Scare

C was up at 4:30 writhing in pain...he said it was his abdomen...he described it as an upset stomach. It was bad enough that he asked for medicine...he never takes medicine unless he is really bad off. (I was up, putting off going to bed because I didn't want to wake him.) I gave him an alka seltzer and went off to bed.

At 5:30, he woke me up...it was still going on. What it took me a long time to get out of him was that there was no diarrhea...it was just a twisting pain in his abdomen. By 6am, I was on the phone with a nurse via the medical call-in service associated with insurance. She talked to him for a while...seemed to think it was constipation or something, and told him to drink water and no more alka seltzer.

I wandered off to try to sleep a bit...he was obviously in pain, but he doesn't like me hovering. And as much as I was wondering what was up, C doesn't do doctors unless he is desperate.

By 7:15, he was desperate. He woke me and said the pain had moved around toward his back. I became very concerned and got dressed and told him we were going to an ER and he started resisting. While I was off getting dressed, he vomited. It made him feel better, but the pain was still there. I was approaching quiet panic. He was trying to decide if the pain was fading. I googled real quick and he was presenting, from his pain movement, rather classic abdominal aortic rupture from an aneurysm. Holy crap. I hated to tell him that it was a possibility, but unless he understood how serious this could be, that this stuff can kill him, I would not get him to the ER anytime soon. I was also worried about his appendix, since this pain was moving around on his right side.

Once I clarified for him that severe radiating abdominal pain that progresses to nausea is NOT a good thing, he came around and we left for the hospital. I drove sort of carefully like a bat out of hell in rush hour and he was in terrible pain the whole time. It was awful. The hospital is 10 minutes away, but it felt like an hour. When we got there they checked him in quickly (there was no wait) and got a urine sample. They checked his appendix by feel. The doctor asked if he had ever been told he had an abdominal aneurysm.

I sat there nervously knitting a baby hat for NIN in stockinette, and finally we got a diagnoses...probably a kidney stone. They gave him some morphine and a muscle relaxant. He endured the IV needle like a trooper and I stayed with him, trying to talk and get his mind off the needle in his arm. He got a CAT scan. It was confirmed. Kidney stone. Hallelujah. Painful, but not deadly.

We picked up food on the way home, he has pain meds he took earlier and is avoiding now because he wants to see how bad it gets. I'm just relieved. And willing to wait on him hand and foot even though I know being active is good for him with this. It's just our sleep is so screwed up. I slept all afternoon and so did he.

I've never been so scared...we've never really dealt with any sort of serious health issue and seeing him in so much pain was difficult, but a kidney stone we can deal with. He wasn't presenting back to front pain, which is typical kidney stone stuff, and I wish we had gone in earlier, but I guess it is good I was able to talk him into it when I did.