Like I have said in my previous post, I am working on filling in all the missing gaps in my blog that I had been using FB way too much to talk about all of my more detailed situations going on day by day. I had basically been using FB as a blog to update all my friends instead of my actual blog! It’s going to take me a while to go through and get all the detailed posts added in to my blog on the date they occurred. In the meantime, I am having to continue on with creating new posts on my blog or else I will get further and further behind. I had to go back all the way to March of 2014 to begin this process… and have only made it to May 2014 by the creation of THIS blog entry. So in other words, I am just going to talk about in this post about what happened the THIS day, and not what led up to it. So if you feel there are unanswered questions or lack of details leading up to this. Don’t worry, as in time, I will finally be caught up. Now… onto the blog entry…
So this pending kidney surgery has been dragging on and on all this time. It has been about 1.5 months since I had my first kidney stone attack and got the diagnosis of a 6mm kidney stone lodged in the top of my right ureter. After finding out from Dr. Shapiro’s office (my pulmonologist) that I needed to call Dr. Maloney (the first urologist I saw after going to the local ER) in order to get a referral to see a urologist that works out of Seton Main (which is the only hospital Dr. Shapiro wanted the surgery to be done because he needed to be there for my respiratory support) I called Dr. Maloney’s nurse, and she said he wanted me to do another KUB (kidney, ureter, bladder) X-ray done.
I went and he couldn’t find the stone on the x-ray. Then he had me do a CAT scan real quick as well. Well come to find out, he couldn’t see it on that x-ray either! Now, this does not mean it’s not there. Because whomever read my x-ray in the ER that night that I went in to dire pain from it, said they saw a 6mm stone right at the opening of my right ureter. All Dr. Maloney got that night he was called from the ER was the report that was done, and he didn’t actually SEE the CAT scan the ER did. So he said that he wanted to get a hold of that scan and view the scan he did with the ER scan, side-by-side. He said in the last 30 years of him being in practice, that I had the most difficult to read CAT scan he’s ever seen! Wow! LOL! Doesn’t surprise me with my anatomy being all totally screwed up and nothing is where it should be!
He began talking about trying to get this thing out, and he knew from the doctor’s notes (that was from the same group, years ago) that he knew he wouldn’t be able to get a scope up there by going through my urethra because my ureter curves around one of my other organs, and follows the turn of my scoliosis. He said by my CAT scan that he could tell me that my kidney looked great. He said if it were blocked, it the kidney would have been really inflamed and swollen, and it’s not. He said he DID see a few spots of calcification areas, but they were all outside of my ureter. He said EVERYONE has calcification spots, and they are nothing to be worried about and a ton of different things cause them. He said mine were likely from my ureter rubbing against other organs or my spine, etc. But he could find NOTHING in the actual ureter.
So all that being said, since my kidney looked so good on CAT scan and didn’t show any signs of damage to it, then he said that really the risk involved with putting me under anesthesia were WAY higher than the “absolute imperceptible” chance of damage to my kidney or risk of kidney dying.
So he said that he didn’t think surgery needed to be done about this anytime in the near future. He said he can’t explain my pain that day, and don’t doubt it was from a stone… but he said he simply just couldn’t find it, and didn’t know where it could have gone. He said that everyone can read CAT scans differently than others, but that’s not to say that either the ER radiologist’s findings were wrong or right, or that what he can’t see is wrong or right. So this is why over the next week he wants to get a hold of my scans from the ER to compare them to the scan done in his office, and also get some other well-trained eyes to look at the scans with him.
He is supposed to call me when this happens, and he told me to call next week (mid-week) if I haven’t heard from him, and bug him until he gets it done. LOL! He said otherwise, all I need to do is schedule a followup appointment in a month with him, and do another CAT scan just to stay on top of this. He also said that if I spike a fever … I need to call his office first. He said if he isn’t on call, to have the doctor I talk to call him at home, because he said I wouldn’t be able to really explain in detail to him my situation the way he could for him to truly understand from a doctor’s viewpoint on how difficult of a patient I am/will be. He said then he will call up one of his 8 out of 16 partners that work out of Seton Main to see me there, since that’s where I will have to go. I asked him about what if I run in to severe pain from it again, and he said “pain, while it may feel like you are dying… you aren’t dying and pain is just pain… it’s not killing you.” So basically just deal with it at home if I can, and if not, then need to call them. He said if I spike a fever, they may have to go in immediately and do something surgically. But again, he felt the chance of that was minimal to nonexistent.
So it’s GOOD NEWS!!! For ONCE! I don’t have to now face surgery on this thing and risk my life doing so!! AMEN!
