Stoned

March 4 - I thought I might be dying: kidneys full of stones, led by a large lead. It was near unbearable, and prompted thoughts on life & living. I tend to feel more alive when things like this happen. "Things" being anything odd and/or painful. When I had extensive heart testing a few years ago, in Echo - that felt like an exterior existence, but when the transducer found valve & chamber and you could see the pumping (enhanced by synchrony with sound), I suddenly realized I was Alive. That thing was me; I was made of stuff. Or when the dog attack happened last summer, fight or flight response engaged, watching myself from above fighting against them - that made me feel alive. The adrenaline largely, seeing my insides, pain. 

That day I'd worked, ran twice; the first - warmup, 2 x k @ 3:15, 3 miles @ 6:00, 3 x k @ 3:15, 2 miles @ 6:00 with 2.5 min btwn all, cooldown. I did it in: (3:10, 3:10), (5:55, 5:53, 5:49), (3:15, 3:13, 3:10), (5:50, 5:42). Later, I had a 6-mile double with 10 x 25s hill sprints. After, I had a massage and was surprised when he told me I felt pretty good and that it seemed my body was taking well to the training. I'd been fretting how much I was beating myself up with 100-mi weeks + intensity and little-to-no body work, and even if he was lying, I came away from it feeling empowered. I didn't need resources! I didn't need anyone! 

I remember dinner that night vividly, because I'd engage with it viscerally. I swam in it: a platter bowl of massaged kale, chili crisp oil, nutritional yeast, vegetables, breaded chicken, water, wine, and ice cream. I laid on the couch with my legs up. In a sudden, I felt a sharp pain in my left low back. It was so startling I immediately went to the roller, thinking my QL might be spasming. That was pretty evidently not right. Ran to the shower. As soon as I got in, I began to vomit uncontrollably. I filled the tub. There wasn't a thing to be done about it. It was very green and dense. I'm not sure I've never not made it to a respectable receptacle, especially when it's 12 inches away. I couldn't believe the magnitude. M was asleep, and stayed that way, a benefit of sleeping pills. I googled, figuring it had to be kidney stones, but worried of burst, of death. Nothing soothed the pain. Multiple rounds of vomiting. I scooped my interior from tub to toilet. Hobbled to the living room floor & tried to find a position to lay, which ended fetal, doing rhythmic breathing as if in birth, and in trying to breathe through it, I noticed my heart rate drop low and lower and my mind go quiet. I reached to feel a pulse on my wrist and couldn't. I did think I might be dying. And, I asked myself if I wanted to let go.

I think I fell asleep for a few minutes and then ran to throw up again. I woke M to take me to the hospital. I didn't want to go. I detest the whole thing - the care (quality), lack of urgency (evidenced), having to rely on a system I distrust (personal, but also evidenced), health insurance (evidenced, bullshit), the bill (evidenced, bullshit). But I guess that's how much I wanted to live that night (drama). M drove me to the ED. It was 11 pm; I was in the waiting room for 3 hours before I was seen. I happened to pee while I was waiting, and the pain lessened. It convulsed in waves, but in waves cascading downwards. When I finally gained entrance, I was put in a bed in the hall, which put me in a reverie of what the last hours of my grandmother's life, there in the same hallway, must have felt like. That the sights and sounds and lacking I was witness to were perhaps the same to color her last hours, and how miserable that is, and hopefully inaccurate in supposition. There in the waves, in the sounds of hospital hallway, next to a room whose door held contamination & mandatory entry rules, being very present to the way all the rules were broken around that room, lying beside it, vulnerably. It felt as if I were a secret shopper, save for the only one to report to is a prompted "How was your stay" email. 

They gave me anti-nausea meds, blood & urine tests, an IV bag, the nurse in easy-gasm over runner's vein, but strangely said, "I won't be greedy and get that big one, I'll do this weird obscure one to the side." There was blood in my urine. They pondered rabdo and being on my period. I felt like a child going through the list of Isn'ts, hoping I could convince them of the Probably to offload unnecessary & costly testing. Got a CT. That was actually a pleasurable experience, though I wish there had been a lesser step before CT - like what about an ultrasound? Apparently kidney stones are detectable via US, and are markedly more affordable, so wtf? The CT tech was a happy, playful man. I thought we were vibing, but then he wheeled me back & gave the same jovial speech to the next in line & my god the fun went to sad because how many times does he do this? Is there deviation? Am I not special? Also, as a secret shopper, I find it particularly fishy that everyone in the ED needed a CT that night...seemed like a cash grab.

PA comes back & says both kidneys are full of stones, that I probably passed the big one that I'd been laid bare over, in the waiting room, and he either said or gave the impression that the stones left in both could pass without much trouble, that, or I should see my Primary if I had further issues. It wasn't very helpful, as a first timer of stones. What it feels like is let's test for several things without listening to the patient, do the more expensive imaging, say well...looks like you're full up and the worst went, then see ya, a bill for several thou will be to you in the next month, separated out for hospital and radiologist.

I was given Dilaudid via IV. I did not find joy in it. Or relief. It felt like someone was sitting on my chest, akin to growing panic, without the emotion. At this time, M had to begin work, and I had an hour before I had to myself. I wanted a coke slurpee. Maybe a cheeseburger. But he brought me home, where I rested for the hour & then I went to work because all I know how to do is lean into the suffering. 

I spent a good week or two or months with weird little feelings, female feelings, aches, largely in the back left side. I felt hollowed out a bit, taken for a ride. There is zero research around running at a more intense level while full of stones, save for the line, "exercise has been found as helpful to encourage the passing." With it in the rearview, hopefully, I have some thoughts: 

- The hospital system is broken in many ways. But I've known, and you probably have to. I'm not above waiting, I am observant and empathetic, and I trust my ability to read the landscape.
- All but one hospital staff member lacked urgency. A group of nurses spent their time in the box trying to figure out how to input their vacations, and sadly, but juicily, complained about specific patients' inability to take direction. When you're in pain, in a hallway, and you hear them bitching about people or wasting time over schedule planning, the 3+ hours you waited to get in there feels worse. 

- As verified by a friend who's worked in that ED, if you present something off script, it can throw the PA/Dr. This specifically evidenced by my interruptions of, "No, I don't believe it's rabdo, I've had that before," and "No, I'm not on my period," to which such interruptions in his speech made him stumble, then re-track to finish a definition of rabdo. I find this frightening, because the script thinking is fixed & assumptive and totally wastes everyone's time, resources & money. Listening, trust and creative or fast thinking seems to be lacking. 
- I'm quite afraid of what this bill will be. The dog attack cost $2k out of pocket, and that was just for someone to look at the wounds, tell me there hadn't been a rabies case in 10 yrs, and give me 2 tylenol. And that was the cost after health insurance...I applied for financial assistance and their response was that I make too much money at $40k/yr. 
Edit: The cost out-of-pocket post health insurance is $4k
Double Edit: Oh thank god, they think I'm poor enough, they're going to wave this!
-There were minutes there, on the floor, when my mind went quiet and I couldn't feel a pulse. I'm sure it was a pain response, but I leaned into it a little. I'm a little surprised I got up, but I think it was more the body & nausea & purge than a choice. 
- I'm not sure what kind of trophy I expect from trying to be tough all the time. I don't know anyone who would have spent the night in the ER and straight to work thereafter, making $40k year. Here I am always, in a state of suffering, stemming from the out-of-my-control and into a sick habit of piling it on without reason.

Yo, so I got Mad City in a few weeks.