I brought this on myself

I want to describe what happened to me last Tuesday in the rawest way possible and this is how I am going to do it.

Last Tuesday, I woke up at 8:30 AM not from the birds chirping outside but from the pain I was in.

I don’t regularly get sick, I do get a cold or two a year but nothing else other than that. Every time I go to the hospital is because I have to get my vaccines and nothing else. But this time, my body wanted to teach me a lesson and I had to take it whether I liked it or not.

The pain was coming from my lower right side and it was completely excruciating, I had never experienced so much pain in my life. I had no idea what was going on with my body and why it was giving me such a warning.

The first thing I did was going downstairs and look for my roommates, after that I sat down and that wasn’t helping at all it was, in fact, making it worse. My roommate kept telling me that I was really pale and I could see by her face that she was petrified because there was nothing she could do. Needless to say that I was feeling really nauseous. I wandered around, went to the living room and laid down but that wasn’t much help either. I took my phone out and diagnosed myself on google (don’t recommend at all) and it said that it was probably an appendicitis. “People die from that” I thought to myself. That’s it! I needed professional care.

My housemate called the ambulance and I had to answer some questions, the pain went down while I was talking but was still going strong. After the questionnaire, they said for me to register online and see my GP. Register online? Go on my feet to the health centre? That didn’t make any sense but I had no other choice, the ambulance wasn’t coming for me.

So, after that, there I was at the health centre, brought by a cab. The pain was getting even worse and I couldn’t stand still. As soon as I got there I was tilting over the counter, telling the receptionist that I needed a doctor immediately and describing my pain in the best way I could. She just told me that a doctor would call me and that I had to wait like everyone else as this is done by order of entrance. I have to say that I found that ridiculous, equality wasn’t enough at this point, this was an emergency I couldn’t wait. But I saw by her poker face that nothing that I would say would change her mind because she believed that she was doing the right thing. Me and my friend just sat down in the waiting area, waiting for the call. She finally called.

“I will be able to see you at 10:10” the doctor said.

We started checking the clock every second…it was only 10 minutes but it felt like a lifetime. I started using 3 benches as a bed, then stood up, went to the bathroom because of nausea, laid down, stood up, lay, stand, I didn’t know where to put myself nothing was working. I also was doing all of this with a cup (an actual cup) with my pee for analysis, I was a mess.

Then it was finally 10:10…nothing. I went to the bathroom and nausea got the best of me again, a nurse saw me through a crack in the door and she was genuinely worried about me, finally, someone would take care of me. She took me to the corridor and said to wait a bit. She knocked on a door next to me and as soon as the doctor came out and spoke to her I knew that she was the one that talked with me on the phone.

“I’m behind with appointments, at least 45 more minutes, I won’t be able to see her before then” she said in a worried way.

The nurse tried to find other doctors, and there I was still waiting and thinking of my death (Yes, I’m dramatic that way).

After 5 minutes, they found a doctor and he told me to sit down and started the examination. “When did this start?” “Where’s the pain?” “What’s the intensity of the pain from 1 to 10?” “Are you pregnant or had a baby in the last 6 weeks?”. And after all that nausea, hyperactiveness and pain I finally got a diagnosis. Kidney stones.

It was basically a tiny rock that was traveling from my kidney to my bladder and would eventually go away on its own. Eventually. The diagnosis also made sense to me because I don’t usually drink water unless I’m really thirsty. I brought this on myself.

The doctor gave me an injection and a pill and said that if it doesn’t get any better I’ll have to go to the hospital. It helped a little but I still had to go to the hospital to make sure it was gone. When I got there by cab (I spent at least 30 pounds on cabs that day), I didn’t have pain anymore. I never liked science more than on that day, those pills were a miracle, and pretty strong too because I was really sleepy.

After that, everything went smoothly, I’m a patient person and without the pain, I was feeling like myself again. They told me that while I was under the pill that the stone probably went away and I couldn’t be happier.

(I still feel little pinches on the same spot but the pain is now bearable, just hope it will go away completely soon)

Drink water kids! Take my word for it…especially in the summer! Make your kidneys work!