For those who don't know what's been going on with us of late.. here it is..
Friday February 6th my daughter Chelsea (10 years old) was up at 3 am practically screaming in pain, we took her to the children's outpatient clinic at the one hospital in town, they thought it might be her appendix and sent her for an ultrasound and instead of that, they found a kidney stone. The first person said it was 4 mm but later we were told 5 mm. They said they expected her to pass it over that weekend, and sent us home with a prescription for codeine if she had another bout of pain, and that was that. That Saturday night she was in some terrible pain, the codeine didn't help but it did eventually settle for her. She was a bit crampy that Sunday but was otherwise fine the rest of the week. We figured she must have passed the stone Saturday night and just missed catching it in the sieve they'd given her. She was fine at school and all seemed well.
Saturday February 14th she was in excruciating pain again so we took her to the other hospital's ER since the kids outpatient was closed. They took her in immediately and got her on an IV and gave her morphine and gravol because she'd been throwing up too. They waited until the morphine wore off, the pain had subsided by that time, so they sent us home again.
She was okay Sunday, but Monday the 16th it started up all over again. Still the only thing we had to give her was the codeiene but it didn't do anything for her at all. We took her back to the ER again which they'd said to do if the pain flared up again, and again they took her in right away and got her on an IV and gave her morphine. The ER doctor said that an adult can pass an 8mm stone, but can a 10 year old child pass a 5mm stone? He said he didn't even believe it was a kidney stone until he saw her ultrasound. The ER doctor from the previous visit told Chelsea that she was the youngest he'd ever seen with a kidney stone, and then added, "but there's no prize for that!" So after seeing oodles more people (both hospitals are teaching hospitals so we always end up seeing tons of extra people), they told us to go to the child's outpatient clinic in the morning to get a requisition for an ultrasound to see if her kidney was still okay, and to see if the stone had moved or even if there were more stones. Sounded simple enough... but of course... wasn't. Chelsea and I got there the next morning, the receptionist wouldn't let us in even though we had the note from the doctor detailing what was going on and what was needed.. she made us go through triage all over again.. and the waiting room was packed with sick kids. We finally got through triage and then sat and waited in the waiting room... then finally got called in and sat a bunch more. The doctor of the day came in finally and was just odd with Chelsea, asking the same questions over and over then said he wanted her to have both an x-ray and an ultrasound. I have no idea why.. but they couldn't coordinate to have both done so they told us to come back the next morning for the appointments.
Next morning, parking lot was full again (it was the previous morning too so that was another wait) plus the elevator was out in the parking garage.. we got down to Imaging for her tests and sat and waited a bunch more to be called in. Finally they came and got her and took her for her ultrasound. The first scan was on the 6th, this was now the 18th, so 12 days had passed and the stone hadn't budged at all, her kidney was larger than normal because of the build-up of urine and the tubes are all inflamed. To top it off, they got the results from her urine test the day before and she now has bacteria in her urine so she's got an infection somewhere too. The ultrasound tech said she didn't see a need for an x-ray when she could see the stone clearly on the ultrasound, so she consulted with the radiologist and he said the same thing so then she sent us back up to the children's outpatient clinic. Joy.
Soooo we got back up there, and for a change they didn't make us go through triage, we had a bit of a wait and then the pediatric resident we'd already seen at the ER both times came in to talk to us. They gave us a prescription for an antibiotic for the infection and sent us home with an "it'll pass eventually" kind of comment. He said we'd also get to see a urologist in about 4 weeks. I asked if this was a pediatric urologist, he said no, but that they cover everybody.
During this ordeal Chelsea mentioned that my friend had called early that morning before either my husband or I were awake asking if she could borrow some money. I thought that was a really strange request from her. She has a farm with mainly horses and sheep and it's on her farm where we keep our horse. My kiddos all LOVE being at her farm and typically at least one of them goes over every weekend to just hang out and help out wherever they can. When I got home I asked hubby if he'd talked to her at all and he said no.. so I told him what Chelsea had said and he called over to see what was up. It wasn't money she was looking for, she wanted to borrow "somebody".. because she was really sick and couldn't keep up with the farm work so she wanted one of the older girls to go help out. They pretty much know the drill out there and would be able to do things for her so she could rest. She sounded like crap on the phone though, I could barely understand her. I said I'd take the older 2 girls over to help out and I got on my way. When I got there, she had a nasty rattle when she was exhaling, I told her immediately that she needed to get to the doctor. She's a very independent woman, and doesn't like hospitals and of course she argued. I convinced her though and she let me take her to the hospital. On the way there she told me not to let them keep her at the hospital. I told her she might need to stay!
