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Punch to the Side

Lauren

Self-indulgent complaints and navel-gazing below the fold:

As of tonight I am supposed to be feeling better, but after four days of laying around as much as possible, the pain in my flank has yet to subside. Walking hurts, lifting hurts, moving hurts, and as my boyfriend figured out this weekend, laughing hurts.

No laughing allowed.

This is a dullish pain, one that isn’t so bad as long as I sit, lay or stand perfectly still. Once I get a-moving it feels like a punch in the ribs.

I went to school today and taught as best I could — a disappointing setback considering I was on the verge of a benchmark upswing in method and morale — holding back the grunts and grimaces as much as I could. Tonight I finally went to see a doctor in person who had little more to offer than stronger antibiotics.

Don’t you have anything with morphine?!

And then, once I got home and began to do more work, the pain spread. It is no longer restricted to the right of my back, but now wraps around to the front of my ribcage.

I’m pissed off. This is my short week, this is my easy week, this is a freakin’ holiday week — and all I want to do is sit around in sweatpants and

not

move

one

bit.

26 thoughts on Punch to the Side

  1. If you can afford to, go to an emergency room. The wait may be awful, but you ought to at least get (1) a CT scan and/or KUB (kidney, ureter, bladder x-ray) out of it, which might reveal a stone or some other factor exacerbating the pain, and more importantly (2) Dilaudid.

    It’d be worth you going for that last alone. No way should you spend Thanksgiving week immobile. Nuh-uh.

  5. Whenever I hear that phrase attached to medical treatment, I get angry.

    So send the person in question some of your resources.

    I, for one, would, if my resources weren’t also wildly depleted…by medical bills.

    One of these days, we’ll realize that basic health care is not some sort of luxury to be achieved by those who succeed. Especially since there are countless people who might be more successful if they had adequate health care, or were not crippled by medical bills before they even got a chance to start.

  7. I have no advice, but I will say this. It’s not self-indulgent or navel-gazery to complain when you’re in pain. You’re entitled. We’re here to listen.

  8. If you can afford to, go to an emergency room.

    Who can afford to go to an emergency room? I shit you not, my old healthcare plan would charge you money if it wasn’t “an emergency”… it was their way to keep down costs.

  9. kidney infection and stones can go together – I’ve had that fun while pregnant. Definitely get seen where they can do some imaging but if your doctor has sadistic tendancies about wanting you to be cleaned out pre-imaging ask if there are alternative imaging options since the clean-out stuff (go-lytely or the like) is a miserable combo with kidney stone/infection.

    feel better soon!

  11. I had a raging kidney infection about two years ago that almost put me in the hospital. And a mind numbing series of lesser infectiosn for about a year after. I’m on repressive antibiotics now.

    Anyway, I found that taking 800 ml of ibuprofen really helped my pain. It took quite a while to stop hurting, even with the enormous amount of antibiotics I was on. Make sure you finish them all. Cause if it doesn’t go away completely, it will come right back.

    I hope you feel better really soon.

  12. Go to the hospital sooner than later. As someone who had the misfortune of spending a Christmas in the emergency room, I can tell you it probably won’t be too much fun on Thanksgiving. Go NOW.

  14. I hope you’re feeling better soon, Lauren.

    A visit to an acupuncturist might be an affordible option for you, depending on where you live, especially if you can get to a student clinic at a traditional chinese medicine (tcm) school. TCM is really fabulous for pain management.

  15. I had a similar problem around this time last year. It was almost exactly what you describe. It turned out to be a ruptured ovarian cyst, which my doctor ascertained by process of elimination (saying, “you simply don’t know what to do you with yourself with a kidney stone. So it’s probably a cyst.”). All was well in a few days, but the week I spent in gut agony was no picnic.

    I hope you figure out your ailment and feel better soon!

  16. A little rant on the health care system, if I am allowed:

    A big problem is education.

    It’s educating kids, families, and especially young parents in first aid. My dad works at a hospital and tells stories of the ER being filled with poor families with small children when all the kid has is a fever. It’s not their fault – they just don’t know! – but they SHOULD. And this is not in the big city, this is in a tiny farm community in the midwest. I shudder to think what it’s like in larger cities.

