My Kidney Stone Experience

看了这个标题，你也许会想，这个贴子贴错地方了吧？读完全文，你就知道为什么我会把它贴在摄影沙龙里了。

我喜欢把自己的看病经历写下来，图的是“久病成良医，”“一人生病，百人受益”的效果。也希望更多的朋友能有类似的习惯。这种题材，以前一直是用英文写的。

First Day, July 6, 2009, Monday. The pain started.

I woke up at around 3am to go the bathroom. On the way to the restroom, I felt some unusual pressure on my right middle back. After using the restroom and returning to bed, the back pressure became very painful. Immediately, I realized that I may be having a kidney stone attack. I never had it before. Neither am I aware of any of my side of the family members had it before. My brother-in-law on my wife’s side, Jason, had one last year. According to him, it is so painful that it’s second only to having a baby.

The pain was continuous. It felt like a knife was stuck inside my back. I felt only slightly better by lying on the left side of my body and turning off the ceiling light.

My wife woke up and didn’t know what to do to help me. She encouraged me to breath, using the breathing techniques she learned from her baby-laboring experience. That didn’t help much, either.

I asked her to call Jason and his wife. They told her over the phone that I can take some pain medicine but that may not help that much. I immediately took two pills of Advil.

A couple of hours later, the pain got worse. I asked my wife to call 911. The emergency crew showed up at our door within 10 minutes. Once they checked my ID and insurance card, they asked me a few standard questions, like,

Where is the pain? - The middle of the right side back.
Was I physically injured recently? - No.
Did I do something extraordinary in the last two days? - No.
Do you want to call an ambulance to take me to the hospital? I said yes.

A few minutes later, the ambulance came. They asked me if I can move myself from my bed to the stretcher. I said I can try. They got me loaded into the ambulance and put an oxygen mask on me. My mouth was very dry. I asked for water. They said they didn’t have any. They tided me up with belts, forcing me to lye down on my back – a more painful position. I screamed and said I want to die. The emergency workers smiled, and said, “No, we don’t allow that to happen.”

A few minutes later the ambulance arrived at the emergency entry of the Sugar Land Methodist Hospital. This is the first time that I had been taken by an ambulance. It was a bumpy ride. I was very thankful that we have this facility so close to us. Otherwise, the ride would have been at least two times longer to another hospital on Highway 59.

They pushed me to an emergency waiting room. The nurses and assistants came in, asked similar questions, and checked my ID and insurance card. I asked for water, they told me that I couldn’t drink or eat anything until the doctor checks on me. About 10 minutes later, they left me alone in the room. I asked my wife to use a paper towel to get me some tap water to wet my extremely dry mouth. My mouth felt better.

The pain became unbearable. I started making loud, painful noises. The nurses in the hall way heard me screaming. One of them came in, said the doctor would be checking on me soon, and shut the door. I screamed again, but no one could hear me.

After I don’t know how long, a doctor came in. After checking my records, he immediately ordered a CT scan. I barely managed to move onto the flat bed for the CT machine. This was the first time I had a CT scan. Afterwards, they pushed me back to the waiting room.

A few more minutes later, the doctor came back and said, yes it’s indeed kidney stone. It’s 4.4 millimeters wide. He said he would have the nurse giving me some pain medicine through IV and prescribed some strong pain killer medications. He also told me that I need to see a urology specialist.

On the way out of the hospital to home, we drove by a Walgreens to drop off the prescriptions through the drive-through lane. It was very convenient.

After returning home, I asked my wife to call our family-practice doctor, Dr. Yao for a reference to an urologist. He gave us Dr. Pham’s phone number. My wife called right away. The closest appoint available was next week. I told her I couldn’t wait that long and asked her to tell Dr. Pham’s office that I am in big pain due to kidney stone and need to see him as soon as possible. After a few minutes, they gave me the appointment of 8am the next-day morning.

I was very glad that we made the decision to go to the emergency room to receive that IV. The pain immediately subdued. The strong pain medicine was very helpful. I started taking it every 3-4 hours.

The night before, I had just finalized my airline reservation to attend one of my best friends’ funeral at Los Angeles in five days. His name is Youqin Eugene Xie. We were roommates when we were graduate students in China. With this kidney stone attack I didn’t know if I could still make it to the trip or not. That was a decision I had to make day-by-day, depending on my progress in the treatment.

Second Day, July 7, 2009, Tuesday. Seeing Dr. Pham.

The next morning I felt much better. I drove to Dr. Pham’s office myself which is in a professional office building next to the Methodist Hospital.

In the waiting room, I met Mr. Rhodes, my son’s baseball coach a few years ago. After brief greetings, he told me that he had a kidney stone attack last week. It was extremely painful, too. Dr. Pham put a stent inside his body, which is quite uncomfortable for him. He was there on this appointment to get it removed. He told me that I would hear him screaming when they take out the stent. I was a little scared.

