Mystery Diagnosis

I'm sure you are probably thinking I am going to write a blog post on the CoVID-19 virus but nope. I think people have heard enough about that to last a lifetime. This time, its about my recent trip to the Urgent Care facility.

I woke up yesterday morning with pain in my right side that was getting stronger by the hour. It didn't matter if I sat, stood up, walked or laid down. It had no affect on the pain. Now to give as specific as a pain comparison as I could, it felt like when I would run in high school and you get the stitch in your side. It wasn't constant but in waves. So I would have moments of reprieve.

So thinking I wanted to rule out things like appendicitis, I thought I would head to the Urgent Care over the Emergency Room. Not only to keep the wait time down, but to prevent me from having to be around so many sick people too. Thankfully, there was only one person waiting so I knew it wasn't going to be a long wait.

So when I was finally seen, the pain was on a scale of 5-6 if I wanted to be reasonable. I didn't really want to try and take something without knowing what is going on. The doctor asked all the usual questions, but when he pressed on the area that was sore, it almost put me through the roof. So he agreed that we should rule out appendicitis. So he said he was going to send me out for a CT Scan and run an IV just in case. So after all the usual paper work being faxed over and approvals, I was off to get a CT Scan with contrast complete.

To sum up long waiting times and getting through all the testings, lets just fast forward to the end result. No appendicitis, which was a relief, but it could be kidney stones, or the large stone I have in my gall bladder. Since the pain from the gall bladder didn't match up with what I was experiencing, he didn't think that was the case. So he said to give it a couple of days and see if perhaps I didn't move the right way, or caused something to pull when it shouldn't have and if it gets worse of course come back.

They weren't even going to prescribe anything for the pain, and wanted me to take Tylenol or Advil and rest. I kindly smiled and said if that were the case, I wouldn't have come into the office today. So he agreed to Tylenol 3. I was so happy to leave, I didn't really consider the pain level I would have to deal with later, that taking a Tylenol 3 wouldn't even touch. They did offer to give me Toredol in my IV before they took that out. However hours later, it didn't do anything.

The most interesting thing was looking at my discharge paperwork to see what they thought was wrong. I found 6 sheets of instructions for kidney stones, gallstones and stomach pains. Then I thought, did they seriously expect me to manage my pain level based on over the counter meds for any of those, with the exception of stomach pains?

I hate being the mystery diagnosis. The one they know there is something up, but they don't know why. That has been something I have dealt with my whole life. The one where all signs don't point to the same thing and instead remains a mystery. So while last night's sleep eluded me, and today I am barely functioning based on being so tired, I am just hoping to get a good nights sleep.

Do you ever face these issues or am I that unusual? Share your story with me today.