Matthew called me at work to let me
know that he thought he had a kidney stone and needed to go to the ER. He was
able to get a friend to pick him and Cooper up and bring him into the ER. Since
it was just a kidney stone, they went to Covington, since it was the closest
one and we thought we’d give them another try. That was our first mistake. They
did some studies and low and behold he did have a kidney stone. They diagnosed
him with a 15 mm Staghorn kidney stone which is one that he had not had before.
They are created from ongoing kidney infection. So, on top of the kidney stone,
he also had a kidney infection which needed to be treated and Acute Kidney
Disease.
Of course, I didn’t find this out
until the end of the day so after work, I headed right to the Covington ER and
spent the evening trying to figure out what the plan was. Since there was no
one capable of dealing with it at the Covington Hospital, they were waiting on
a room to open up at the Auburn Hospital where he was going to be admitted. Cooper
and I waited with Matthew as long as we could, but around 11:00 pm, Matthew
sent us home to get something to eat and some sleep.
The next morning, we woke up and
packed our bags to go back to the hospital to see Matthew again. We got to
Covington only to find out Matthew was not there… he didn’t remember being transferred
to Auburn in the middle of the night and they never contacted me like I
requested. Another strike against Covington… on top of the fact that instead of
giving him pain meds they only offered him Toradol which is not good for kidney
issues. My frustration with Covington ER continues to grow every time we go
there… so once again they are on our DO NOT RETURN list.
Cooper and I finally find Matthew at the
Auburn hospital where he is a little more comfortable. The next step was to place
a Nephrostomy Tube into his kidney to drain the blocked urine. They had already
started him on IV fluids and antibiotics.
Cooper and I left him briefly during
the surgery to head to Faith for Vic Quinn’s memorial service. The memorial and
Matthew being in the hospital was a reminder of how fragile life is. We didn’t
stay long at the memorial, but it was important for me to go there since I have
known him and his family since I was 15 years old. My heart goes out to Myrna,
Michelle, Scott and the rest of the family as they grieve the loss of Vic. At
the same time, I wanted to be by Matthew’s side as he was suffering in the
hospital.
On Sunday, Matthew was in a place
where he could come home and recover. I started doing research once we got home
and found out that the Nephrostomy tube was only to drain the kidneys and
wouldn’t break up the stone, so we contacted this urologist for next steps and
pain doctor to get him meds to cover the 15 mm kidney stone while he waited.
He went in for an appointment with his
urologist on Wednesday, only to have the Nephrostomy tube not draining and the
doctor telling him to go to the ER to make sure it was inserted properly (after
flushing it himself). While Matthew was in a bed in the hallway of the ER, the tube
started draining again, from the flush his urologist did, but we still did all
the tests.
Tacoma ER is quite the interesting
location… while Matthew was off doing testing, Cooper and I were sitting there waiting
in the hallway. One of the patients came out of the room demanding to use a
phone. She escalated and started attacking the staff and trying to throw a
computer. The staff didn’t really know how to respond other than call security
and left a patient in a bed right in her vicinity… thankfully security arrived
within minutes and escorted her back to her room. She was only a few feet from
where I was sitting but I kept Cooper further away from the action and safe.
By the time Matthew returned everything
was calm and the security never left their post outside her room. It didn’t
take long for them to let us know that the tube was in the right location and
Matthew was safe to go home. So, we returned home and contacted the surgery
scheduler for the urologist only to find out that he was going out of town, and
it would be a couple weeks before he could do the surgery… his pain doctor was
also going out of town… just his luck. He did have antibiotics to get the
infection under control, and we learned the trick to flush the nephrostomy tube
instead of going into the ER every time it stopped working.
After the urologist came back from
vacation, Matthew did some more testing to find out that the stone was not 15
mm after all. In fact, clearing up the infection and flushing out the kidneys
did the trick, and he wasn’t going to need surgery. Praise Jesus! The doctor thinks
that the stone was covered with infection making it appear larger than it was.
So, instead of surgery, they removed the tube and he was good to go. The tube
itself was causing him a lot of pain so he was so happy to have it removed.
No comments:
Post a Comment