My pre-Christmas saga started Thursday morning when I woke up feeling extremely bloated. CF has not been kind to my lungs, but I have been extremely lucky in that it really doesn't effect my digestive system unless I forget my enzymes. So when I woke up super bloated the day of Kaylee's preschool Christmas party (I will do a Christmas post soon) I was less than excited that the one time my digestive system decided to act up was when I had to be out of the home all day.
As the day went on the bloating became more severe and I started to have pain in my lower right side. That evening I started running a low grade fever. I went to bed with a warm rice pack and looked to the worst doctor in history, Doctor Google. Dr Google concluded that I would not be around long enough to see the light of the next day. Figures, that is his answer to everything.
Luckily, the internet doctor was wrong and I did, in fact, wake up the next morning. Unfortunately, the pain seemed worse and started to wrap around to my back. I decided to call my doctors office because I started to suspect this wasn't just bloating pain. I wanted to be seen before the weekend (which just happened to be Christmas weekend) in case things got worse. Unfortunately, everywhere was closed due to it being the Friday before Christmas. So I figured I would call the on-call nurse, which I should know by now, is as bad as Dr. Google. She told me to cease all liquids and food and get to the emergency room as soon as possible since I probably had appendicitis. I tried to inquire about an urgent care instead, but she insisted that I go to the ER because urgent care wouldn't be equipped to handle my appendicitis. So, I did the opposite of her advice and went to urgent care instead (I was pretty positive I did not have appendicitis).
Urgent care doctors know nothing about CF and I was pretty sure they would not diagnosis me correctly, but I did want to confirm I didn't have appendicitis and I was a little concerned I may have a kidney infection (or something similar) that would require antibiotics. The urgent care doc came in with an internet printout of CF digestive issues. She ruled out appendicitis and decided it was either DIOS (a blockage in the intestines which can be a CF problem) or kidney stones. I knew I did not have DIOS (although a partial blockage was a realistic possibility) and I was not convinced of kidney stones. However, I knew I would make it through Christmas and so I went home relieved that whatever was ailing me wouldn't kill me!
The Monday after Christmas I got a phone call from urgent care telling me that my results came back and I had a bladder infection (I assume the bloating may have been a untimely coincidence and had nothing to do with the infection which was causing the pain). I got a prescription for antibiotics and within a few days I felt good as new. Whew, I never realized how fast antibiotics work for non-CF issues. My bladder infection took about 24 hours before my symptoms disappeared which seemed miraculous since I am used to two weeks or longer for my lungs to respond to antibiotics.
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