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They had been fine, just a calm evening just the two of them. Then Buck started grimacing in pain. His pain tolerance extraordinarily high due to chronic leg pain and numerous childhood injuries. It only takes an hour of Buck grimacing, rubbing his abdomen and back, and not eating for Eddie to decide Buck needs a hospital. Buck agrees, which alarms Eddie even more.
Eddie drives for years (twenty minutes) only to end up at a crowded ER. It’s bad enough he can see the line out the door. He does the math in his head, deciding to take Buck to the ER two towns over that’s usually faster to get in. They get to hospital 2, get seen by a provider, only to be told Buck is faking being in pain since ‘nothing is wrong.’ “Your blood tests came back normal, you're sensitive on your right side when palpitated, and you haven’t had any food in six hours. This is just stomach pain. You need to get up and leave my ER.”
Eddie just about bites that provider’s head off. “Ma’am.”
“It’s doctor.”
“Doctor.” Eddie takes another deep breath, counting to ten for the fifteenth time. “He has an extremely high pain tolerance due to the injuries in his leg.”
“Uh huh.” The doctor hums, scrolling on the tablet with medical information; more worried about moving onto the next patient and not the one in front of her.
“And he is in visible pain. We aren’t leaving until you at least run an ultrasound over the area and give him some stronger pain meds.”
“We aren’t doing that.” She replies absentmindedly, not looking up.
“You will. Or we’re asking for a new doctor.”
“You can fire me if you really want. But I’m the best doctor here.” She looks up, nodding, smirking a little.
“We want a new doctor and an ultrasound. Please.”
“There’s only a PA around, if that’s ok with you.” She snarks at them.
“Perfect. Thank you.” Eddie answers with a restrained smile and forced calm in his voice. He soothes his lover as they wait for the new provider to come in. PA Mark takes one look at Buck, and orders the ultrasound along with some IV pain meds.
As they prep for the ultrasound, the pain gets worse. Buck squeezes Eddie’s hand more, begging for reprieve. He passes out when they run the probe over his skin. They find a large kidney stone blocking his ureter, requiring surgery to dislodge.
Eddie paces the waiting room twenty times over, he texts the 118 GC letting them know a brief summary of what’s going on, that Buck will need some time off to recover from yet another surgery. Bobby starts making shift coverage plans for both Buck and Eddie (longer for Buck but Eddie will be taking the first 24 hours off to take care of Buck), Hen makes a med kit with recovery items. Maddie and Chim work on meals for Buck along with finding time in their schedules for Jee and them to meet up with Buck, even just to watch a movie and boost his spirits.
Buck gets discharged from hospital pretty quick, just 12 hours post op monitoring, follow up appointments scheduled for days and weeks out. He goes home with Eddie that day, thankful to be back in a real bed. He’s also incredibly thankful for the lack of pain he’s feeling, kidney stones are no joke. He almost wishes the firetruck were back on top of him, at least then people would take his pain seriously.
References:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15417-hydronephrosis
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15604-kidney-stones