Last week was a rough week. Ever had one of those weeks when you felt like someone beat the crap out of you and then a couple days later they did it again? That was my week. It was my body having fun with me. It was something that many of you have experienced I am sure...the joys of kidney stones.
Oh yes, I can see you grimacing through the screen right now. For those of you who haven't had the joy, let me try to convey into words what it is like. Our kidneys sometimes calcify minerals from what we mainly drink, like tea. They look like little tiny pebbles or granules of sand in our kidneys. Some of these just lay there and some are expelled. When they travel to be expelled, they cause a great deal of pain on their journey. The pain for a man has been compared to childbirth. I have no idea about that, but it can be intense. Fortunately, I have a high tolerance for pain but still really, wow!
Then comes the fun part, expelling it. Let's see, how do I explain this delicately. Hmmm. Okay, it's like passing a bowling ball through your nostril. It's like having a splinter in your finger and it turns out to be log. It's like putting an SUV into the trunk of your car. Getting the picture?
I've had these before and I went to the emergency room a couple times a long time ago when we all had insurance that was cheaper and covered everything. Do you know what happened? They did a CT scan. They said, "Yep, you got a kidney stone in there and it is nearly out." Duh. Then they handed me some Vicoden and a strainer and said goodbye. The bill to the insurance company was $1,000. I asked them what the strainer was for and they said so I could catch the pebble. I looked at them like they were from Mars. After I had gone through all that, why would I want to keep it? I'm not a Geologist and I don't have a rock collection.
I looked at that strainer and all I could think of was when I was a kid and we would go out and find things and bring them back to mom and show her. My mom is gone now, but it is sort of the same thing to save the pebble to show someone what came out of me. Dumb idea.
Well, I tell you all this to tell you I had TWO of these come of out of me this week. Yeah, I know. I passed one and then the pain really never did go away and two days later I passed another. I can't begin to convey the joy.
I am not the type of person who goes around moaning and groaning when I am in pain, so my dear wife Lana had no idea about this until she saw ne holding myself one evening. Let me take you into our world for a minute, what it is like to live with me.
"What's wrong?" Lana asked.
"I think I have a kidney stone working its way through. No big deal."
"You want to go to the ER?"
"No way. With our deductible, we pay the whole thing. They won't do a thing anyway."
"You many have to if it is a big stone and you can't pass it."
"Nonsense. I'll break out a drill if I have to. Hey, do we have any iced tea?"
"Oh brother."
I didn't tell her about the second one until after I had passed it. I figure if I told her ahead of time, she would have been pushing the ER a lot more then. No thanks. I don't need another strainer. What am I going to do with it, catch butterflies?
Maybe I should have kept the pebbles. If this is going to be trend and I am going to have more of these, I could save theme for landscaping in the backyard. I could start a beach.
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