Anyone else having a really bad day? I just got home after having my knee x-rayed after falling on some ice. I have a small hair-line fracture on my knee cap which they said they can't do much about but let it heal. I do have some nice pain pills to take. I'll find out Tuesday when I can return to work but considering the type of work I do, I'm not sure what they are going to say Crap.

I'm sorry to hear that, Laura! I certainly hope it heals fast. Rest well.

Anyone else having a really bad day?

I’m not, but my wife is having a horrible month. She had to take almost two weeks off of work due to back pain/ steroid injection/getting sick. So she's been popping pills* and staying home totally frustrated with the whole situation.

So I can empathize with you. Hurting and missing work is just insult added to injury. I hope everything goes well for you and you recover quickly.

*The pills did result, however, in my receiving a phone message from her one day after lunch along the lines of "Honey, I just called to tell you I feel reeeeeallllly good. *click*"

*The pills did result, however, in my receiving a phone message from her one day after lunch along the lines of "Honey, I just called to tell you I feel reeeeeallllly good. *click*"

I know that feeling right now

Thanks for the well wishes.

I feel reeeeeallllly good

I had an analogous experience in December.

I was passing a kidney stone (don't try this at home, kids, unless you are really into adventure) and the pain medication they gave me was so effective it was frightening.

It did not reduce the pain to a tolerable level -- it absolutely, completely, 100% eliminated it. I could not tell that there was anything wrong with my body, other than experiencing a most welcome warm sleepiness.

But... I did not like being so divorced from what my poor, under-attack kidneys and uretor were trying to tell me. If I'd had more serious complications, who know's if I would have even noticed.

In the end I ended up taking half the recommended dosage at twice the recommended intervals and was able to function and still keep track of what was going on.

tanstaafl.

I like the blue pills.

[Ted]Whoa![/Ted]

Remember, G&T chaser makes all medication more effective.

That sucks. I hope your knee heals quickly.

Anyone else having a really bad day?

Amen. At least technically. I'm sorry to hear about yours.

Let's see, Wednesday night I start helping my friend load the enormous amount of sound equipment he has for running shows because he's giving me a little money for helping him out Thursday night (which is nice since I don't exactly have a job right now). We work for 4 hours, finish loading, go to bed at 4AM.

I get up at 9AM, we start setting up at the venue. We're talking 4 monitors, 2 mains, 2 giant subs, a couple amps, boxes of cables, two mixing boards, an equipment rack, a bunch of other equipment, and a 150' snake. So we set everything up during the day, run sound checks and all, have a nice evening, then pack everything up again and out of the place at 12:30. We then put the stuff away and are done by 2:30. Woohoo! I got $60!

Then I'm driving my friend and his friend back to my house, and all of a sudden they say "hey, we need to go this way" just as I'm reaching the intersection they imply we need to turn at. I turn. Lights go on.

So, for an illegal right-hand turn at the intersection of 25mph roads I get an $84 ticket. I've paid that much for a 74 in a 55! I know I was wrong but $84?

So in 26 hours I did about 21 hours of pretty hard work and got to pay $24 for the priveledge. TGIF indeed.

I wish I could have gotten cool painkillers when I had kidney stones.... All I got from the hospital was "the pain you are feeling is somewhere around having a baby or getting shot" and also the option for them to stick more needles in my arm for an IV ... i'm like greeeeeaat. (I hate needles). They wouldn't give me (or prescribe) any pills either ;-/
Ohh well, once I figured out that the pain was from kidney stones rather then my back going out (I have terrible back problems from a few "accidents") I was alright to deal with the pain.

Moral of the story.... well the really isn't one, but.... FORCE them to give you pills, IV's suck.

-Greg

Anyone else having a really bad day?

Well, not me but my girlfriend did. She's an eigth grade teacher at an inner city school. She had two boys arguing during class so she seperated them and went on with her teaching. A little bit later, the much smaller of the two boys got up while class was going on, walked to the back of the room and punched the much larger boy in the face. The much larger boy responded by throwing the little boy into the cinderblock wall in the back of the class. The little boys head hit so hard that the teacher in the room on the other side of the wall thought they had dropped something. After my girlfriend finished her yelling, she realized that the little boy seemed very out of it and was bleeding profusely out the back of his head. Most children usually try and gather around and watch fights but there was so much blood, that the rest of her kids had to leave the room because it was grossing them out. My girlfriend said she had never seen so much blood at once.