In the examination room, I noticed there were quite a few brochures on the table. I took one of them to read. It was titled “Kidney Stones.” In the pamphlet, it says, 10% men and 5% women have this problem. There are several treatment options. However, people who have the problem removed will have a 50% chance to have it, again.

I noticed that there is a framed photography of a rose on the wall. The signature looks like Dr. Pham’s. It was dated 1994. He must be an amateur photographer, too.

A few minutes later, Dr. Pham came in. He looked up my CT scan file online with his laptop. He suggested an X-ray. I went to the hospital in the same building and got an X-ray done quickly.

Judging by the X-ray film it’s hard to know where the stone was. Dr. Pham suggested taking some medication and see if the stone would pass by itself.

Dr. Pham is probably the most high-tech doctor I have met. He wears a Black Berry and every time his patient sends him a message from his website, it goes straight to his phone. He usually responds quickly. In his office, he does not use hard-copy records. Everything goes through the networked computer. He can access my CT and X-ray scans through his tablet PC. He does not hand-write prescription, either. It is printed on a printer on the front desk, making it much easier to read.

His nurse told me he is an amateur photographer. Many of his photographic work were displayed in his offices. Most of which were dated in early 1990’s. Recently, he does not have much time to go out to take photos any more.

He and I have at least two things in common: high-tech and photography. These are good reasons for me to like him allot.

When resting at home, I got online and chatted with Lee in the office. According to him, when he had kidney stone a few years back, his doctor suggested him to use cranberry pills,.I went to the Walgreen’s to buy some.

When I was in the Walgreen’s, the assistant manager there told me I shouldn’t drink tap water. His cousin got kidney stone many years ago because he drank too much tap water.

Some coworkers in the office suggest that I may have been eating too much tofu since I am an 80% vegetarian and tofu is my main protein source. Some ingredients of tofu are known to cause kidney stone.

Kidney stone turns out to be very common among man. Our coworker, David, told me that he had kidney stone about 10 years ago because he drank too much Dr. Pepper at that time. His kidney stone didn’t return after he quit drinking that.

When I asked Dr. Pham about these “folk recipes,” he smiled and said it all depends on how much water I take each day. He does not think tap water would cause kidney stone. Nor does he think cranberry pill or drinks would help. None of the food choices would matter, either, if I drank enough water to dilute everything. From a chemistry point of view, he is right. Maybe, my problem was that I didn’t drink enough water, which I’ll measure later.

With so much pain, I doubt I would make it to LA.

Third Day, July 8, 2009, Wednesday. Going into hospital for surgery.

The next morning, I had an appointment with Fort Bend County tax office for property appraisal value protest, which can’t be changed. Even though I was in pain, I felt good enough to go to the protest. The protest went nowhere. Just like last year, I didn’t get the kind of paperwork to convince them a lower value. I told myself I took the pain to go there for nothing.

On the way home near noon time, I called Dr. Pham’s office. The assistant, Cathy, suggested me to check into a hospital right away. I asked her to go ahead processing the paperwork and I’ll decide whether to go or not later, depending on the level of pain.

When I got home, I started using a laptop to check emails. It aggravated the back pain. The pain medicine did not help any more, which made me to decide to go to the hospital.

After registration process and settling down in the hospital room, Dr. Pham ordered an extensive X-ray study on my urinal path. The process involved injecting an iodine dye into my blood through IV. Then, they took x-rays of my lower body after 10, 20, 30, and 45-minute intervals. They can measure how fast the dye was flowing in my urinal track.

It turned out that my urinal track between the right-side kidney and bladder was completely blocked. That was why it was so painful. A surgery was necessary. However, the surgery wouldn’t take place until 9pm since I ate some noodles at 2pm before going to the hospital. Patients can’t eat or drink anything for at least five hours before surgeries.

At around 8:45pm, I was pushed to the surgery prep room. The nurse there was quite nice and asked me many questions and had me signing some paperwork. The anesthesia doctor was late. He must be helping another surgery somewhere else. Dr. Pham came in on time. Initially, he suggested having the surgery in two separate steps. One was to enlarge the urinal track and then on another step to find and remove the stone. I would prefer to have both done in a single step. He told me he would decide on that once he sees what is going onw with the stone. He normally does surgery on Wednesdays.

At 9:30pm, the anesthesia doctor came in and they started the anesthesia IV flow. I can feel the cold medicine flowing into my veins. They pushed me into the surgery room. It was quite modern. The interior was all silver or white color. The ceiling surgery lights were very complicated and would have made a nice photo, I thought. They lifted me onto a very narrow surgery bed and tied my arms and body with belts. Soon after that, the anesthesia medicine kicked in and I didn’t remember anything after that until I woke up about two hours later.

Surgery was the only hope that I would have made it to the LA trip on Friday. Dr. Pham told me normally, patients can resume normal activities 24 hours after such an operation. He was aware of my scheduled trip and made that recommendation to have surgery on Wednesday.

