Haven't we been here enough?

The "here" I'm talking about is the Kaiser Hospital/Medical Center on Morse Avenue which, thankfully, is convenient to our house. It is about 10 to 15 minutes drive time away. Many of our doctors also have their offices there so we've gotten to know the place rather well.

Well enough that we didn't need to make another trip down there after 9:00 last night except that Carolyn was suffering excruciating pain in her lower right back and bladder areas. She's a pretty tough gal so when she starts moaning in pain, you know she's hurting.

For the first 1.5 to 2 hours the care was miserable. They actually took Carolyn in within 10 minutes (which probably felt like hours to her) to give her a quick check-up and triage (patient evaluation & assigning priority). But then we sat in the lobby for another hour waiting for further action. When it came, it was like night and day. The medical assistant called Carolyn's name and motioned for me to come along as well. They never want additional family for the triage stage. We were led past the nursing station and into an exam/treatment room. A nurse called out, "I'll take her!"

A doctor arrived who looked younger than all of my kids but she seemed competent and confident. She explained that the symptoms sounded like kidney stones but that they wouldn't know for sure until Carolyn passed them. Not two minutes later, the doctor was back in the room apologizing for her first diagnosis and said that in this case it was clearly kidney stones that were causing Carolyn's distress. They could see the crystals in the urine sample.

Carolyn was hooked up to an IV drip to get some liquid into her body fast. They also gave her a narcotic to dull the pain and an anti nausea drug to counter the narcotic's tendency to cause nausea. By the time the liter of saline solution with it's piggyback drugs had finished dripping into Carolyn, she was feeling much better. With another prescription for pain medication and a directive to get lots of sleep and drink lots of water, Carolyn was able to walk out to the car with me. It was about 3:00 am when we finally got to sleep last night.

Seems like it's just one thing after another. At least we can be grateful they all don't happen at the same time.