Oh yes... had a really nasty kidney stone in the right kidney. I actually started hurting Friday morning, but I made it until just after noon before I had no choice but to fall of the bed and pass out. It didn't hurt too much as long as I stayed lying down, but the minute I stood up, I got severe pain and my bladder did it damnedest to empty right then and there. Back to bed. Lannie tried to get me up Saturday morning, but my body was not complying. I think it was noonish when she finally managed to get me awake enough to be semi-coherent. Now I have to give five gold stars to her because ever since Friday night, she has done evening and morning chores (cows, cow milking, horses, chickens, feral cats) ALL BY HERSELF. I have been totally unable to contribute in any manner until tonight when I managed to take out the garbage and feed the feral cats, at which point I was sufficiently dizzy to almost fall over. Anyway...
By Saturday afternoon, the pain was so bad and I was passing out so often, Lannie thought I was gonna die, so she dialed 911 and the ambulance showed up and took my ass to the ER at Ft. Meade VA (Sturgis, 75 miles from here - and why the hell does the suspension on the battle-tank ambulances have to be so stiff that every bump feels like they drove in the ditch?) Anyway, one of the ER nurses nagged me (again and again) to pee in the bottle and all the time I was waiting for her to bring me a bottle, but she had already placed it between my legs - now how the hell was I supposed to see it down there? Anyway, when I finally did pee in their bottle so they could do a urine test on me, I obviously passed the stone. It hurt to pee it out, but after it was out, the vast majority of pain subsided. The ER doctor asked the CT scan girl to come get me and do my head and lower abdomen, then after she brought me back, he asked her to do a couple chest X-rays. When that was all done, the doctor told me that as far as he could see, there was not a single thing wrong inside me except for a few gall stones. I told him that I have had those since 1998, so what is causing these extra symptoms (passing out, dizziness, throwing up, etc.) and he said I probably had the flu compounding the kidney stone. I told him I doubted that because the last time I had the flu was 1967, so he had a nurse ram a swab up both nostrils to test which kind of flu I had (the test came back yesterday and I do NOT have the flu). Lannie and I pondered what was left (the nice doctor never did make his courtesy call back) and have decided that the chemical imbalance of the kidney stone might have over-driven the balance of various chemicals in the gall bladder and I am simply having a short term reaction where too much bile is spilling into the duodenum (nausea, vomiting, dizziness), so I stuffed some herbal capsules that should restore the balance and we'll know more in a week or so.
Until then, I do not know how I can manage to stay up this late, but I'll give it a shot.