Meanwhile while I was doing that, hubby had unhappy with how they'd been with Chelsea and the basic runaround we've been getting and so he was making calls trying to see what could be done. He spoke to the doctor we saw Tuesday, the one who had actually ordered the ultrasound and x-ray and he looked at her two ultrasounds, saw she had an infection now and said that the stone needs to be removed before the infection gets worse and causes kidney problems etc. so he told Edward to bring Chelsea to the hospital admitting and that they'd do surgery first thing today. So hubby told me that before I left with my friend for the hospital. I got my friend to the hospital, they took her in immediately because her heart was racing and her blood pressure was really low, they got her in a room and then I ran home to pick up Edward so we could turn around and go right back to the hospital to admit Chelsea.
We got to admitting, the lady called someone and then sent us to the Pediatric unit. Pediatrics told us they weren't expecting us and couldn't take her anyway because they didn't have a bed or the staff. They sent us to the ER and we had to go through triage again. We have seen so many people between yesterday and today it's ridiculous. Nobody seemed to have a clue what was going on, if this doctor wanted her to have surgery he certainly didn't prepare it because she wasn't on the OR lists for today and the urologist hadn't even seen her yet.
Chelsea spent the night in the ER, they wouldn't let her eat or drink anything "just in case" she was having surgery today, which she didn't.
After we got Chelsea settled in her room in the ER, we went around to see my friend in her room in the ER. They had moved her to what the nurse called 'their most intensive room in the ER'. She was hooked up to so many wires and had an IV running and an oxygen mask on... the doctor said she was in 'sepsis'.. the wiki says in layman terms it's 'blood poisoning'. All I know it's that it's not good!! She thanked me for taking her and said that they'd told her if she hadn't come in she may have died. They've now got her admitted into the hospital in an 'enhanced' care unit, she can barely speak, has the oxygen mask on constantly, they've done x-rays, blood work, all kinds of tests but don't know yet what happened to her, other than to tell us she's a very sick lady. I'm so glad I got her to go.. I talked to her mom tonight and she had tried to get her to go to a doctor on Tuesday but she refused and my dad had also been there yesterday and tried to get her to go to see a doctor and she told him the same thing. I'm just glad she's in good hands now. I know she hates the hospital and probably hates feeling so helpless too, but she needs the care in order to get better. The one nurse we saw in the ER said that she may need help breathing even after this is all over with. I sure hope not.
So Chelsea and my friend both spent last night in the ER and are both admitted now. Chelsea did get to see the urologist today, 4 of them to be exact. They said she's on the "C" list, meaning she's not an emergency so she comes after their "B" list and they'll only take her in for surgery if they have time after taking care of the other patients. She hasn't had a bout of pain since Monday, thankfully, it's so hard to see her in so much pain and not be able to take it away from her. The one doctor explained the surgery to Chelsea and said they'll go in with a little camera with a little laser on it and zap the stone to smitherenes and keep a bit of it to see what it's made of too. They said she could pass it herself still, and that's obviously the best thing because it doesn't involve any danger associated with knocking her out for the surgery, or the surgery itself. We've been given so many different opinions by different doctors, but the head of the urology department, the "boss" as they called him said he recommended doing the surgery for her because he thinks she's too small to pass the stone on her own and he's concerned about her kidney.
My friend was told last night she'd be there at least 3 days, but I think it may be even longer, she looked and sounded worse today than she did last night. Chelsea may be sent home after her surgery, or they may keep her one night because she's a child. Adults though they said they typically send home the same day.
All of this comes on the heels of us all being sick with strep throat and colds and such, we are just plum wore out really so I haven't been online a whole lot, I'm too tired for it by the time I get home. I thought this might be a quicker way to update everyone at once instead of trying to respond individually.
G'night.. I'm off to la la land.
