The day of the kidney stone removal procedure I woke up really nervous. I had never been put under general anesthesia before and was unsure how Theodore and I would do with bottle feeding and 'pumping and dumping' for 24 hours. From what the doctor said, I knew that some pain would intensify after the surgery and that the stint he would put in would also be 'uncomfortable' until it was removed on Sept 4th. I sorta felt like a lamb going to the slaughter and saw a small glimpse into what Chris may have felt each time he had a biopsy or chemo or some other procedure. He knew it was going to make him sick and feel terrible and yet he walked into the hospital and patiently let them hook him up. The farther into the procedure I got, the more nervous I became... wearing a hospital gown, hair net, laying on the bed hearing them tell me about what was going to happen, getting wheeled away from Chris and down the hall to an operating room. The IV went in first try and after feeling dizzy for a few seconds I fell asleep. Meanwhile the doctor used a scope to enter my bladder through my urethra, found the stone just inside the ureter, and blasted it into tiny particles with a laser. Then he slide a stint in(a long tiny plastic straw that would connect my kidney all the way into the bladder) to help the particles pass, protect the sensitive ureter and help it to heal without problems.
I woke up feeling so relaxed and sleepy. I just wanted to lay there longer and enjoy being so comfortable but they made me get up and go to the bathroom, shoved a cracker in my face to eat and told me to get dressed! It probably wasn't that mean, but it kind felt that way. Then I double checked with the nurse which medications were OK to take while breastfeeding. She wasn't positive and got the doctor to come talk to me. He looked up stuff on his tablet and then told me that everything he normally prescribed he couldn't because it wasn't safe while breastfeeding: neither the oxybutine (or something like that) for general pain, nor the pyridian (or something like that) for numbing the urinary tract. But he said I could just take ibuprofen and oxycodone I'd gotten from the ER the previous Saturday to help with pain. Also I should drink lots of water to help with the UTI pain.
I wanted to cry that I couldn't take the numbing stuff because I HATE UTI symptoms. Anyway, I get home and am so relieved to find out that Theodore takes a bottle just fine! yay! But as the day progresses the pain gets worse and worse. I drank SO. MUCH. WATER. which made me have to use the bathroom all the time and it stung so bad every time I urinated... like I was getting stitches there or something (and that sensation was all too familiar having just given birth and endured about 30 minutes of getting stitched up 2 weeks before). I just sobbed every time and pretty much cried in bed between trying to follow doctors orders to get up and walk around to prevent blood clots... which is more of a concern since I was postpartum. I was so uncomfortable I couldn't sleep and by midnight I started vomiting and couldn't keep liquids or medication down so Chris and I headed to the E.R. again, leaving Theodore and the rest of the kids sleeping with James and Dixie at home.
They got an IV in first try and blessed pain relief came. They did an EKG (not sure why) and basically just gave me pain and nausea medication. The pharmacist came by to talk to me about what was safe to take while breastfeeding and she said the numbing stuff, pyridian, WAS ok to take while breastfeeding. Yay! After being discharged we stopped by the pharmacy to pick up some more medicine and got home around 5:00am. I had almost been awake for 24 hours. I was so tired. The urologist doctor called the next day to apologize for not being able to get in contact with the ER doctors the night before and was surprised to hear that the ER pharmacist told me pyridian was safe because all of his research showed that it wasn't.
Chris and I weren't sure who to believe and so Chris did some research and came to the same conclusion as our doctor.. that it wasn't safe while breastfeeding infants younger than 1 month. But by now, the numbing medicine was doing a decent job of masking the pain and I needed to keep taking it so I just continued to pump and dump to keep up my milk supply and we bottle fed Theodore.
The days passed not very fast and I was still quite uncomfortable with the stint which was causing all the UTI itchy/burning/painful and very frequent urination. Plus I had to strain my urine to catch the stone particles so we could get them tested and determine what KIND of stone it was so we can hopefully figure out how to avoid creating them in the first place. So anytime I left the house or used a different bathroom I'd have to grab my strainer and glass bottle. Plus Chris had to go to work and so did Dixie so I was on my own during the day with Theo, Max and Freddy. Both Sarah and Tiffany come down for a morning to help distract and help me. They're angels.
I wanted to try and wean myself off the oxycodone and pyridian as soon as possible since the oxycodone is addictive and can cause constipation and the pyridian because I wanted to be able to breastfeed Theodore again. I hadn't had a bowel movement since before the surgery and even then there weren't too many before that since giving birth. I wonder if some of the pain and cramping was caused by that too! Within a week of the procedure I was finally off all those meds and could breastfeed again. The pain was more manageable and only really happened to smallish degree when I urinated with occasional bladder spasms.
The day of getting the stint removed I was happy but also nervous again, since I was told the symptoms would increase again and be a little painful for a little while. I was totally unprepared for the pain following the original procedure and worried it would be worse then I thought again. Removing the stint was quick and mildly painful (thanks to the laughing gas!) and within 2 days I was completely pain free. WHEW! What a journey. As I researched a little about what causes kidney stones it seems to be a combination of stress (putting a house on the market? being pregnant with #6? gestational diabetes? moving across the country? changing jobs? living with my large, loud, messy family with the inlaws? new baby? MAX?) lack of water (nursing always depletes me of water), and high protein diets (which protein is one of the things I COULD eat without messing up my carbs with the gestational diabetes)... etc. Sometimes it just seems I can't win. To avoid being devoured by one hungry lion, I jump in front of another hungry lion...or however the phrase goes. I meet with the urologist again in a month to see about what the stones were made up of and how I can avoid this in the future.
All along the way, in the toughest moments when I cried to my Heavenly Father with being at the end of what I thought I could endure, I was blessed and my situation changed/progressed within a short period of time to something more manageable. Although I felt like I didn't deserve any peace or comfort because I'd been lacking in good scripture study with all the craziness of summer and moving and having a baby, He still comforted me. His mercy covers the undeserved.
