susanmt: best wishes for success of op

[Copper]

susanmt
just to wish you good luck (a day late?)for your op. I'd been wondering where you had got to, and hoping you were OK, so I had a look and found you were in Canada for August and then in hospital. Hope everything is OK - have been missing you, and your 'Tales from the Isles'.

Ahh! I'd been wondering about susanmt too. Hope you're OK (or as well as can be expected anyway) and all goes well. Hope to hear from you soon.

me three - we've missed you susanmt. Hope all goes OK and you can start to live a pain free(er) life

susnmt
are you back in circulation yet?

Hi, and thanks so much for remembering - Mumsnet never ceases to amaze me.
I didn't have the op - but I'm doing it in a month. The one significant risk of the operation was that it could cause premature labour - and the closer I got to the date the more I thought I just couldn't do it. I think at 25 weeks, if the baby had been born there was such a slim chance of things working out OK, and I think I would have felt that my signature on the consent form was a death warrant! I've had 3 miscarriages in the past and just couldn't go through all that again. So the op is now on the 23rd October, when I will be almost 32 weeks. This is much better news for us all. It means I will have to go through the pain etc for a little bit longer, but we're happy with the decision (my obstetrician isn't, but he's a bit of a bullying git and wants me to do everything his way - including going to the mainland to have the baby because of some theoretical risk of high blood pressure. Kidney failure can cause this, but stones don't. He seems to have forgotten all of his non-obstetric training and he did admit to me that he'd never treated anyone with kidney stones in pregnancy so I know more about it than he does!!!). My GP is also right behind me and so is the anaesthetist who is overseeing my pain control.
Thanks so much for remembering, and I'll keep you posted about how I'm doing. I'm so pleased you remembered about me and missed me - even though most of the time I've been away I was on a FAB holiday in Canada and not missing you at all!!

susanmt. can you tell me a bit more about kidney stones. I have a stone 18mmx23mm, too big to blast so need to have keyhole surgery. Is this what you are having done? Any advice welcome.

I was supposed to have an IVP this morning, they phoned to see where I was. They sent the appointment to an address I lived at 8 years ago, despite having sent appts for the consultant and the ultrasound.

Have a lot of pain at the moment, but used to coping with it.

Good luck with your op and the pregnancy.

alibubbles - poor you! The op I am having is to put a stent (tube) into my kidney - it will go from the centre of the kidney down to my bladder. The pain of kidney stones is caused by your ureter going into spasm as it tries to force the stones(s) through. My stones are teeny, like little grains of sand, but there are a lot of them which is why I need the stent to allow them to pass through. Its a problem for me because I'm pregnant and cant take the normal painkiller (Voltarol) so I have to have pethidine - nothing else seems to touch the pain at all.
I have had 2 IVPs and its fine - its scarey when they come at you with a syringe that looks as if it was invented for a horse, but I enjoyed the chance of lying still for half an hour - all quite relaxing really.
The most important thing, as far as I am aware, is to drink LOADS! I aim for 8 pints of water a day (apparantly beer doesn't count lol!) and this keeps the kidney clear. I've also been told that, although my stones are related to pregnancy, now that I have them I will likely always have a tendency to forming them, so will have to have high fluid intake forever basically.
What else do you want to know? I know a lot about them now - my dh is a doc so found me some good medical texts about them, so I could have an idea of what was happening.
Take care, and take it easy. The pain is awful, apparently it is supposed to be the closest a man can come to giving birth!

thanks susanmt. I do drink a lot of water, we have a cooler with those 19litre bottles. We get through 4/5 a week.

I can't take Voltarol, it makes me sick and dizzy.

Got a a new appt for the IVP this morning but not until the 9th November, pretty poor seeing as it was their fault i didn't get the original letter.

A bit scared about having surgery, and the recovery afterwards.

I think the stone could have been due to the Atkins, as I'd nver had a problem in the past and I went on it a few times for 2 weeks at a time.

alibubbles - what are you doing for pain releif? I hope they are giving you something.
I was chatting to dh (doc) and he said that he thinks your stone will be taken out by cystoscopy rather than keyhole surgery. They stick a tube up the obvious route (urgh - thats whats happening to me too - dont really want to think about it!) and there is a little basket on the end that they grab the stone with and pull it out. If you are fit and healthy then it should be a daycase and because there is no cutting you get over it quite fast - and of course you are free of the pain.
Hope it is sorted out soon, I really do sympathise.