The Great Kidney Crisis

 The Great Kidney Crisis Continues.

So last month, I ran a 7 miler that was an epic fail.  This epic fail resulted in kidney stones on my right kidney.  Fun times.  I went on flomax (a prostate medication!) to dilate the ureters where the stones were stuck.  Ya, I take manly drugs.  I was good for about a week.  And then a week later, it hit my left side.  And a week later, it hit again.

My kidneys appear to be on some kind of schedule that looks like this.

Run long run –> 2 days of nausea and hot flashes and headaches –> followed by a day or two of flank pain + nausea. 

So stupid! And it’s even stupider because I’m fine one minute, and then not the next.  It’s like a super sudden onset of hot flashes, flank pain (although not as terrible as some other kidney stone survivors have experienced), and just an over all feeling of getting hit by a semi-truck.

So our family doc (and friend from church) wants me to do a CT scan.  I was talking to him last night at our couples devotion at church about the necessecity of this CT scan, and he said he is assuming its still kidney stones, but he wants to be sure of what we are dealing with, and that there are other reasons for flank pain, like an angry adrenal gland or ovary. Ahh anything but my ovaries! I’m not done making babies!  

We have insurance, but it’s a high deductible insurance to protect us from something big and terrible (like a car accident or something) while the hubs is in school.  So pretty much everything within a doctor’s office is covered, but outside of the doc office, the prices get unreal.  A CT scan could cost me $2000 or more at the hospital.  There is a doc in town who has a CT machine in his office, and I have been referred to him.  I am going to visit his office tomorrow, explain my situation and see if he is in my network and get an estimate of how much it would cost.

I am determined to not let my devil kidneys keep me from my half marathon.  I have a long run planned for this weekend.  12 miles.  The longest I am going to go before my 1/2 marathon, and then I will begin to taper my long runs down until race day.