A week after my 9th chemo, I was feeling great. It was a Wednesday night, October 30th, and I was cleaning my room. I had just done a face mask and sat down to relax when I had a sharp pain in my back. I thought maybe I needed to go to the bathroom, but when I walked into the bathroom I started throwing up. The back pain got more intense and I called for my mom. I couldn't move and the pain was causing me to be extremely nauseous. I finally got up and made it to my bed. We tried everything to make the pain subside. I took a hydrocodone, but I couldn't keep anything down. We tried a heating pad, an ice pack, and massaging it. Nothing would work. We had no idea what was causing the pain. After about an hour we decided to go to the emergency room. I was in so much pain that my body was shaking uncontrollably. The ride to the hospital felt like forever. I couldn't take the pain anymore.
When we got to the hospital, we had to check in. I couldn't even speak to the receptionist. They have to take me back right away because I have cancer. They got me a wheelchair and asked us to wait for them to call us back. I thought I was going to die if I had to wait any longer. Not long after that, they called us back. They take initial vitals and ask what is going on. They brought me to a room, and we waited for the nurse. They were working as fast as they could, but I kept getting worse. The nurse put in an IV and administered dilaudid. I felt the medicine kick in and I was out of it. For some reason, it wasn't helping the pain. After about 15 minutes, she gave me another dose and hung a bag of ibuprofen. It was finally working! The doctor came in and said it could be a kidney stone or a kidney infection. He ordered a CT scan. We waited for the results for hours. The ER was pretty busy that night. At around 4am, the doctor came back in and explained that I have a 4mm kidney stone. He said it could take up to 4 weeks for me to pass it. I was shocked...there was no way I could deal with this pain for 4 weeks! They believed the worst of the pain was over and that the hydrocodone would help if any pain did come back. Every time I would go to the bathroom, I had to strain my pee until the stone came out. They gave me some strainers and said as long as I could keep some crackers and water down, they were going to let me go home. We left the hospital around 5am.
The following 2 days I felt fine. I had no pain at all. I was looking forward to giving out candy on Saturday... it was Trick or Treat! Saturday morning, I went to my grandmas to bake a little and hang out. I was there for a few hours and all of a sudden, I got the sharp pain in my back. I was terrified the pain was going to get bad again, so I packed up my stuff and rushed home. As soon as I got home, I took 2 hydrocodone pills and hoped they would work. It took almost 2 hours for them to kick in, but they finally started working. Whew! The next day I woke up and was immediately in pain. I took 2 hydrocodone pills again, but there was no relief. We decided we would have to go back to the hospital.
When we got there, it was the same process as the first time. When we got back to the room, the nurse gave me morphine. It helped a little, but I was still in a lot of pain. She gave me another dose 15 minutes later. When the doctor came in, he explained that the stone was most likely stuck in the tube between my kidney and bladder. That meant it was causing a backup of fluids in my kidney, which was causing the pain.
In order to fix that they would need to go in and place a stent that would allow the fluids to pass the stone. He explained that if they see the stone while they are placing the stent, they will take it out. But if it is not in a good position, they won't touch it because it could go back up into the kidney. Great, now I have to have surgery! Honestly, I wanted the surgery because I couldn't keep going through the excruciating pain.
They were able to get the OR for me that night. On the way to the OR, the doctor explained that I would not need to come back and have the stent removed. They were going to attach a string to it and tape it on the outside so that I could remove it in 3 days. WHATT?? I have to remove this thing? She proceeded to add, "if the string breaks, you will come in and we will take it out for you." That gave me a lot of confidence, ugh.
The surgery went well! They were able to place the stent and remove the stone. I was still completely out of it when my mom and grandparents came back. I was in pain and felt like I had to pee so badly. The nurse gave me a ton of pain medication. They had given me fentanyl in the OR and then he gave me dilaudid and morphine. My grandma ended up saying "didn't she just have that medicine?' I looked at her and said "please don't listen to her, I need it" lol... I would hope the nurse knew how much he was able to give me. Still very out of it from the anesthesia and pain meds, I insisted that I needed to go to the bathroom. My mom kept saying that it just felt that way and I didn't really have to go because they emptied my bladder during surgery. I wasn't having it, so the nurse brought over a bed pan. I was so confused as to what that was when he put it on the bed. My mom was laughing at the face I was making. I was probably disgusted as well, lol. Yes, she was right... I didn't have to go, it just felt like I did.
After a little while, I wanted to try and get up and use the bathroom. I was very dizzy, so my mom came with me. TMI alert! I finally went to the bathroom and was in shock because it was all blood. Remember, I was still out of it from all the medication and panicked. My mom calmed me down and brought me back to the bed. An hour later, I was able to go home.
The following three days were awful. I was still having back pain, lower abdominal pain and peeing blood. It wasn't as bad as before, but it wasn't good either. I just wanted this ordeal to be over with. My dad called my oncologist to update her on what was going on. Apparently, chemo can cause kidney stones, so she added another pill for me to take to prevent it from happening again. She also told my dad that she would be pushing my next chemo back a week because she wanted me to heal. That's just great...keep adding and pushing back chemo’s why don't we.
Wednesday November 6th was the day I had to remove the stent. For this, I did look for some advice online. I read an article that said to take any pain medication and medication that helps you relax before taking it out. It also said to do it in the bath. That morning I woke up early, I couldn't wait to get it out! I took my medications and waited an hour. I drew a bath and took some deep breaths. I was nervous, I didn't know if it was going to hurt or how bad it would hurt. I got in the tub, took another deep breath and pulled the string until the entire stent was out. It actually didn't hurt at all. Of course, it was uncomfortable but not painful. By the next day, I didn't have any more pain.
That Wednesday Olive got fixed. When she came home, she was completely out of it. She was walking into walls and could barely walk. They put a cone on her head so she couldn't lick the stitches. I felt so bad for my baby. We cuddled on the couch as two patients.
My next chemo was now on November 13th and my last chemo would be December 10th. Nothing else can get in the way of my chemo, it can't keep getting pushed back!
