plenty to test and analyze. Thank God!

All in all, the surgery went very well.

Tonight, at 6:15pm specifically, he has another appointment to have the stent removed. I am not looking forward to that and I KNOW Jeff isn't. He's been warned that it will be painful. He's been doing mostly okay since he got home from the hospital(s). But he's seeing a lot of blood and that concerns him. The doctor assures us that it's perfectly normal though. So, we'll know more tonight. Pray for Jeff. That he truly is on the mend and that everything he's feeling and seeing is perfectly normal. And that his appointment this evening goes quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Also pray for Jeff and his school work. He stopped by the high school today to find out everything that he has to accomplish in order to qualify to graduate. He has a lot to do. Normally he would have been given more time due to being in the hospital, but with graduation, there simply isn't time for that. There's a hard and fast deadline to meet in order to officially be a graduate. So, everything has to be done by the end of the school day on Wednesday. Thank God for the three-day weekend! I think we're going to need every bit of it.