Kidney Stones Run Amok

June 25, 2006

Hi Folks,

I've been keeping up with posts...I really like this group!...But

have been unable to chime in much.

Last Saturday evening I had a great dinner meeting with a

videographer and a fellow policy advocate. We're making a short

video about how " work incentives " are and are not working for people

with disabilities. A quick, concise piece to show congress, etc.

I'm very excited.

Suddenly I felt my temperature climb. Within 3 hours I was at the ER

with my 3rd kidney stone obstruction in a year. After we got the

pain under control, I went home and have spent the last week in bed,

except for about 3 hours on Tuesday and all day Thursday (an

optimistic error).

Thankfully, Chuck was able to stay home all but Friday and took good

care of me. Work isn't always that flexible. It was tough

especially because 1 attendant was out of town, another is graduating

and has family in town, 3 others are entrenched in intensive summer

school...bad timing. Also, Chuck and I had planned to be out of town

to celebrate my birthday (40th!) this weekend, so I had already given

folks the time off...It was especially difficult to patchwork an

attendant schedule back together because it's LGBTQ Pride Weekend

here, and all my friends and attendants are out celebrating. All

returns to normal tonight when Bekey puts me to bed. Whew!

The scariest part of this whole ordeal has been my fever. It usually

goes down within 24 hours of starting antibiotics. It didn't go down

for 7 days. The hospital lost my original cultures so we were

treating me in the dark. We took new cultures on Tuesday. On Friday

at 11:00 p.m. the on-call infectious disease specialist phoned with

results - candida has colonized my bloodstream - Antibiotics don't

fix that, they exacerbate it. I'm now on I.V. anti-fungal meds along

with antibiotics and my fever broke early this morning.

Reading Jenn's e-mails about deciding to have gall bladder surgery or

not is what I'm deciding now about having these kidney stones

removed. I am not so worried about the intubation. The 2

intubations I had done went well after they figured out what angle to

turn my head and that it's easier to use my nasal passage. I'm not

thrilled about the 4-5 night hospital stay. Coordinating 24 hour

coverage between Chuck, friends and my attendants isn't easy when the

hospital isn't conveniently located - San Francisco. I think I

really need to do it, though.

I'm glad you're all here.

Alana

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