Kidney Stones

I woke up a little after 7:00 this morning to Jeff screaming. I thought he was being murdered or something so I ran downstairs and found him writhing on the couch in agony. He couldn't really talk or breathe or describe what was wrong...all he could do was yell in pain.

I ran to get the phone thinking I might need to call an ambulance. When I came back into the room he was on the floor. He couldn't get up on his own and I couldn't get him up so I decided to call 911. All I knew was that my husband was in pain, I was scared and I didn't know what else to do.

We got to the hospital and the doctor immediately suspected kidney stones. They got his IV all set up and gave him a painkiller called dilaudid (same thing they gave me with my gallstones) which helped almost immediately and he was able to relax and rest. They sent him for a cat scan which confirmed the doctor's suspicions- kidney stones. Thankfully there was only one- about the size of a pea- and he passed it while we were in the ER!

He was low on potassium so the doctor had the nurse give him some before they let us go, but after a few hours they let him go home. He spent the rest of the day on the couch sleeping. The doctor said he'll have some residual pain and spasms for a few days so he wrote a prescription for vicodin. He is going to spend the next couple of days resting and drinking lots of water and cranberry juice.

We'll follow up with our PCP and learn what we can do to prevent them in the future. The ER doc said that once you have kidney stones, unfortunately they will come back. He said some patients go twenty years, and some are back within days, weeks or months.

I think our family has had all it can handle between my gallstones and now Jeff's kidney stones!

Thankfully he is okay and on the mend =)