My Trip to Hospital - Paul's Stone

First of I should say: I'm alright, it was nothing life-threatening. And this photo makes me look far sicker than I was!

Yesterday, I was sitting at my desk when I felt a kind of deep seated aching pain in my lower right back area. I figured it was some kind of cramp, so I stretched a bit, bit it didn't improve. Then, slowly, the pain moved around to the front of my abdomen... And became so intense I couldn't really concentrate. I decided I'd better get myself some attention, so I told my boss I wasn't well and hopped on a tram home... I'd actually ridden my bike in to work, so it is still locked up in the carpark of my office!

I made an appointment with my GP for the afternoon, thinking I could just drag myself there and see what he thought.

I made it part of the way home - I was on the train to Preston when I could hardly breath I was in so much pain, almost doubled over. I managed to drag myself off the train, and then I called myself an ambulance! I really thought I'd ruptured something, and I could barely move.

The ambulance took a while to turn up, then they couldn't quite work out how to get to the platform I was on. I was sitting on a bench, holding my middle and hoping they would turn up and get me some relief. Eventually they found me, and gave me an odd stick of a thing, kind of like a whistle, which had a vile-tasting inhalable pain killer - which proceeded to make me quite woozy.

I had a choice of hospitals they could take me to, the Epworth (private) or St Vincents. The ambulance paramedic said the Epworth was probably the better of the two, and damn it I have private health insurance, I should use it! So they took me there - which was all of about 200 metres from West Richmond stations, so the trip took no time.

They admitted me and bunged me into a bed in their emergency area, and gave me one of those stupid hospital gowns to put on.

Everyone I'd seen, from the paramedic on, had said it sounded a lot like a kidney stone working it's way out of my system, which would have explained the waves of pain. They popped a catheter into my hand, and started pumping morphine into it! Actually, I think the protocol was saline then morphine then saline, to pump it in. They gave me two rounds of that, then something for the nausea it caused, and something again in my thigh... And slowly the pain died down.

I'd spoken to Deb a couple of times, and she had had a good solid fret! Eventually they gave me a phone at the hospital and I told her where I was, she dropped everything and made her way there.

I had a CT and an x-ray, which then got sent off for an assessment. The CT scan dude and the x-ray lady made their own quick diagnoses that indeed it was a kidney stone.

So then it was just a matter of waiting. The pain had kicked in about 12.30 in the arvo, by about 6PM I was feeling in less pain, but a bit damn woozy. And indeed bored, so I stared relaying the whole saga on my twitter stream much to the interest of my followers!

The official diagnosis came back - a stone of 6MM in size, which is considered quite large. Apparently these things usually work themselves out, albeit painfully... Great. So it's probably still making it's way down my urethra... So I'm at home with panadeine forte (a strong pain killer) and an anti-inflammatory. So we'll see how I go over the next couple of days.

Oh, and I have an appointment with a kidney guy tomorrow evening...