    End of rant.

    Lauren, I’m sorry you’re feeling so crappy. Do go to the ER and DO go at an odd time (during the day?) so you don’t have to wait too long. I hope the long weekend gives you enough time to feel more human again.

  17. Oof, Lauren! That totally sucks. If the antibiotics aren’t at least helping your situation after a day or two, you might consider beating down some other doctor’s door. I’m not a doctor, myself, but it sure seems like if you have an infection, that the drugs should either a) kick in and you feel better, or b) not kick in because it’s not an infection in the first place.

    Hope you feel better soon!!

  18. Robert: My “resources” consist entirely of being a Canadian citizen. Now, if you’re sugest a sham marriage so Lauren can get citizenship and come up here for treatment, I’m fine with that.

  19. Whenever I hear that phrase attached to medical treatment, I get angry.

    So send the person in question some of your resources.

    I don’t think I have enough resources to be of any practical help to the whole 20% or so of the US population that lacks health insurance. I always thought that protecting the population from large threats to its safety was the government’s job.Far more US-Americans die every day from heart attacks and cancer–and, for that matter, from kidney infections that go septic–than die from acts of terrorism or being shot by Iraqis.

    Lauren, if you’re still feeling bad after 24 hours on the new antibiotic, definitely go to the ER. Go sooner if you feel worse at any point. Or just go now. And specifically ask for pain killers. Some doctors assume that you don’t want pain killers, either because you’re not in much pain or because you don’t want to take morphine, if you don’t ask for them. If you don’t want to hit the ER yet, consider calling your doctor and asking him or her to call in a prescription for something for pain for you. (/unasked for advice.)

  20. Poor parents and kids go to ERs when they can’t get care anywhere else (like when the free clinics are closed or otherwise inaccessible), when their medical benefits have run out, or when they know they would be turned away from other healthcare facilities because they don’t have insurance.

    And fevers in small kids can be very frightening. Let’s keep the rants directed at the industry and not poor/young parents, okay?

  21. Who can afford to go to an emergency room? I shit you not, my old healthcare plan would charge you money if it wasn’t “an emergency”… it was their way to keep down costs.

    When my father died at home, my brother called 911, who dispatched an ambulance, who transported him to a hospital because they couldn’t do the declaration — and my mother’s insurance company refused to pay either the ambulance bill or the emergency-room charge because Dad hadn’t been admitted.

    Um, yeah. Because he was DEAD.

    Last year, I had to visit the emergency room because of a dog bite, and I was damn lucky I’d just gotten insurance coverage two days before, because the charges were well over $900 for simply cleaning out the wound and giving me an antibiotic.

  23. jackie-

    if you reread my post you will see i wasn’t blaming those poor young families. I was blaming the fact that no one is effectively educating those that need it on health care and preventative matters. If it came off like I was being self-righteous, I apologize. Not what I meant at all.

  24. It is your right as a human being to complain (I know that isn’t in the Constitution, but it should be!). So no apologies necessary!

    And I must add my voice to the chorus: you really should consider visiting an urgent care or ER, especially if the pain is spreading. At least you may be able to rule other ailments out (like you don’t have enough to deal with already!). I know sitting in an ER for 6 hours is a pain, figuratively and literally. Not much of an alternative, is it? Well, I do hope you feel better, and soon. Take care.

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  26. Oy. poor you.

    I have the kidney infection of all time atm (complicated by kidney stones, reflux and end-stage renal failure, and yes, I’m under the care of the hospital, thanks)) and the pain is exactly as you describe – like being kicked by a damned donkey every time you breathe in or even have the temerity to move slightly. I do have morphine, but even that doesn’t totally kill the pain. As I live in NL I can legally smoke dope, which does help – or at least it makes the pain easier to bear. Thank glod for for sane drugs laws.

    My sincere sympathy, but just remember this too shall pass as will the antibiotic-induced diarrhoea :).

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