Another grain of sand..

Conestoga Campground
White Sulphur Springs, MT

We arrived back at the campground

just in time to help with the ice cream social on Saturday night.

I think we've both gained a few pounds having free ice cream 2 nights a week :-)

About 11 o'clock that night I woke up with excruciating pain on my right side.

I laid there wondering..

gall bladder, appendicitis, or drat, another kidney stone?!

Two years ago I had one on my left side,

but I couldn't remember exactly how it felt.

Besides, that one started in my lower back

and moved to the front.

When I started getting nauseous from the pain,

George drove me to the local ER here in White Sulphur.

It's such a small hospital, we had to ring a buzzer to be let in..

..not an easy task to wait when I'm doubled over!

Since I was the only patient,

they quickly took my blood pressure (sky high from the pain!),

and got an IV going to administer pain meds.

As you can see the pain meds weren't kicking in yet :-(

The nurse on duty had to call in the doctor

who was staying at the hotel next door.

Apparently they have 'fill in' doctors on the weekends.

He came over and ordered a CT scan

to determine if another kidney stone was the problem.

They called the local CT tech in,

and he did two scans..

one with dye and one without.

Oh baby, that dye being flushed through the kidney

is much worse than having a baby!

They all confirmed that I had two stones..

one at the bottom of my right kidney,

and one in the Ureter.

That was the one that was causing such pain!

The doctor finally gave me stronger meds and I felt terrific.

Because of the one in my kidney they decided

I should go to Great Falls for further discussion with a Urologist.

Great Falls is 2 hours away, and since my pressure was so high,

of course an ambulance ride was recommended :-(

So...they called the ambulance to come get me.

By now I think I've woken up everyone in town :-)

It's about 4 am at this point, and I've had no sleep.

I'm in the back of the ambulance with a blood pressure cuff on my arm

and an oxygen sensor on my finger.

There were two EMT's, one driving, and one in the back with me,

who insisted on talking to me the whole 2 hours :-(

Anyway...we get to Great Falls hospital,

I'm put in a room, vitals taken,

and the ER doc on duty tells me that there was no reason

I needed to come up there!! Grrr...

He told me he would have sent me home with pain meds, etc. and let me pass the stone.

I can't even imagine what all this is going to cost us!

He told me the stone in my Ureter was likely in my bladder by then,

and the one in the kidney will be there for who knows how long.

George arrived about a half hour after I got there,

they gave me prescriptions and sent me on my way.

This was about 8:30 am by now.

Sunday the Walmart pharmacy doesn't open until 10 am,

so we sat around and waited :-)

Last night I passed the stone without incident or pain.

Now I have 3 prescriptions sitting in the drawer for the next time.

I did ask the doctor if there's anything to prevent these in the future, 

but he didn't give me any hope.

Not much can be done unfortunately.

Drink lots of water, which I do constantly through the day.

Nothing I'm eating or not eating causes them.

We don't eat much red meat, our sodium and calcium levels are normal.

I'm just lucky I guess!