Well. I hadn’t planned for THIS week.

MONDAY

Theme of the Day: I don’t feel good.

Don’t think it has anything to do with the thing last week, but more with the fact that I didn’t eat any protein yesterday, so by this morning I was just…limp. I know protein is my secret to success but once in a while I just want CARBS. Sugary bakery carbs for breakfast…ramen carbs for dinner. Ha.

So far today I’ve had two protein shakes, grapes, and sugar snap peas (my new fave desk snack)…and just now a whopper for lunch. Not making a dent.

Maybe I’m dying.

TUESDAY

My boyfriend DuoLingo is getting annoyed with me for ignoring him WHILE I’VE HAD A KIDNEY STONE. Jeez.

Turns out I’m not dying. I was just pre-kidney stone paining.

In addition to the exhaustion in the afternoon I started having cramping on my left side, and I thought it was just from the stent, and I was afraid as I was supposed to remove it myself. When I got home from work I was like this thing’s got to go because now it’s getting painful. I’d been having anxiety about removing this for days – it’s essentially like a catheter. HEY INEXPERIENCED, NON-MEDICAL HUMAN, REMOVE THIS 12″ THING FROM A VERY SENSITIVE, AWKWARD TO REACH PART OF YOUR BODY – WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG??

I wasn’t supposed to take it out till Wednesday but Monday is practically Wednesday and THE CRAMPING was intensifying, so…

Anyway it came out so easily I’m amazed I didn’t just fall out in the past week ha ha, but the cramping didn’t stop and proceeded to get worse over the next couple hours I finally was like oh. This is kidney stone pain. How ironic that I would get treatment for a kidney stone that was not bothering me and have it result in a kidney stone fragment it was bothering me.

And so commenced the night from hell. It’s all a blur of pain and not sleeping and phone calls trying to figure out where I should go what I should do. PS my painkillers are all old so they weren’t helping (until hours later when they all banded together and went OKAY NOW WE’LL KNOCK HER OFF HER FEET) and I was feeling like I should go to the emergency room because sometimes that’s the only relief – being out on the lovely lovely morphine drip. I called the office of the doctor who performed the procedure last week and he was away (in Hawaii, missing all the fun) but his fellow said I should go in there and I was like I’m 50 miles away from there and in no condition to drive and I used up my ride last week so what’s Plan B. I wound up with an appointment at noon at the local Sloan-Kettering.  And they were all so lovely. I feel bad that there are people there who are literally dying and I just have a kidney stone and they still spent five hours with me, IVing me and testing and scanning and just being nice.

A funny (?) thing happened at Sloan Kettering, once I was in the room where they were gonna hook me up to the IV the nurse came in and said hi I am Kathy I spoke to you on the phone before, it’s nice to meet you, and what instantly popped into my head to say back was “mannaseo bangawoyo,” which is “nice to meet you” in Korean.

Is that a sign I should start talking to real people more and less to my imaginary Korean friends, ha ha?

Anyway, a day of iv fluids, anti-nausea stuff, antibiotics, peeing in cups, blood draw, and a scan. Fragments are left, that’s what was causing the problems, some infection, kidney still not functioning quite right, but…the PAIN was gone.

WEDNESDAY

Death has not come for me yet even though the truck keeps running over me again and again and again. Last night was Night From Hell #2. No additional actual pain but I was just exhausted from not having slept at all the night before and now waking up literally every 20 to 30 minutes all through the night to pee from hours of IV hydration. I think I was in bed yesterday afternoon by 5 o’clock lights out fan off I couldn’t even listen to a podcast…listening seemed too exhausting. Plus I hadn’t eaten anything since Tuesday.

I had a religious moment with a watermelon today. God (aka Craig from Instacart) brought me the BEST, SWEETEST, BEST watermelon today. All I could think of eating was watermelon and ice pops.

By the afternoon I had a fever and was crashing again…the lovely nurse from the dr’s office in the city called several times checking on me…call us if the temp goes over 100…..call, CALL US IF THE FEVER GOES OVER 101…okay….CALL US IMMEDIATELY IF THE FEVER GOES TO 102…ha, each time she checked with me and my temp would have gone up one degree she’d just add a “one” and say “call us.” It never got to 102 so…

THURSDAY

A weird day. They were supposed to call me at 9 to schedule an ultrasound for the first thing in the morning, so I jumped up at 8, showered and dressed…and waited. At noon I called them and they said my appointment was at 4:30. I could have gone to work! Ugh. Instead, I just sort of waited around all day. With good hair, ha ha.

I posted on my IG stories that the gowns are not suitable for plus size women and to their credit, SK responded IMMEDIATELY saying thank you for the feedback, they would send this concern to the…whoever….and try to fix the situation.

Anyway, that was for an ultrasound. Ultrasound Guy was probably the least “warm” person I’ve encountered on this little adventure.

Driving to the appointment in the afternoon I felt like A New Human. I was FREE! I was not in PAIN! Windows down, music blasting (well, as much as I can blast into my earbuds without MOM IPHONE sending me notifications about dangerous sound levels, GET OFF MY BACK IPHONE!). I was ready to go sit at an outside bar somewhere and get a drink – ALONE. That’s how I good I felt. Until Ultrasound Guy killed my vine. AND I got hot and sweaty.

It takes so little to knock me off course.

FRIDAY

I’M HUMAN AGAIN. Back to work.

SATURDAY

A wasted day. I couldn’t really get it together. That’s okay.

I sat on the sofa for long time just watching the cat do nothing. And all the stuff on the carpet.

SUNDAY

Big News. Big.

I washed (most of) the dishes, And vacuumed. It feels like a new apartment.

I FORCED myself out of the apartment by 6:30 to go sit at the park with a book til dark, and that was lovely.

I HAVE things to share for reading, watching, listening, but I’m out of oomph. I wrote most of this during the week as it happened, through voice to text on my phone, so when I opened it all here it was a mess, ha ha. I tried to fix it up, but if some things sound awkward it’s cuz I’m just out of steam. Next week will be more coherent.