Our night at the ER

Josh and I have had quite an eventful weekend.

Yesterday afternoon Josh called me at work saying he was in a lot of pain. {in his groin of all places-probably the worst place to be in pain! (sorry if that is too much information!)}  I told him he should try and find a doctor's office that was open on Saturdays or at least go over to Instacare.

Being the hard worker that he is, Josh finished mowing all 10 lawns and came home feeling miserable.  He quickly showered and we headed over to Instacare.  Thankfully, there wasn't a long wait and he got right in.  Unfortunately the doctor only spent about 3 minutes with him and hardly looked him over.  She determined he had some type of infection and prescribed an antibiotic for him.  We left feeling discouraged that her time with Josh was so brief, but we went and got his medication, grabbed some dinner and headed home to relax.

We went to bed just after 10-which was shocking because if you know Josh, you know that he is a NIGHT OWL!  I love going to bed early, so I was totally fine going to bed at that time on a Saturday night.

Just after 2 a.m., Josh woke me up and was moaning and groaning and saying he was in so much pain.  He said the pain had moved up into his side and that he had never been in so much pain in his life.  He got out of bed and paced around the apartment and would crouch into a fetal position every few seconds.  I kept asking him if he wanted to go to the emergency room, and he kept saying, "No, no I'll be fine. I just need to relax."

After a few minutes, he finally said, "Hurry!  Get dressed!  We have to go to the emergency room now!"

We hurried down to the car and sped over to the ER. (If you ask Josh, he will claim that I wasn't speeding, but trust me, I was!)

We got to the ER around 2:45 and were relieved to find it quiet and empty.  Josh was immediately taken back to a room and they began evaluating him.  We had to wait a while in between the nurses taking his vitals and drawing his blood before he was seen by the doctor.

We kind of got two for the price of one as far as doctors go because a third year medical student came and examined him, and then he was also evaluated by the ER doctor.  They both had the same suspicion on what was causing Josh so much pain- Kidney Stones.  They were positive he didn't have the "infection" he was diagnosed with at Instacare.  After they both examined him, they said a nurse would be in to pump some medicine in his IV to help with the pain. While waiting for the nurse, my cute husband looks at me with lots of pain in his eyes and says, "At least I can stay home tomorrow and watch a lot of football."  haha.  Even in excruciating pain, he still lets his personality shine through.  I love him.

After some morphine, Josh started feeling like a million bucks.  :)  The med student came back in and said they were going to give Josh a CT scan, but that it could be up to 3 hours before the scan happened.  YIKES!  Somehow we got lucky and no more that 15 minutes later, a man came to get Josh for the CT scan.  If we would've arrived at the hospital any later, we would have been there twice as long because while Josh was getting the scan done, 4 trauma patients were admitted to the ER.  I feel so grateful that the timing happened the way it did.

A little while after the CT scan, the doctor and medical student came in to say that the Radiologist was really busy and wouldn't be able to evaluate the results of the scan for a few hours.   Luckily they said they had both looked at it and were certain it was a kidney stone and it would be okay if we left the hospital.  The doctor said he would call if the radiologist thought the stone was too big or anything like that.  He wrote Josh a few prescriptions and we were home at six o'clock this morning.

Now Josh has to drink lots of liquids and hope that this thing passes soon.  It does not sound fun at all.  I have heard they are miserable!  But I guess the good news is that he will be very sympathetic when I am in labor someday.  :)

I hate seeing Josh in pain, but I am so grateful it is not something worse.  He is tough and I know he can handle this.  I am also grateful for the amazing ER staff at IMC.  They were all so great to us.  Every person, nurse and doctor we dealt with was so nice and spent time answering all of our questions and never made us feel rushed or last priority.  If the maternity staff is as great as the ER staff, then I will definitely want to have my babies there.  :)

Oh and lesson learned- Instacare is now referred to as InstaCRAP in my book!  I want our $40 copay back!!