Friday afternoon two weeks ago I was in my doctor’s office working on his PC, and I mentioned to him that I was still having abdominal pain. (I figure since he’s always picking my brain about computer-related things, turnabout was fair play.) I’d been doing some reading on the interwebs, and since my colonoscopy had come back clean, I asked him even though the pain I was experiencing certainly didn’t match the excruciating levels described from several sources, might it still be possible that I had one or more kidney stones inching their way down my ureters?
He said that was unlikely, but suggested I stop at the lab on the way out and leave a donation in a specimen cup.
I ran into him in the parking lot the following Monday, and he told me that the results had come back showing traces of blood. He wanted me to leave another donation that morning so they could screen for infection—because he still didn’t think it was stones.
I had a long chat with my nurse friend the other night, and after describing my symptoms she said, quite matter-of-factly, “It’s a stone. Tell your doctor you’re tired of playing around. You want a CT scan—or at the very least an IVP. You’ve put up with this pain long enough.”
Well, before I had a chance to speak with my doctor, he e-mailed me to say the latest tests came back negative for infection and that he was going to have the office send orders over to our radiology department for a CT scan.
W00t! I get to take a ride in the hospital’s brand new 64-slice CT scanner!
Today I was going to call to scheduling to set up an appointment, but I realized that was silly. I wasn’t especially busy, so why not just go do it in person? I mean, that is the advantage of working here, right? I have a very good rapport with both the women who work there, and when I popped in, Scheduler Nancy said, “I needed to verify those orders with CT anyway. Come with me.”
We walked over to CT and one of the techs took a look at what was requested and said, “Is your doctor living with dinosaurs? Why didn’t he just order a standard stone protocol?” I said I didn’t know. She showed the orders to Tech Jolene and she shook her head in disbelief. We don’t even do this procedure anymore. We’ll do the stone protocol. Go over and get registered and we’ll get you right in.”
WTF? “You can do me right now?”
“Sure, no problem.”
Well slap my ass and call me Sally! Guess it does pay to work in a hospital—and have a good relationship with the people there.
I walked over to registration and—since I’m BFF with one of the gals there (we’re actually seeing Tina Turner together in October), I was immediately processed and authorized. Our new insurance program that started two days ago did not require preapproval and since all this was happening in one of our own facilities there was no deductible that needed to be paid. Even better. I returned to radiology and after about a five minute wait they called me in.
“Drop your pants and lay down on the table,” Tech Jolene told me. (I would’ve preferred that it was Tech Patrick telling me to drop trou’, but that’s another story altogether.)
The whole thing was over in five minutes. “You take excellent photos,” she said. “The results should be ready tomorrow, but since you’re off tomorrow you’ll probably get them on Monday.”
Cool! After dealing with this pain since January, the sooner we find out what’s causing it—and get it taken care of, especially since it’s gotten to the point where it wakes me up at night—the better!
