Pain in the Back...for reals.

Tuesday May 7th I woke up to get ready for work and I suddenly found myself experiencing excruciating back pain. It hurt so badly I had to sit down on the toilet lid because I nearly fainted. I felt myself break out into a sweat and I was terrified. It came on so suddenly! Luckily it passed and I was able to finish getting ready for the day and I forgot about it for awhile. But later on in the day the pain started coming back. I had an appointment that day so I told Dr. Brown about it. He checked where it was hurting and it was right where my kidney is. He said it could be a UTI, bladder infection or a kidney stone. So they checked me for a UTI and the initial test found that I could have one, so they started me on antibiotics. When the full results came in however it was negative, so they were leaning more towards a kidney stone.

The pain was so excruciating. I slept on the couch because I tossed and turned and moaned and cried so much it would keep Scott awake. I couldn’t really lay down either so it was easier to sleep sitting up on the couch. It was awful. I took Tylenol when the pain was unbearable. I finally called and they got me an appointment for an ultrasound to see if they could find anything. At the appointment they did see swelling on my right kidney, which they said either meant a kidney stone or (and this is what the technician was leaning towards even though she said not to quote her because she isn’t a doctor hahah) she thought the baby might have been pushing on my ureter, making the urine back up into my kidney, causing all the pain. Unfortunately, the only fix for either cause was to wait; wait for the stone to pass or wait for the baby to shift and relieve the pressure. It wasn’t a fun thing to hear, but much better than there being something seriously wrong. And I felt a strange pleasure knowing my baby was growing so large that he could disrupt my normal organ function. Kyden never got that big.

Interestingly enough, an unexpected cure came Saturday May 11th. We went boating with my husband’s parents. I almost bowed out because right as we got to their house I had another really bad attack and was in tears waiting for it to pass. I took medicine and it finally kicked in before we left, so I decided to go. It was probably selfish of me, but I knew once the baby came our chances of going boating this summer would decrease significantly and I wanted to go at least once. But something about being out on the boat,  rocked gently by the waves seemed to fix whatever my issue was. The pain never came back. So either I passed the stone or the rocking shifted the baby. Either way, I’m very glad I decided to go, even if I was huge and uncomfortable!