What a weekend

First off I have to deal with a Vocational School that is so unorganized that it doesn't really know at the first day of class whether or not it's classes are completely full or not. So, I find out that the industrial welding course is full, which is to be expected given the rumors of the natural gas pipeline going to be built and/or ANWAR.

I help my aunt customize a Dell laptop, the phone rep stayed online for 2 1/2 hours configuring the system and doing what he could to match the system she was going to order from Costco (west coast equivalent to Sam's Club). I should have asked him for a percentage of his commission, without my input on a lot of the items he wouldn't have made the sale. Anyways, it arrives sometimes this week, tomorrow hopefully and then I'm busy installing a wireless network to the aunt's cable modem.

Late Friday night I began to rehydrate, pushing water into my system at a fast rate. Looking back I'm not sure if I should have taken it slower or if it was inevitable that my left kidney would decide to push kidney stones through my system. I had an idea that it was going happen when the kidney remained sore more then a half hour after pushing water, so I took a couple of quick dissolving Excedrine and waited for the worst to happen.

And boy did it ever, not as intense as the first time I had a kidney stone thank goodness for the pain killers, but the pain was enough to have me praying to the porcelain god for a few hours. I'd managed to pass a couple on my own but after 2 1/2 hours of pain, I could no long keep any sort of fluid down to keep pushing the others, so I threw in the tower and went to the ER.

I must say, I'm rather liking the medical facilities in the private sector, having spent my whole life going to government doctors/dentists. The doc on duty actually listen to what I had to say about my symptoms and the path of the pain. After doing a quick check discovered blood in my urine, they went a head and started an IV and started me with some meds to control the nauseate.

That didn't work too well, the extra water just caused another to kick loose and soon I was back praying, this time to a stainless steel god. Deciding I had enough, I requested some pain killers, which I refused the first go around. Morphine, my first encounter with that one, I got demerol the last stone. After an hour and a full liter of water later, I still couldn't go, but I was no longer in intolerable pain so they discharge me saying there wasn't really anything else they could do, so I might as well go home and get comfortable as best I could. To help with any further pain once the morphine wore off they gave me some vicodin, which I promptly took before laying down and passing out from exhaustion.

I spent the rest of the day Saturday pushing fluids, but ended up feeling bloated since lots were going in but little was coming out. Sunday things started to kick loose and I felt like I wouldn't leave the bath room. The bloating left but my insides felt like I just got in a gang fight but forgot to bring my own gang. It hurt to breath deeply, cough, sneeze or laugh, I was miserable and refused to take any more meds since the pain wasn't bad just a nuisance.

Being still exhausted, I was fighting sleep all day long and decided to head to bed early about 7 pm. I awoke at 2 am, still in some pain and still sore but not enough to keep me from drifting back off to sleep.

Now here's the strange part. After crashing at 2 am, sometime in the middle of the night I dreamt I met up with one of my friends who asked me why I was in pain. After explaining what happened and what I was feeling he gave me this cream to massage into areas that I still felt pain. It was a light blue in color, with a faint hint of sun screen. I woke up this morning completely devoid of pain, not even any lingering soreness in my kidney.

I know sleep is when the body heals itself, I'm just wondering how much my decision not to be in pain anymore sped the process up.

So, now I have a few doses of vicoden that I'm going to have to keep close tabs on, I doubt I'll be running into any more circumstances where I'll be needing them. I should just flush 'em, but I'm one to keep stuff since I'll never know just when I might need it.

I'm just glad I remembered to mention to the kind of cute doc when she was doing a palpation on me that I am ticklish or she might have decided that by my reactions I might be worse off then a kidney stone.

Hopefully everyone else's weekend was more enjoyable.