Husband Update

By now y'all are probably as sick of this as I am. :D

We went in for a consultation with the Urologist today - I questioned the need for it, but now I see they really did need to explain what options we had for surgery - because there are more than one!

I've discovered when you have college with arguably one of the best medical programs in the country in your town, YOU WILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR HEALTHCARE. It's a fact of life. Our appointment today was at 11am - they got us back pretty quick - but I didn't get back to work until 2pm. GEEZ.

So anyway - apparently they can do a "sonar" type thing where they put you in a pool and it "pulses" and breaks up the stone. However, those people don't take charity cases (the doctor told us they don't take patients w/o insurance).

They can go in through the back with a wire and create a "hole" where they go in and take the stone out whole. However, since this requires going through the meat of the kidney, there's a chance he could bleed - so that option requires an overnight hospital stay (can you spell cha-ching?). Also - if he bleeds it's likely he'll need a transfusion.

The third option is of course going in through the peni$ - they put in a "stint" to hold open the ureter and then they shoot the stone with a laser to break it up. The risk with this method is they might blow fragments back up into the kidney which he will then have to pass (but they would be smaller and more likely for him to pass without help). They also said there is a chance the ureter would be so tightly clamped that they couldn't get the stint in and then they would have to go in through the back anyway.

We decided to go with option three - he is scheduled for Friday Sept. 26. If anything changes before then and he can't wait we are to call and let them know and they will bump us up. Husband insisted on a Friday so he could have the weekend to get used to the stint (they have to leave it in for like 2 weeks) before he has to go back to work. He plans on not taking any time off if he can help it.

I am looking into an individual plan for him that would only cover "catastrophic" illness (like a surgery or hospital stay) - I am told the monthly premiums on those type of plans are much more affordable.

TTFN