A Kidney Infection Synopsis.

Some of you may not want to know all of the nitty gritty of last week, but I feel like I need to blog about it, because when it gets down to it, the entire week was just a crazy sort of events that I probably will never forget.

Basically Tuesday I woke up feeling kind of queasy, but I wrote it off as being hungry, since most mornings I forget I haven't eaten breakfast until about 9am. After eating breakfast the feeling didn't go away, but I wasn't letting that stop me from going on a Walmart run with the boys. We went rather late in the morning, so B and I split a cup of popcorn chicken... probably not the smartest decision at this point in the game, but I was desperately trying to make the nausea go away, even if it meant eating what most people would keep an arm's distance away from in that same circumstance. When we got home I could tell I was going downhill fast, so I hurriedly got the boys fed. At that point I was in a good amount of abdominal pain too, so it was hard for me to even stand. Shortly after the boys were in bed I tried to take a nap, but didn't get far into that before I lost my stomach. I made it through the rest of day without incident, although the nausea was still there.

Wednesday I woke up feeling better, and a little hungry, but I was scared to eat anything, so I ate crackers for breakfast. One of my good friend's Dannis came over that morning to help with the boys and just hang out. I was feeling ok by lunch time, enough so that I made myself a plain turkey sandwich. About 20 minutes after eating though, things went downhill. Dannis left after I got the boys to bed, but during their naptime I started having really bad pains right underneath my sternum. This was also accompanied by nausea and a sick to my stomach feeling. When I called Dannis to let her know I was sick again, she thought I might need to go see a doctor. So she came back to my house to graciously watch the boys. I think here is the critical error, that is really my own fault. You see, all summer I've been saying that I need to get established with a doctor. We rarely get sick, and even more rarely do we go to the doctor. So if I need to go I end up just going to a walk-in clinic. I've never had any problems for walk-in clinics, but then again, I've never had abdominal pain accompanied by nausea and throwing up. When I went to the walk-in clinic, the person on call was a nurse practitioner who quite possibly had the worst bedside manner of any medical professional I have ever seen. He literally came in, asked what's wrong and I quote "well, not much I can do for you other than what you're already doing. Here's some phenergan. If the pain persists or comes back, you need to go to the ER because it could be your gall bladder". When I questioned him about the pain and shorness of breath I was experiencing again, he palpated my stomach and abdominal region (he had not laid a hand on me before that point) and just said "yeah if it persists I'd go to the ER." FOR REAL?!?! I filled my Rx and went home. Dannis was awesome and agreed to watch the boys till Drew got home so I could go to bed. Poor Drew was a stay at home dad from Wednesday through Friday morning. And to top things off, Wednesday night B woke up 3 separate times vomiting... and Drew had to clean it up all by himself. He's super dad if there ever was one!

I basically was in bed from Wednesday night through Friday morning. Yall, I was SO sick that drinking made me nauseated, but at this point, nothing was coming out. So basically I had the chest/abdominal pain, extreme nausea and I was TIRED from not being able to sleep. It was like a never ending cycle... feel bad, don't eat/drink, feel better, eat/drink, feel bad... you get the picture.

By Friday morning my back was hurting SO bad that I couldn't even lay without wanting to cry. I figured it was from me being in bed for so long, so I tried to lay on flat surfaces, have Drew massage my back, sleep sitting up... you name it, I tried it. By Saturday morning, when I was feeling a little less nauseaous but my back was still in pain, Drew sent me to a massage therapist in hopes that it would help. And it did, but only for a little while. I got home desperate to eat something (remember, at this point I had not eaten since Wednesday's sandwich and the fluids were not as much too). I tried my hand at french bread, and when I did OK I tried fried rice. Almost immediately eating sent me into EXTREME pain. Connor was awake with me, but Drew and Brayden were asleep. It got so bad that I had to wake up Drew and tell him something was WRONG with me. We consulted a few friends and everyone agreed that I needed to go to the ER at this point because I could barely function. We got to the ER around 6 that night, and by 11:30, after some blood work, a urinalysis and an ultrasound, it was ruled that I had a pretty awesome kidney infection.

It wasn't until Monday that I felt a little better, and Tuesday I felt much better other than just exhaustion, which I think can be attributed to the lack of eating. My body is slowly regaining strength. I lost a little over 5 pounds, which doesn't sound like much, but if you know me then you know it's a lot of weight! I really think, looking back on things now, that if I had seen a REAL doctor, or even a half way decent nurse practitioner, that they might have caught this before it got so out of hand. At the very least they could have ordered an ultrasound from their office, saving me the 5 hour wait and ER bill that ensued due to me not really having any other options at that point.  I have a follow up appointment with a doc next week, and will be making a well visit as soon as he thinks I will be well enough to do so. SO... my PSA of the day is to make sure you are established with a doc :)

Thanks for all of the prayers during this entire ordeal... they have definitely been felt and make me realize just how blessed I really am! Since I am still recuperating I am going to take it easy this week on blogging again, but we'll be back in full swing next week for sure!