Update

Well, yesterday was probably one of the worst days I've had this year. I decided that I no longer needed my narcotics. Yup, I decided it was time to go cold turkey, that I was sick of the "stupid" drug (meaning it makes me goofy) and that I was done.

By noon I was bawling. So instead of taking one pill, this stubborn girl took half a pill. By six p.m. I took a full pill, cried a little, counted my remaining pills out so I could determine how many I could take every day and the few days after the stent is removed. Funny thing is...there is enough for all that. Guess that doctor was pretty smart when writing his prescription.

Today I took my pill at the appointed time, laid back down and had three full hours of sleep. I have not been sleeping well at all. I felt SO much better! Physically and mentally! What a difference pain medication makes.

The pain is not "oh my God I'm dying" like when the stone was trying to move. Instead, it is a dull yet intense ever-present booger. I can feel the stent in every single position. It is icky--I cannot come up with words to describe how foreign and off it is. The top of the stent is in the kidney, and my kidney always hurts. When I urinate, the kidney does a spasm thing and it is not pleasant. I drink a lot! Drink, drink, drink, drink, and drink some more. I potty at least every half hour. So I have that icky kidney pain frequently. The other bothersome pain is in the urethra itself. It is a very intense pressure that is awful. It is extremely uncomfortable to sit. I have to sit at an angle so I'm not putting any weight there. It is one of the most disturbing feelings ever. It never goes away. Warm water numbs it a bit, it intensifies when I urinate, but it's always present.

I hate this. I would say without a doubt the kidney stone was the most painful thing I have ever endured. The stent is the second most painful and bothersome. I had really hoped I wouldn't be popping pain pills throughout this, but it is just too irritating not to.

IT SUCKS

There, whine over.

Because I felt better mentally, tonight I decided to focus on some positives. I got out all my blood work reports and read over them. It just makes me happy to see my lipid panel has improved SO much. Still working on raising the HDL which is a bit too low, but my goodness, I get chills seeing the triglycerides from 403 in June of '09 to 112 in Sept of 10. WOW. So I'm celebrating that again--because I worked my a$$ off to get that and I deserve to celebrate it again!

Also started thinking of my re-entry into the exercise world. I am doing NOTHING right now. I did get over 7000 steps yesterday and today, but they were very gentle and slow steps. I can't do more than that, I don't have the energy. I had hoped to stay around 3000 steps, but lying around is uncomfortable for me. I can stand and lie down and be fairly comfortable, and I can walk very slowly--so I might as well move a tad bit.

I am missing my FIRMs. I think I'll start out with those for strength, going very light with weights. I'm weak, I'm worn out, but I know these workouts by heart and there will be no guesswork, I know to go light. For cardio, I'll start out with Leslie Sansone, Wii's Walk it Out, and then slowly move forward to rebounding and my step DVDs. I'm thinking a week or two and I'll be back to where I want to be exercise wise.

Also been looking over my diet/food intake. Once I know which kind of kidney stones I have, I will be changing some aspects of what I eat. I sure as heck don't want to ever go through this again. Also imperative for me for the rest of my life is to drink a lot of water every single day. I do already, but I've been drinking more to flush the kidney/ureter, and from what I've read, that will continue forever.

Life throws bumps in the road, doesn't it? I was about to lose it there in December. I am SO thankful that we finally discovered what has been giving me pain for these past few years. I'm going to do everything in my power to work on prevention.

My doctor told me that passing a kidney stone is the most painful thing the human body can endure. I just keep thinking of that. I survived that without pain meds. I'm tough. But by golly, I'm using my pain meds now!

Need to get back to my research on hormones/metabolism. Every time I pick up a book to read, I fall asleep. Narcotics will do that. Changes, education, always moving forward.

I don't know if this is the year I'm going to reach my goal weight or not. I do know that I am not giving up. As I sit here, I'm looking at my body. It is so swollen and puffy. If I snapped a photo and shared it (not gonna happen!) you could see it, too. I'm no longer worrying about the scale like I did the other night. It's time for healing, and that water weight will come off when things settle.

I'm getting my groove back, my "it," my gumption, my drive--whatever you want to call it. I never lost it, but it was just an ember for awhile. It's starting to flame up now--that's a good thing.

So that's it. In a nutshell: I hate this stent! Counting the days.

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p.s. My face is naturally oily. Either the meds or the surgery itself has caused my nose and cheeks to be so dry that the skin is flaking. I don't know what to use for this as I've never had this problem. Any suggestions would be welcomed!

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A quick shout out to my friend Chrys. I'm so sorry to hear you are passing a kidney stone right now. I feel responsible--as if all my chatter grabbed your kidney's attention, then it felt jealous or something, and decided to shoot one out. I hope it passes quickly and that you don't endure much pain. Take those pain meds! hugs