Moral of the story, dont pick fights with people twice your size

When I had my kidney stone, I was in so much pain I couldn't move, or sit still. When I got to the ER, the gave me an IV of Dilaudid. It kinda took the edge off. I said that it still hurt and they gave me another injection. It was into a stint, not another needle, so it was cool. After the second dose, I was floating high as a kite. Needless to say, the pain was gone. They did my CAT scan and send me home with a prescription for 7 dilaudid's. The pill form. (I didn't drive, no worries). When I filled the prescription, the pharmacist handed me a bottle with 15 pills. Not 7. I passed the stone in the next 12 hours, so I only had to take 1 of them. As I was talking to my dad that night, I relayed the story to him. He told me to take the other 14 and dump them down the drain. Apparently Dilaudid is the new class A narcotic of choice for street drugs and goes for $50 a pill. There are people that will kill you for 14 of them. Kinda weird, really.

Oh, and my job really really sucks right now. We have an interim mayor who is making life very difficult for everyone involved at city hall. Basically they're trying to dig up dirt on the previous administration, of which there is none. And they're dragging everyone who works there along with them. They fired a friend of mine yesterday for no reason whatsoever, so needless to say, everyone is on edge. And of course, since I'm the head computer nerd, I'm one of the primary's they're putting through the inquisition. Oh, and they only have 3 weeks left, so they're getting more and more desperate.

Well... not friday.. but Monday for me... Ironically after posting about my kidney stone guess what happens. Today I get woken up with that horrible pain... I couldn't lay down, sit down, or do anything else.. the only thing that made the pain go from a 20 out of 10 to a 19 was walking around a little bit. So I call my schools health & wellness center but the doctor doesn't get in untill 10. I wait it out in excruciating pain and then at 9:45 take a 15 minute walk over there. They do a few tests and determine they can't help me there and that I have to go to the ER. Ok.. so I call up a friend (well ex-gf really) and she says she can take me, only that after I got off the phone they tell me that I should take the ambulence because I wouldn't have to wait once I got to the hospital. I agree only because they have a deal setup where it doesn't cost me anything, but it takes 30 minutes for them to get there. Now it is around 11:30 and it wasn't until at least 2-3 before they injected the pain relivers into the iv. Anyways, now I know NOT to go to the health center because they will only hold me up longer.

The hospital prescribed me motrin and Tylenol 3 (w/codein)... doesn't seem like their going to help all that much when I wake up tomorrow with more pain but hopefully they will. Another thing is that I have classes for the rest of the week... so codein probobly isn't a good idea.

Here's to better days. Cheers,
-Greg

Perhaps the classes are a bad idea...give yourself a rest man!

-Zeke

Perhaps the classes are a bad idea...give yourself a rest man!


No... the classes won't cause any harm, and distractions will help to make the time pass faster. Because all you can do with a kidney stone is wait it out.

It is an amazing kind of pain, totally relentless. It doesn't wax and wane, it never gives you a chance to catch your breath and regroup. It's like somebody clamped a hot alligator clip to your insides and it just sits there and you never, ever get used to it.

Resting (that is, lying down or sitting) does nothing for you. In fact, it gives you too much opportunity to dwell on the pain and just makes it worse. Sometimes a hot shower will reduce the pain for a little bit, but until you actually pass the stone, there is no real relief.

Just in case anybody is interested in the gory details... the pain is *not* caused by the stone itself, and the size of the stone is almost irrelevant. (Most of them range from pin-head size to the size of a BB.) What happens is this: the stone passes from the kidney into the uretor (the tube that connects the kidney to the bladder) where it irritates the wall of the uretor. This irritation causes the uretor to constrict around the stone and stops the flow of urine from the kidney to the bladder. The kidney continues to pump urine into the blocked uretor, and the pressure buildup causes the uretor to swell and stretch until the pressure overcomes the blockage and moves the stone further along. This process repeats until the stone finally enters the bladder. It is the swelling and stretching of the uretor that causes the pain.

