Exactly one month ago I got sick, which most of you know. I never really ever felt well. On August 10th I went back to surgery for laser lithotripsy and new stent placement. Less than a week later, still not feeling great all week, I started to feel really badly. Simultaneously, my temperature spiked and I consulted the doctor who directed me to return to the ER. My vital signs were crazy high, heart rate, bp, temperature...I felt absolutely terrible. Believe it or not , I was severely septic again with kidney infection and UTI. After a CT and some discussion about transferring me out to a different hospital, it was determined I would not need surgery again and I'd be readmitted to the ICU. They were having extreme difficulty trying to get sticks on me for anything. I hate ABG"s....they draw those from the arterial line in your wrist, and she failed getting the first one. Believe it or not, this time was actually worse than the last. I ran a 103+ degree fever for well over 24 hours with body shaking chills. The lactic acid in my body kept me physically tensed up. Medication did not even touch the fever. I was moved into a "regular" room Monday evening with all the same things going on and I also got a catheter placed as soon as I was in ICU. After my fever seemed to have broke, I became so nauseated I could not think about, look at, or even consider eating and the dreaded headache had also settled in. I felt ravaged. By the early morning hours of Wednesday, nausea turned into vomiting and I was starting to lose it mentally. They finally gave me a "cocktail" of drugs that pretty much just knocked me out and when I woke I did feel somewhat better. By evening, they wanted to see that I could eat and they let me decide if I wanted to go home, which I did. Matt was home one day and had to return to work Friday. Thursday, I became so bloated, it appeared as if I was nine months pregnant about to give birth. Saturday night is the first night I could sleep in my bed, and my ankles had turned into elephant feet with sever swelling. Nausea has been bad each morning, but seems to pass pretty quickly.
I felt pretty good yesterday until I had to go in for the stent removal. About an hour after that I had severe pain and lots of cramping for the rest of the afternoon/night. Could not sleep on my right side. Today, I'm exhausted. Mentally and physically worn. Thank you for your encouraging words and prayers and cards from those who have sent them. They urologist extended my antibiotics an additional week in hopes of this not happening again, he said the risk was high because the bacteria could be attached to the stent and stone fragments. The general consensus is that they never cured me of the bacteria in the first place and when they did the laser surgery they just stirred it all up again. I will need to have a renal ultrasound and KUB xray next month to check the health of my kidney and see the urologist again.
