Backpacking Asia

A nice way to round out the trip :-(

July 11, 2008 at 3:09 am (Uncategorized)

You’d think after such a wonderful trip, we’d have to have something go wrong, right??  Well, it did.  Our return trip was a VERY long one – about 26 hours of total flying over who knows how many actual days… Bali to Singapore to Bangkok to Seoul to Tokyo (which was not on our itinerary) to L.A. to Houston.  Whew!!

As we were going to take of from Bali to Singapore, I felt this odd pain in my side.  It kept getting worse and worse by the minute and by the time we were in the air it was horrible!  I alternated between the bathroom when it was bad and my seat when it was not as bad for the duration of the 2 hour flight.  We weren’t quite sure what it was at that point, and of course every horrible thing is running through my mind…like what happens if your appendix explodes 20,000 feet above the ground, and replaying every episode of House in by brain as I stand in the teeny bathroom and freak out.  Luckily it stopped once we got to the hotel and I was OK the next day.

"Tell me what's wrooooooong!!"

We finally finished flying and I felt just a little but of pain off and on in parts of the trip, but it was mostly just queasy stomach-sick that I had since Bali.

Until we got home.
We got in about 9pm on Tuesday night and unpacked a little and played with our puppies (who barely remembered us, thank you very much).  Along about 1am the pain started again…in the same place as the plane ride plus lower as well.  I woke up Allison, who was in a serious fog because of jet lag, and told that I needed to go to the emergency room.  She took me in and at that point they asked me “How’s your pain, 1 being no pain and 10 being worst pain imaginable?”  Not wanting to seem like a pansy, I said 8, but it was really 15 (I know, Allison already yelled at me for that).  I have never in my life felt so much pain   I sat shivering in the hospital bed while the guy proceeded to poke around for a vein with a very large needle in both my arms and finally settled on my hand – after making me look like a heroin addict!  They took a CT scan and pumped me full of drugs, which are the greatest thing EVER.  I’m sure those of you who have had this already know what I’m talking about, but it turns out it was a 2mm kidney stone.  After more nice drugs, a prescription for Vicodin and lots of gauze all over the nurse’s t failed IV attempts, we got back home  around 5am.

I managed to get some sleep and stayed full of Vicodin for the rest of the day.  At this point, it has passed into my bladder, which means the worst is over.  It doesn’t hurt me at all and I just have to wait for it to pass.  Mercifully, I won’t describe any more…but if you’d like to read up on my packet of kidney stone info from the hospital, I’d be glad to email you

Not the real size, but close

As excruciating and horrible as it was, we are SO thankful that it didn’t happen on the plane or earlier in the trip!!!  I was definitely spared what could’ve been a huge disaster, particularly since if it happened on the plane, I would’ve opened the door and jumped into the Pacific Ocean, no questions asked.

Seriously.

Seriously

Well, we have more pictures and tips and things to post, so THIS ISN’T THE LAST POST – keep checking!!  And thank you SO MUCH for reading along with us and especially for posting – it kept us connected to Western civilization.