Once the stone reaches the bladder, you are pretty much home free. Unless you are straining your urine to try and capture the stone (so the doctor can see which of the several types it is and advise you on diet modifications to prevent recurrence) it is unlikely you will even notice when you actually expel the stone.

Just about the only relief is pain medicine, and unfortunately pain medicine effective enough to reduce the pain to a tolerable level will usually preclude other activities, such as thinking. So, while going to class won't cause any harm, it is not likely to be all that productive.

tanstaafl.

the pain you are feeling is somewhere around having a baby

Some of you guys have been blessed to experience what we mothers go through

Anyway, I am still off of work and will find out Thursday if I can go back Friday or not.

Well I passed the stone somewhere around 3pm. It's about 2-3mm and will be going to get analyzed as soon as I can get an appointment. Hopefully adjustments in my diet can be made to prevent any more occurances as this is my 2nd "adventure" with kidney stones. So now I have that I have felt the pain of having two kids... I DON'T need anymore. ;-)

-Greg

It is an amazing kind of pain, totally relentless. It doesn't wax and wane, it never gives you a chance to catch your breath and regroup.

When I lived with my older brother during college, he had a kidney stone. It hurt so bad that he actually let me drive him to the doctor in his truck. It's the one and only time that I was allowed to drive his truck. It must hurt, badly... He appeared to be in great pain, more than I could ever inflict upon him....
Driving the truck was no big deal, he's just that way about his stuff. I have better stuff, anyways.

It's about 2-3mm and will be going to get analized

Man, I'd just go get it analyzed. Don't risk putting it back in!

-Zeke

This is dead spot on accurate. Mine was relatively small. The pain wasn't. The only funny thing through the whole ordeal was when the CT scan tech was looking at the photo of my kidneys, I asked him if there were any more. When he said he counted fifteen, I was alert enough to sit bolt up on the table but not alert enough to realize he was kidding. It took me a few seconds to realize that he was grinning. Only then was it funny. My dad said he passed one without meds once by lying in a hot tub for hours, without medication. I'm way too much of a ninny for that. Gimme meds and give 'em quick. This from a guy that doesn't like to take aspirin. I get over my anti-painkiller tendencies real quick when that kind of pain is involved.

Man, I'd just go get it analyzed. Don't risk putting it back in!

LoL.. gunna fix that right now.

The first time I had kidney stones I didn't take any meds. I guess after I found out it wasn't my back I was relieved enough to tough it out.

Anyone want a picture of my stone? LOL

-Greg

somebody clamped a hot alligator clip to your insides

I read that as "somebody clamped a hot alligator to your insides". I think my way's better .

So now I have that I have felt the pain of having two kids... I DON'T need anymore.

And unfortunately no amount or type of birth control can help you achieve that!

DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!

All this kidney stone talk!

I am relatively fortunate - while I have kidney stones, most of them usually pass without too much problem or notice. Just a sudden "Oh my!" awareness of passing shards that feel like broken glass at the very end of the cycle. Like just now, for example...

Note that I say "most"... There have been two instances... I can relate to that hot alligator (not the clip, the whole alligator with jaws clamped shut) clamped to your side...

Man, I'd just go get it analyzed. Don't risk putting it back in!

Now I have to explain to my wife why I burst out laughing uncontrollably... And somehow I don't think the "anal" reference is going to go over well...

A follow up: I'm back off of work for another week or two since I have managed to aggravate it and make it worse by working. I wonder how crawling around under counters for the last two weeks running cat5 cables has made it worse I am also supposed to go to physical therapy three times a week for the next three weeks starting tomorrow. If I had a nice easy desk job I could work but I'm not allowed to kneel or squat so that eliminates my job.

If I had a nice easy desk job I could work but I'm not allowed to

Paid leave?

Workers comp?

Sick leave?

Or are you just hung out there going broke?

tanstaafl.

I would be paid by my company thankfully. Now I have one boss saying stay home and another boss saying do what I can which means I'll keep over doing it. I have a feeling it's going to take forever to heal properly.