Sunday, July 6, 2008

A Long Night

Last night at a little past 2:00 am, Matt woke me to tell me he was in pain. I asked what was wrong and he said that he thought it might be a kidney stone.
Unfamiliar with kidney stones, I asked what I needed to do for him. He told me nothing could be done and then began wailing in pain.
Knowing I couldn't go the whole night listening to that, I decided I would try to take him to CareNow, which I thought was open 24-hours. Unfortunately after getting him in the car, forgetting my glasses, and unsafely driving the 10 minutes it took to get there, I was very wrong.
At this point Matt was really in pain and I had no idea what to do except take him to the closest emergency room, which was around 15 minutes away.
Upon arriving at the emergency room, I sat in a little uncomfortable chair at the foot of Matt's bed and began one of the longest nights of my life.
From 2:41-7:45, Matt was given 3 bags of fluids in his IV, multiple doses of pain medicine, and a few other pain killers, but none helped the stone pass. A couple of times the medicine was enough to make him pass out though, which gave me a chance to contort my body in to a fetal type of position and try to sleep in the uncomfortable chair from hell; however each time that happened, someone from the hospital staff would wake me and have me sign some other type of consenting paper that I probably should have read.
Eventually they sedated Matt enough to let me take him home and gave me 4 prescriptions to get filled for his pain and nausea.

After dropping Matt off at home and leaving to run my errands, the following 5 questions arose for me.

1) What happened to 24-hour pharmacies? None seemed to open until 10am on Sundays! That's not smart at all! Someone needing heart medication could keel over!

2) Why are there so many types of Gatorade? Do we really have that many different taste buds in the world? Matt says he likes the "light purple kind". I came home from Target with 5 light purple flavors of Gatorade. Of course only 1 was the correct type and now I'm stuck with the rest. Blek!

3) Why is it, if you have to break the sabbath, you end up seeing someone from church doing the same thing? In my defense, this was an emergency, that's why I was at Target at 10am this morning. But why was the lady who would be sitting in front of me in sacrament meeting in a mere 3 hours at Target with a basket load of bagel bites? Was that an emergency?

4) How did I manage to go the whole night with only one half of my bra on? I guess in the panic of everything, I threw on my clothes and put only one bra strap over my shoulder, yet never noticed until I got home. I must have looked like an idiot.

5) And finally, why does Matt's nausea medicine make him throw up like the exorcist each time he takes it? It's supposed to stop that, not make it happen!

As of now, Matt still hasn't passed his stone. I think this may be another long night, but hopefully I can keep him sedated enough to not feel much pain.

3 comments:

Eldredge's said...

How sad! I hope Matt gets better soon! And I have to agree with you on the gatorade! Are there any more flavors they can come up with?

The Ketchup Queen said...

OH girl you are funny. I don't know how you did the bra thing.

Kristi said...

I'll take the Gatorade you don't want! I'm so sorry for Matt, I have heard from so many how kidney stones feel and worry that I will have them someday myself. I am SO SO SO SO SORRY MATT. FEEL BETTER!