The Saga. Otherwise Known As “Where Have You Been?”

There’s a story. Of a girl name Bobbie. Who was making and creating with a very lovely family. Then one day she had a kidney stone attack……… And that is where our story begins.  If you’ve followed me for awhile than you probably know that I have a grisly history of kidney stones. 15 years ago I had my first kidney stone attack as a young 20 year old. I was living with my dad at the time and neither of us knew what on earth was going on.  He called a female neighbor over to help me get dressed to go to the hospital while he changed his clothes (he had been working in the yard). I don’t remember much about that day but I do remember rolling on the living room floor in agony while a lady with the strongest country accent you’ve ever heard stood over me and in a thick drawl said, “don’t worry – this happened to a girlfriend of mine, it’s just your ovaries exploding”.  A few hours later I woke up at the hospital from a morphine induced haze to hear the words, “kidney stone” which was a huge relief when the last thing I had heard was that my ovaries were exploding.  Since then I’ve made similar trips to the ER 8 times, three in the last 18 months. Every time I’ve been able to pass the stone by myself, without surgery. I know the symptoms of when an attack is coming and I know that I’m going to throw up and that I need to get to an ER as fast as possible.  This past October 28th I woke up in some pain but it wasn’t as bad as kidney stone pain. Mr. Byrd was getting ready for work and the concern was etched into his brow. However there’s two days a year that are mandatory that he’s at work. This happened to be one of those days. So as I took a pain pill and crawled back into bed, he left for work.  I made it through the day OK and tried to figure out what was going on. I truly thought that I might have a bad UTI or maybe even the start of a kidney infection.  But the day got better so I put it to the back of my mind and just powered through.  The next morning I went with our exchange student to get our nails done and then our entire family met friends for lunch. During lunch I started feeling bad again.  I went home and went back to bed when the usual kidney stone symptoms started. That’s when I knew that my plans to help our exchange student get ready for her fancy homecoming dance that night wasn’t going to happen. We quickly called friends to arrange a ride to homecoming for her and another friend to pick up our kids while we headed off to the ER.  Hours later the ER doctor came into the room and congratulated me the new bundle of joy I was bringing in the world. That’s when I got really confused and Mr. Byrd looked a little panicked. The Dr. clarified that the bundle was actually a huge kidney stone, so big they had passed the films around the nurses station.  But of course in my hard headed stupor, I was determined to pass the huge stone by myself.  I waited a week to get an appointment with the urologist because I knew that any day I would be able to pass the 9mm stone. It didn’t happen. I chugged some more pain pills and made the appointment.  A week later at the appointment I asked the Dr. if we could wait two weeks to see if I could pass it before we resort to surgery. He happily agreed and pointed out that not only was I dealing with a 9mm stone but there was a 4mm right behind it.  Two weeks later I was back in his office and we discovered that the 9mm and 4mm had joined forces and it was now a 13mm mass and unable to pass into my bladder, which has to happen for it to pass without surgery.  So I had the first surgery, laser lithotripsy, and then I spent three days pretty much asleep. As I weaned myself off the really strong pain pills and onto a gentler one, it became apparent that something wasn’t right.  They had placed a stent between my kidney and bladder that my body was very unhappy with. So for the past week and a half I have dealt with pain and bladder spasms. The more active I am, the more it hurts. Plus my body knows something is off and I’ve just been tired.  It’s at a point where the pain meds I’m living on are giving me a mushy brain and I’m not the mom or wife that I want to be. My family is amazing and it’s become apparent by how they’ve taken care of me.  But I’ve been having major pity parties. To be 100% truthful, I feel weak and a little ashamed that something as small as kidney stones are making me this way.  I’m having a hard time accepting that I can’t deal with this situation better.  The final blow was discovering last week at a Dr. appointment that the stones he removed from my body during the surgery are very hard and will not be broken enough by shockwaves to pass. So that means that our plan to use shockwave lithotripsy, which is noninvasive, to get rid of the kidney stones still in my kidneys will not work.  However I’m in a lot of pain from this stent and there’s large kidney stones still in my kidneys that won’t pass on their own so something has to be done.  That’s why this Friday I’m going back for a second surgery. It is an out-patient procedure but it is invasive and requires general anesthesia. I’ll spare you the details but it will take another week of recovery before I hopefully get back to normal.  That’s why you haven’t seen any new ideas or crafts in awhile and I’ve been absent a lot lately. Stick with me for a little while longer and hopefully in 2017 we can use our glue guns to our hearts desire.