Comment on Kidney Stones vs. Muscle Pain

So the Monday night (the night after the previous blog post by the way-and I must say to Johnny Metropolis- I'm not schizophrenic-I only hear one voice and I recognize it as my own-thank goodness!) I went to bed with a pain in my back-which sometimes happens when I've had too much diet coke and not enough water-I woke up around 3am with the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. It kind of freaked me out a little since I couldn't touch that side or lay on that side-I imagined going to the ER and getting sent to the hospital which I think is the worst thing imaginable (and yet I'm a nurse, yet another dichotomy I suppose). So I layed there praying the pain would end.

By the next morning it had subsided and continued to lessen, although it still hurt ( would say it's gone from being a 12 to being a 3-4). I worked that night and decided that I would go and see the dr after my shift was over. So I called the office on my way home from my shift and had an appt. to see the P.A. in the afternoon. I called in sick to work because there was no way I could go to a dr at 2pm and have enough sleep to work a shift, plus it kind of hurt to walk.

So at my appointment I got to pee in a cup and have my blood drawn-two of my favorite things-plus I had the P.A. pounding on my kidneys (the exact thing I'd been dreading Monday night). It was determined that I should go and get a CT Scan of all things because I either have or passed a kidney stone, or I have muscle pain. Whatever.

So today was the day of the CT scan. It was at LDS Hospital-which I don't understand why I couldn't have gone to AltaView, it's just up the street-but I'm always up for exploring the unknown world of downtown life. I must say that it took longer for me to get to the hospital than it actually took for me to have the actual test done. But the hospital is up in the Avenues and I think it's pretty sweet up there so I didn't mind too much (plus I was starving after since I couldn't eat anything before the scan, so I stopped off at Spoon Me for some yogurt on the way home).

Anyway the scan itself was relatively harmless. I've taken several babies down for CT's but unlike them I wasn't strapped in for dear life. The machine talks to you-tells you when to hold your breath and breathe normally. I had been smart enough to call ahead to find out what I needed to wear-so I wore scrubs so that I wouldn't have to change into an embarassing hospital gown. The worst part was that they did the test in the ER since outpatient radiology was backed up. I was slightly terrified that I might see/hear someone throwing up, but luckily that didn't happen. The other worst part is that if this is muscle pain then I feel like a retard, although I'd rather have muscle pain than know there's a stone rolling around that needs to come out. Yikes! In about 48 hours I'll know. No big deal, right?