dear god (also a lot of talk about the mechanics of peeing)
so today i went in and had laproscopic kidney surgery. i handled the anesthesia with flying colors, so well that after 5 or so hours the doctors determined i could leave since by that point i probably wouldn't have any issues. it was slightly risky but i was in SO much pain and there was nothing that could be done in the hospital aside from pump me full of fentanyl or versed and those were accomplishing minimal results (plus we think they might've caused the cardiac problems i had last time, though it could've just been the surgery or having a bunch of bones broken and removed from my skull). i think i handled this surgery better because even though in some ways it was more active than the sinus stuff, it was about 90 minutes vs 5 hours and i am assuming that much of a difference in exposure to triggers probably makes a marked difference. i also decided that i wanted to leave the hospital after someone who appeared to no longer have a face was wheeled by, and that was enough for me. though my surgical team was AWESOME, both my kidney dr and my anesthesiologist are total rock stars who completely deserve all the praise and accolades they get (one is the head of urology and one is the head of critical care anesthesia. it is sort of disheartening that the most awesome pseudo backstage pass access i have to all these brilliant people is because i have a very rare and very curious disease)
all that said, this is _seriously_ some of the worst pain i've been in in my life. i think if you combined the worst menstrual cramps, nausea, UTI (i think, i've never had one), and the worst kidney stone together and that would explain the recovery. while this surgery is WAY more successful than ESWL and has less potential for negative side effects, I now understand reading so many reports about how people who had both procedures would go back to ESWL.
ESWL is sort of like a not terribly painful procedure where you lay under an xray your body is battered with sound waves that are targeted to destroy the stone which results in a few weeks to possibly a month of discomfort as you pass what is essentially sand in your urine. it's gross but it's tolerable, i think because it happens slowly. Laser surgery involves laying under an xray while a camera and a laser being inserted (at the same time) into your urethra, up your ureter until they find the stone and then zap it with the laser until it is pulverized and then go and clean out your kidney. The camera has some sort of attachment on it that sucks up the stone fragments to be analyzed. it is awesome in that unless they screw up or the stone is too hard, they can get the whole thing in one go, which means you WON'T have to strain your urine for a couple weeks on some gross stone collection hunt that you have to bring to your dr to analyze. it also means not pissing sand for weeks on end.
BUT it means that you have a bunch of fucking machines stuck up your urethra at the same time. Since I cannot tolerate NSAIDs, which are typically used during the procedure, i missed out on a pivotal pain management part of things which means that everything from my kidney down is on fire. This would happen regardless of the NSAIDs but it's about 100 times worse because I couldn't take them. Plus since I had said machines stuck up there, my ureter, if left unattended, would swell shut, so i have some sort of internal catheter stuck there for the next two weeks. so instead of having a few weeks of moderate discomfort you have a couple days of hell.
seriously i cannot remember the last time i had such intense and constant pain. this probably trumps two weeks ago when i discovered the stone in the first place. it's just this deep constant pain that suddenly and randomly gets overshadowed by the most intense spasms i've ever felt in my life. i wish orgasms were this strong but then i think i'd be afraid of orgasms. it's really amazing how painful this is. Me and my trusty tylenol will get through it though. what i've heard is that the first 24-48 hours are the worst and then things start to settle down and your body acclimates to the stent and the spasms stop after your insides get over the trauma of having a laser go pewpewpew inside them (still, a laser, how awesome!). i'm lucky in that my stone broke up pretty quickly and they only had to use the laser on a relatively low setting. otherwise i think i would've took the hospital up on 24 hours of access to pain meds (yeah i know there are fentanyl patches, but due to the masto i need to have constant supervision on that drug which means either post op recovery or ICU)
my kidney was in pretty rough shape apparently, all swollen and completely blocked off. like, i can see and feel the difference on the left side of my body, which is kind of gross, but kind of awesome because when you brush aside all the mind numbing pain that might drive me crazy, i actually feel pretty fucking amazing at the moment. it's one of those times where i had -no- idea how absolutely miserable this thing was making me until it was fixed. like, the results were pretty instantaneous, which i guess makes sense since the blockage was removed as was the gunk inside my kidney. so that is fucking awesome. like really really really awesome. it makes all this suffering completely worth it.
let's hope i feel this optimistic tomorrow.
all that said, this is _seriously_ some of the worst pain i've been in in my life. i think if you combined the worst menstrual cramps, nausea, UTI (i think, i've never had one), and the worst kidney stone together and that would explain the recovery. while this surgery is WAY more successful than ESWL and has less potential for negative side effects, I now understand reading so many reports about how people who had both procedures would go back to ESWL.
ESWL is sort of like a not terribly painful procedure where you lay under an xray your body is battered with sound waves that are targeted to destroy the stone which results in a few weeks to possibly a month of discomfort as you pass what is essentially sand in your urine. it's gross but it's tolerable, i think because it happens slowly. Laser surgery involves laying under an xray while a camera and a laser being inserted (at the same time) into your urethra, up your ureter until they find the stone and then zap it with the laser until it is pulverized and then go and clean out your kidney. The camera has some sort of attachment on it that sucks up the stone fragments to be analyzed. it is awesome in that unless they screw up or the stone is too hard, they can get the whole thing in one go, which means you WON'T have to strain your urine for a couple weeks on some gross stone collection hunt that you have to bring to your dr to analyze. it also means not pissing sand for weeks on end.
BUT it means that you have a bunch of fucking machines stuck up your urethra at the same time. Since I cannot tolerate NSAIDs, which are typically used during the procedure, i missed out on a pivotal pain management part of things which means that everything from my kidney down is on fire. This would happen regardless of the NSAIDs but it's about 100 times worse because I couldn't take them. Plus since I had said machines stuck up there, my ureter, if left unattended, would swell shut, so i have some sort of internal catheter stuck there for the next two weeks. so instead of having a few weeks of moderate discomfort you have a couple days of hell.
seriously i cannot remember the last time i had such intense and constant pain. this probably trumps two weeks ago when i discovered the stone in the first place. it's just this deep constant pain that suddenly and randomly gets overshadowed by the most intense spasms i've ever felt in my life. i wish orgasms were this strong but then i think i'd be afraid of orgasms. it's really amazing how painful this is. Me and my trusty tylenol will get through it though. what i've heard is that the first 24-48 hours are the worst and then things start to settle down and your body acclimates to the stent and the spasms stop after your insides get over the trauma of having a laser go pewpewpew inside them (still, a laser, how awesome!). i'm lucky in that my stone broke up pretty quickly and they only had to use the laser on a relatively low setting. otherwise i think i would've took the hospital up on 24 hours of access to pain meds (yeah i know there are fentanyl patches, but due to the masto i need to have constant supervision on that drug which means either post op recovery or ICU)
my kidney was in pretty rough shape apparently, all swollen and completely blocked off. like, i can see and feel the difference on the left side of my body, which is kind of gross, but kind of awesome because when you brush aside all the mind numbing pain that might drive me crazy, i actually feel pretty fucking amazing at the moment. it's one of those times where i had -no- idea how absolutely miserable this thing was making me until it was fixed. like, the results were pretty instantaneous, which i guess makes sense since the blockage was removed as was the gunk inside my kidney. so that is fucking awesome. like really really really awesome. it makes all this suffering completely worth it.
let's hope i feel this optimistic tomorrow.