The Double Kidney Infection?
It’s 1 p.m. on April 9th, 2020, and I’m opening the fridge to get my lunch. As I’m opening the door, I am suddenly hit with a weird feeling…
I grab my lunch and sit down to begin eating and I start getting abdominal pain and nausea that begins to grow. I quickly finish up my food so I can lay down. As the pain continues to increase, I immediately recognize it- pain all on the left side of my abdomen and my flank, just like what happened in January except, this time, it doesn’t feel as severe.
I let my family know that I’m having pain and I decide to lay on the couch and wait for it to go away, since last time, it dissipated in 8 hours. I was sitting pushing the front of my left abdomen in while I asked my mom to push my back in- this, for some very bizarre reason, helped minimize the pain. I wasn’t crying in pain, so I wasn’t too concerned to go see anyone about it since it felt like the “mini-version” of what happened in January.
Little did I know, the pain wasn’t going away this time, it remained continuously for the next 32 hours until it started increasing.
We scheduled an appointment to see a gynecologist since the pain wasn’t going away and we had been told previously that it could’ve been an ovarian cyst. I did an ultrasound which showed nothing and a urine test which we never got the results from. The gynecologist said they didn’t think I had an ovarian cyst rupture in January and that my pain was too high up and seemed like a GI or renal issue.
As I continued eating over the next few days my stomach was bloated and even drinking would cause this tight balloon-like feeling all over my stomach. Eating began to start to make me nauseous and add pain, but it would dissipate each time after a couple hours.
3:29 a.m. April 14th, I had been awake completing a math assignment for my newly COVID safe virtual high school classes (since I had been asleep for most of the day) when I suddenly sprung out of bed because I started dry heaving. I was so confused and unsure why I started having a large escalation in pain.
I was unable to touch any part of my abdomen or back this time, everything was so tender that it would cause me to go into another dry heaving fit (among the one I was already having). The most tender area was the center part under my rib cage.
At this point I was bent over completely 90 degrees again. Anytime I attempted to stand upright I was in a ton of pain and would begin dry heaving again. I ran around my bedroom trying to frantically find a position that would relieve my pain, and nothing was working. I had tried lying down but that had the bed touching my back and was basically equivalent to standing upright. I then finally found a position that worked- sitting in my desk chair with my feet touching the floor and my head between my knees bent over completely. This was the only position that stopped the dry heaving and minimized my pain to a bearable level.
At around 6 a.m. I finally was able to get back into bed (after attempting a couple times and having to get up again) and go to sleep.
I woke up for the day at 11 a.m. and explained to my parents what had happened during the night. We went to the hospital 30 minutes later.
At this time, I was still hunched over 90 degrees and had trouble walking into the emergency department. Because of COVID protocols and my 18th birthday being a couple weeks prior, I was required to go into the hospital alone.
It was the first time I had been in the hospital alone and I was panicked as I was trying to answer questions while still in a lot of pain.
I had blood tests, urine tests, an abdominal ultrasound, and a CT with contrast done to try and see what was wrong.
Things were hectic in the hospital since I was nearby a COVID ward, there was a patient who was getting arrested in the room next to mine, and my ER doctors kept getting switched since they were being called onto emergency surgeries.
My first ER doctor thought I had something that was GERD related meaning something that had to do with gastroesophageal reflux disease. I was given a “GI cocktail” which was this super thick liquid that was thicker than drinking glue. I almost choked a few times with how dense it was. I didn’t notice any relief.
My second doctor came when we had gotten all of the test results back- my urine test came back showing blood in the urine (which I was unaware I needed to inform them I was on my period at the time), bacteria in the urine, high white blood cell count meaning a sign of infection, and my CT scan showed these “unknown lesions” on both of my kidneys. With all of these things linked together, along with my symptoms of flank pain and upper epigastric abdominal pain, it made sense why the radiologist diagnosed me with a bilateral kidney infection.
They said I likely had a UTI that had been untreated since I didn’t know it was there (I didn’t display any symptoms other than one day in March when I had the urge to pee a lot) that turned into a bladder infection and then spread to both of my kidneys.
I was prescribed omeprazole by the first doctor (which I didn’t take since we figured that wasn’t my issue) and a very strong dose of a medication called Cefdinir to get rid of the bilateral kidney infection.
I was supposed to take 2 pills of Cefdinir every day for 2 weeks to get rid of the infection. I was told I would feel better after about the first week into the medication. If not, we were informed to call the hospital since it could mean my kidneys were going into sepsis.
My heart rate wouldn’t go down during my whole ED visit so right before I left, they gave me an anti-anxiety medication to see if it would bring it down.
It did-and I was discharged as a very dizzy and high Emma held onto the wall railings as I attempted to find my way out of the hospital to find my parents and go home.
Find out what happens next in this story by reading “The Hell Weeks & The Return of the UTI”.