I Got Stoned and Thought I was Dying

Something woke me.

My eyes opened to pitch black. My husband's sleeping breath in and out next to my head. I checked my watch. 4:30 a.m. . What woke me?

My sleep-addled mind couldn't figure it out. Until

PAIN

Sharp lancing pain deep in my bladder. This was not the normal pressure of having to pee. This felt as if I was being stabbed with a burning poker between my legs, up and into my bladder.

I got out of bed, stumbled to the bathroom, and sat on the toilet. The pain didn't change, even after I had relieved the pressure of my bladder. I put on a pair of shorts under my sleep T-shirt.

I had recently been to the doctor for what I thought was a bladder infection. She disagreed. She thought my symptoms were from a normal part of a woman's aging process. She thought it was postmenopausal and gave me a cream to use for two weeks and to come back for a full pelvic exam at that time.

It had been a week since I started using the cream. I couldn't tell any difference one way or the other. Nothing was getting better, but at least the pain wasn't getting worse.

Until 4:30 in the morning.

The pain shifted. It moved to my right side. It was sharp and constant.

I paced through the house. My husband fully awake now followed me with his eyes.

"Does the pacing help with the pain?" he asked.

"No. Yes. I don't know." I replied, my words edged with growing hysteria.

I suddenly realized the waistband on my shorts was tight, too tight! Off! I had to get the shorts off of me NOW. I felt constricted and claustrophobic and had trouble untangling my feet from the material now pooled on the floor.

I found a softer pair of leggings with a less tight waistband. I put them on, but the pain wasn't eased. Neither was my sense of claustrophobia. My heart was racing. My brain was racing faster.

"Which side is my appendix on?" I asked, suspecting it was on my right side. The side with the pain. I didn't feel feverish, but it was hard to tell what the rest of my body was feeling. All of my awareness had shrunk down to be laser-focused on the bright, sharp, pain that seemed to be ramping up until I couldn't see, hear, feel anything but the pain.

I just knew in my bones that my appendix was exploding.

I continued pacing, alternately squeezing my side and pushing it with my fist.

The pain didn't let up.

"My gallbladder!" I gasped. "What if it is my gallbladder?"

I paced some more, my arms and legs prickling with goosebumps. "If they have to take out my gallbladder I'll get really fat!" Somehow, imagining myself blowing up because I'd lost the organ that processes fat in the body made the pain in my side feel even stronger.

Suddenly I bent forward sharply and almost lost my footing as my knees went weak and I shuddered with tears.

"I think I need to go to the hospital."

The need to go to the hospital filled me with shame. Illness in my family has always been treated as a moral failing. Pain has always been discounted. My mother never believed the extent of my pain, and making light of it or, worse, telling me it was all in my imagination.

My husband was already dressed and waiting to hop in the car.

"I need an ambulance," I told him.

I grabbed my phone and called 911. I gave my name and address and told them I was having severe pain in my side. They were sending an ambulance. I requested the ambulance have no sirens or lights because waking up the neighbors was the last thing I wanted to do. I requested the ambulance not cross our wooden cross-tie bridge. I said we would meet them at the mailbox.

It took them five years to get there.

I couldn't stay sitting in the car. I had to get out. I felt like vomiting and gagged a few times but managed to not throw up. I kept pacing.

The pacing didn't help the pain. Neither did my angry, pain-filled tears. I was trying to run away from the pain. I always try to run away from pain.

Finally, FINALLY, after fifty years the ambulance showed up. They got me in and started taking my vitals and getting an IV port in my arm. My husband was asking if they would let him stay in the emergency room with me.

The EMT gave me some Zofran for nausea as his partner pulled out of the driveway and drove down the farm-to-market road toward the highway. The hospital is about 60 miles from my house.

Immediately after the EMT gave me Zofran he asked me if I had ever had Fentanyl. I hadn't. It took a few minutes, but finally, the pain receded to the background and I could have a normal conversation.

The pain came back.

In the end, he gave me Fentanyl three times. I managed to joke with him that he was going to turn me into a junky.

Once I got to the emergency room, the long wait began. They took blood and urine for testing. They planned on taking me for a CT scan with contrast but had to wait for the test results to come back.

Long before the test results came back, the last dose of fentanyl stopped working.

I've always heard the term "writhing in pain" but I've never experienced it. Not even when I was giving birth, which I've done three times.

I spent the next ten years writhing in pain, gripping my husband's hand so hard I thought I broke it in five separate places. I hadn't, but he told me later that I had not squeezed his hand that hard even in child labor.

After about eighteen years (closer to forty-five minutes) a nurse finally came in and hung another bag next to my saline drip.

The pain went away and I was taken to the CT scan room. They injected dye which made me feel warm all over, took a few scans, and sent me back to my room.

It wasn't much longer before the doctor came in and told me I had a kidney stone. It was, he said, small enough for me to pass at home without surgery. They would not be admitting me. I signed a bunch of paperwork and went home.

I spent the next three days in pain, but not as much pain as before. On the second day, it felt like my bladder was having contractions. These weird pulling sensations continued through the third day. On the fourth day, I was pain-free.

As per the instructions the hospital sent home with me, I continued to pee in a jar and strain the urine, keeping an eye out for any kind of tiny stone. I never saw anything other than a tiny black dot, smaller than a grain of sand, on three separate occasions. Maybe those three dots made up the 2mm stone.

Either way, I'm not dying. I was never dying. I was certain I was dying.

I'd rather not get stoned again. At least not that kind of stoned!!!! I have changed my diet as much as I am able to avoid another kidney stone. I see my doctor for a follow-up tomorrow.

It is amazing to me how utterly exhausted I am. All of my muscles still hurt from being clenched for so long. And though I'm no longer in any pain, I still feel unable to focus due to, I'm assuming, the exhaustion of the whole ordeal.

I've started a novice yoga program. I'm hoping it will help me to be more mindful and less anxious. Even at the novice level, yoga is really hard for someone who doesn't do it regularly.

The exercise, paired with my new diet, will hopefully keep me from going to the emergency room ever again.

Ever.

I did not like believing I was going to die in pain.