Leading up to Hospitalization

James started having frequent fevers and I think it is important to point this out, because no doctors we went to saw this as a problem. Many doctors didn't believe he was even having fevers because he would mask them with tylenol and they would go away while we were at the doctor's offices. However, at home, he would chill and then sweat, repeatedly, all day long.
He tried going to the ER in April and was released in a few hours. Again, I want to point this out because one major problem with PKD, which we learned in the hospital, is that they can't get bacteria to grow in a petri dish. So, on an ordinary ER visit, they found nothing wrong, pumped him full of fluids and tylenol and sent him home. 
He became very sick in June, 2010. By this time his nausea became so bad that he was throwing up in the parking lot at work or pulling off on the side of the road. He was having consistant fevers, and ever increasing pain. I can't imagine the pain he must have felt. Did I mention that his kidneys are each now 3 times the size of a normal kidney?
The series of events here are what baffle me.
By the middle of June, James could barely walk from pain and sickness. We saw a new nephrologist on a Thursday. He couldn't even sit up while at her office. We told her he was having fevers and she said, "That would happen because of the pain you are in." WHAT?! Has anyone ever heard of that? Fevers caused by pain? What are fevers? They are an indication of infection. What is pain? It can be an indication of infection. What did James have? A serious infection.
Two days later, on Saturday, I was at work and again James called me to say he was going to the hospital. Some church friends took him and by the time I showed up, they were ready to release him again. They took his temperature, which was high, and gave him some tylenol, fluids, and nausea medicine. I don't think they even ran a blood test.
I shouldn't have taken him home. I know that now. I guess I thought that doctors should know something, but when it comes to PKD, unfortunately, they don't. I can't tell you how many times doctors and nurses say, "So, he has kidney stones?" Like that is the only thing that can go wrong in a kidney.
So, I took him home. I hoped he would get better. I prayed that he would get better, but by Sunday night, he now had a new symptom. We were laying in bed, ready to go to sleep. Well, I was ready to go to sleep. James couldn't sleep anymore. He just paced and then threw up, and then paced some more. He put my hand on his stomach, similar to when I was pregnant and I put his hand on my belly to feel a kick. I felt something hard. If I didn't know better, I would have thought it was a foot because it was long and rock hard, on the front/side of his body.