Kidney and gall stones and C-DIF, oh my!

For most of my life I’ve been pretty darned healthy.

For most of my life I’ve been pretty darned healthy. Occasional visits to the doctor, not too many prescriptions, those irritating tests that are necessary every couple of years or so where they scope your body (from the inside or out) to check for cancer — that’s about it.

Pretty darned lucky, well except for that episode of C-Dif I came down with a couple of years ago.

Have you ever heard of C-Dif?

Me neither until that’s what they diagnosed me with after two weeks of running to the bathroom every 15-20 minutes. I won’t go into all the details of the ailment — some of it’s kind of nasty — but you can go online and learn all about the treatment, one aspect of which is so strange I had to have the doctor repeat the details twice before I could wrap my brain around it. (Look that up online too. It’s very weird.) Thankfully, I didn’t get to that final treatment. Three months and two doses on antibiotics took care of my case, hallelujah.

But 2017 turned out to be the year my health decided to take a definite turn south.

Last April, Mike and I returned from a trip to Cancun with all our kids and grandkids. Lots of fun, sun, pool time, building sand castles on the beach and many, many exotic drinks from the swim up bar.

A week later, what I thought was a urinary tract infection, blew up into a lot more when Dr. Mel said “I think we need to get a CAT scan to find out what’s really going on.”

When I came back to see him a week later he said the CAT scan revealed some pretty interesting details. There was a problem with my left kidney, there was a stone in my right kidney the size of my thumb — and I had a gall stone the size of a golf ball!

Are you kidding me was all I could think.

I remember our daughter having gall stone attacks in college and she was in lots of pain. And wouldn’t stones that size take quite a while to grow? I thought about the last time I had kidney stones in 1982. The pain was so intense I ended up in the hospital for two days, surviving on shots of demerol every four hours. This time there’d been no pain, no weirdness until the suspected UTI showed up.

After consulting with two urologists and a general surgeon, they formulated a plan — a day surgery in Providence St. Peter in Olympia, a two-day stay at Grays Harbor Community Hospital for more surgery and two months later a third surgery and a three-day stay at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle.

To be quite honest with you, the care I received at all three locations was outstanding. From the nursing assistants who kept me well supplied with ice water and came in every four hours to take my vitals, to the nurses who made sure I was comfortable and getting all the medications I needed, to the hospitalists who made sure I knew what steps I had to complete before they’d discharge me — there was no way to tell the difference in the care I received whether I was here in Grays Harbor or up in the big city.

So here I am — fully recovered after having the stone in my right kidney blasted and sucked out, and having my left kidney and gall bladder removed. Three surgeries in five months, three different hospitals and three pretty positive experiences.

It brings to mind a hymn I used to sing when I visited Grandma Redden and we’d go to services at her church — the First Baptist Church of Lorain, Ohio. Part of the lyrics were “Count your blessings, name them one by one,” and among my blessings I now include Dr. Mel, Dr. Charles, Grays Harbor Community Hospital, Providence St. Peter and Virginia Mason.

Karen Barkstrom, The Daily World’s editorial assistant, can be reached at 360-537-3925 or kbarkstrom@thedailyworld.com.