The Day after Surgery, July 9, 2009, Thursday. Out of the hospital.

I woke up a few times to urine during the night. The urine was red, still containing much blood. It was a little painful and uncomfortable. With time the red color and pain became less and less intense. The hospital told me that I can stay longer if I want to. But I would prefer to go home.

It took forever to be discharged from the hospital. The hospital did not seem to be in a hurry to get rid of me. After a few phone calls, I finally walked out of the hospital on my feet before noon, instead waiting for the wheel chair to arrive. It’s amazing how much difference a mere 12 hours made. Even the nurses were surprised to see me walking away. They all smiled and waved goodbye to me.

The doctor gave me two new medications for recovery from the surgery. One was a strong antibiotics and the second one was a pain medicine to control the pain in the urinal path. The pain medicine pill was green-colored and made my urine slightly green, too.

Resting in my bed at home during the afternoon, I was still undecided about tomorrow’s trip to California. The original kidney stone pain was gone but I still felt somewhat uncomfortable. In the evening I sent an email to Dr. Pham to ask him if I can make the trip. He replied right away, saying yes. I was happy to hear that and decided to travel next day.

Second Day after Surgery, July 10, 2009, Friday. Made it to LA.

I made the trip to Los Angeles on Friday - merely 32 hours after surgery. It’s a miracle of modern medical technology. Without the surgery, it would have been impossible for me to travel.

We had a beautiful funeral service for Youqin on July 11, 2009, Saturday. I would greatly regret it if I didn’t see it. I met not only Youqin’s family, but also many of his co-workers and friends including Dr. Wei, LA_Mike, Xianren588, feifei, his co-worker Ms. Xie, and many photography enthusiasts. The most memorable and touching moment was the slide show prepared by Michael Zhang of LA. The reading of Shakespeare’s poem was very appropriate and moving. Dr. Shum did an excellent job conducting the memorial services. He was a good friend to Youqin and wrote an essay for his book. Youqin was truly surrounded by his family, relatives, friends, flowers, and many of his beloved art work.

A burial service was made immediately following the memorial services. We saw the entire process of having Youqin’s flower-decorated coffin buried. Youqin’s grave site was beautiful. It’s on a hill side facing the San Bernardino Mountains. I thought, from now on, he no longer had to travel to seek awesome sunrise or sunsets. Instead sunrises and sunsets would find him every day. On his back was the Pacific Ocean, where his motherland is located.

Rest in peace, my dear friend.

July 14, 2009, Tuesday. Tube removed.

I returned to Houston on Sunday, July 12, 2009, It was a smooth flight. I finished the story “ 向尤勤学习摄影 “on the airplane.

On Tuesday, July 14, 2009, I returned to Dr. Pham’s office to remove the tube left inside my urinal track. The removal went quickly. It turns out that they left a string from the tube to almost the end of the urinal track. No wonder I didn’t feel comfortable when I urinated. To remove the tube, all the doctor did was to pull the string out. The nurse showed me the tube afterwards. It was about 30cm long!

He told me I can start playing golf right away. I thought I would wait for at least one more week.

Notes:

(1) What did I learn?

It’s much better to go through this surgery process than waiting for the stone to pass “naturally.” The pain would be too much to bear, took much longer, and it’s not worth it. So my suggestion for those who may be unfortunate to get this disease in the future: by all means, get the surgery done, instead of waiting for it to pass.

Jason went through a “natural” process to get his stone out. It took two weeks. To me, that was just too long of a suffering.

A few weeks after my kidney stone event, I met a Chinese folk doctor. He told me a story that is very interesting. He said he had kidney stone at one time. It was very painful, too. He ate much watermelon and tried to let it pass naturally. He jumped up and down to force the stone to go down. He held his pee for a while to build up the pressure. After a few days, the stone went through. He must be very brave to go through that.

(2) Prevention

Dr. Pham had no doubt that my kidney stone was of the calcium type. The question is how to prevent it. He suggested me to drink lemon and orange juices that contain high levels of citrus acid. I should avoid foods that contain oxalic acid such as spinach that tends to combine with calcium to cause precipitation and crystallization.

He also said I should drink at least ½ gallon (about two liters) of water each day. I feel that it’s necessary to measure how much water I drink each day to determine if I was drinking enough water.

I bought a gallon bottle of water. I need to finish at least half of the bottle each day in the office. Immediately I realized that I didn’t drink nearly enough water before. That may be the root cause for my kidney stone problem (maybe for most other people, too).

It’s not easy to drink half a gallon of water each day. It takes some time to get used to it. It means almost one cup each hour. It also means that I have to go the restroom very often. To prevent such a painful experience from ever happening again, I am willing to get into this new habit.

Someone suggested it’s a good idea to drink allot of water in the morning to flush out the system after one night’s sleep. I am now drinking three cups of liquid (water, juice, or soybean drinks) during breakfast each morning.

Now, go drink your water.