Today's Sunday

Today’s Sunday. It’s been one week since I brought Steve to the emergency room, one week of Steve lying on the couch on agony, one week and we still don’t have any answers.

We’ve seen a neurologist, an urologist, a gastroenterologist and a plain old medical doctor. No one has any idea what could be causing his pain. I even contacted Dr. Vollmer who is currently residing in Pennsylvania. He’s the most familiar with Steve’s case and at the very least he cares. Without a full diagnostic he suggested a pseudo cyst pushing on a nerve or kidney stones. On Friday Steve received a CT and blood work. After being at the hospital since 8:00 am, wheeling Steve from one medical room to another we were allowed to go home by 3:00. They would call with the results they said. So I had to coerce my ailing husband back into the car and home again while feeling the same if not worse than when we came to the hospital. Just to double check, hospitals are supposed to help people who are in pain right? Keep taking the pain medicine was their advice.  Oh my god, thank you for that pearl of wisdom. So your advice would be to continue putting your life on hold, enjoy letting your5 ½ month pregnant do everything for you as well as everything around the house, you can only stand for about 30 seconds at a time even while taking high dosages of pain medicine but go ahead home and we’ll be in touch. SCREAM! OBSCENITY!

Yesterday morning a doctor called and said that Steve’s blood work came back normal. His lipase, white cell count, and kidney levels are all normal. He is anemic which we were aware of seeing that he bruises when he changes his socks. His CT was relatively uneventful revealing no humungous changes except for what appears to be a new pocket of fluid existing on the right side of Steve’s back. AH HA. However, this “should not be causing any pain” according to his doctors. But it has to be. I really miss Dr. Vollmer. A cyst is the only option that makes sense so what do we do now? If Steve has a pseudo cyst that is pressing on a nerve then it needs to be drained. But what does that entail, another surgery?  On the bright side the chronic cyst connecting his pancreas to his small intestines remains intact. His pancreas is not inflamed and seems to be function normally.  I’m torn between feeling grateful and trepidatious. Grateful that medically Steve seems to be relatively fit and trepidatious because something is wrong and we haven’t figured out what. It’s like a massive chess game and I’m not Bobby Fischer.

And now for the latest symptom, last night Steve began peeing little black sandy rocks, I believe that’s the actual medical terminology. Thanks urology for being on top of that one. So should we be assuming kidney stones? Man I love being a living walking, talking WebMD.  

Steve’s waiting until tomorrow to alert his doctors of this latest development seeing how it’s Sunday and giving the president a pedicure would be easier than getting a doctor on the phone. It’s bothersome that pain doesn’t factor into severity for doctors.  It seems that if doctors are certain what a condition is they push for resolve and if their unsure then they let it lie and wait for the next guy to figure it out.

For now it’s more waiting, worrying and wishing it would all end. Hopefully we’ll get some answers this week. Something has to give.