Kidney Stones

I first want to start with a huge THANK YOU for everyone who has checked in + sent up prayers! It means so much to me and I am grateful for each and every one of you. I wanted to share my experience from the past week and give a little update. Plus I wanted to write something down that people could refer back to if they are every struggling with kidney stones or debating on surgery.

MY KIDNEY STONE EXPERIENCE

: MY HISTORY WITH KIDNEY STONES

The first time I had kidney stones was 7 years ago when I was pregnant with Harper. I woke up early that morning with back/side pain. I had no idea what was going on. I knew I wasn’t going into labor, but my body immediately started vomiting due to the severe pain. I was worried about the baby so we went to the emergency room. At the hospital and they put me on morphine to control the pain (honestly, my pain tolerance is pretty good) and told me it was a kidney stone and I’d pass it in a few days. But I didn’t pass it until 14 DAYS LATER!! I don’t remember why we never got the stone tested, but I regret it now. Not knowing the cause of them. So there’s a little backstory.

: MY RECENT EXPERIENCE

Flash forward to now… I had a hysterectomy 5 years ago, so I haven’t had cramps since then. But the past 6 weeks I’ve been cramping. I still have my ovaries, but not my uterus which is what usually causes cramps. I’ve also been having bad back pains too and just thought I pulled something. I felt like garbage and honestly just accepted the pain, thinking it was normal. Well, last Sunday I started getting really bad cramps at church so I decided to walk home (we live right across the street) and my back pain immediately set in and I couldn’t walk. I literally crawled to my phone and called Joe. He took me to the emergency room, they did an CT scan and found 3 kidney stones…. a 6mm, 4mm, and a 1mm. Because we were leaving the country in five days and the stone I was trying to pass was 6mm, the urologist was highly recommending surgery. They typically do surgery for any kidney stone over 5mm because it’s too big for your body to pass.

They gave me medication to help my body pass the stone on my own (which was only an 40% chance) but I wanted to try this route so they sent me home. I waited a few days and hadn’t passed it yet. We were preparing to leave for Mexico Friday night, so I was hoping to pass it on my own without surgery. I really didn’t want to do surgery; I even called the doctor a hour before and told him I wasn’t doing it. Right after Joe called some doctor buddies up North and they just told us to do it. They said it wasn’t worth the risk to possibly pass the stone in Mexico, be in pain, or even be life flighted home. They all recommended that I do it so I did.

After the surgery Wednesday, I felt worse than I ever had!!! It was the most pain I’d been in. Because they were able to go up into my kidney and retrieve all three stones + leave a stent. If you don’t know what a stent is, it’s a tube like object that connects to your kidney and comes out your urethra. They say that 3 out of 5 people are fine pain-wise with the stent, but 2 out of 5 aren’t. So I was paranoid about how it would affect me. When I got home, my body went crazy. I was shaking uncontrollably from the anesthesia (which is a common side effect) and none of my pain meds were kicking in. I could tell Joe was getting a little worried so that’s when I knew something was wrong. About an hour later, everything kicked in and I felt better.

: OUR DECISION TO GO TO MEXICO

Joe and I were still debating whether or not we should go to Mexico. My parents had offered to take the kids and Joe meet up later but that wasn’t sitting well with us. This was a trip we had planned with my whole family over a year ago and family time is the absolute most important thing to us.

I asked Joe to give me a healing blessing Friday morning. Him and his dad gave me a beautiful blessing and ever since then, my pain has been bearable. Which I have been so grateful for. We literally waited till the last minute to make a decision and ultimately decided to come to Mexico since we had enough meds to get me through the week if things continued as they did. The meds definitely have help, but they do have big side effects on my body. Hence why I avoid taking them at all costs. I’m 6 days out of surgery and I FINALLY feel like I’m not dying. Joe was actually going to pull my stent out this morning –  because I just can’t handle it anymore, but he couldn’t find the string! So when we get back, I have to have surgery to get it taken out.

Honestly, I would recommend waiting as LONG as you can before doing surgery and try to have you body pass the stone naturally. I have been in constant pain and my body hasn’t reacting well to the stent. I feel okay when I’m staying up on meds, but again the side effects (for me personally) are awful. I’ve had one girlfriend say that her kidney stone surgery went totally fine and another girlfriend who said her stent pain was unbearable!! Everyone’s experience totally different, and this is just mine.

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I wish I would’ve been able to read + learn about other people’s experiences before getting the surgery, so I hope this blog post helps somebody!