There are certain things in life that go together. Chocolate and peanut butter, Reese's has built a brand on this combination. Sunscreen and beaches, steak and potatoes, Eagles and road trips, wine and anything, these are combos so entrenched they are almost cliches.
But there are some things that do not go together. Does anyone out there like the weird, pucker-up-your-face combo of donuts and orange juice? They just don't mix. Until I worked in a machine shop in college I would have said oil and water, but they have figured out a way to blend them to produce a cooling and lubrication solution. There is now another entry into my list of things that do not mix.
Kidney's are a wonderful little organ that filters all the minerals and salts out of your system then stages these impurities for transport out of the body. It is pretty cool process and very necessary for us homo sapiens.
Stones are equally cool. They were the first tools for humanoids. When refined they can grind grain into flour, crush grapes, mill all sorts of things. They can even be smoothed and rounded and can be very durable wheels .
However, I discovered that kidneys and stones are not good companions. Easter Sunday I woke up at 4:30AM with a brutal back ache. Generally I do not have back aches. My bride convinced me a couple of years ago to spend a bit of time in yoga. The stretching really helped keep my back pain-free, the calming sessions at the end garnered me some really good naps. So it was with a bit of surprise that I woke up to this gripping back ache. The back ache quickly escalated (and I am talking mere minutes) to a full-fledged, pouring sweat, nauseated self diagnosis of "kidney stone"!!!!When my bride asked me what she needed to do I told her (man, I hope I didn't yell at her) to get dressed. I needed a ride to the ER.
As I have pointed out on this blog, when you go to the ER and have a distinguished head of grey hair, they rush you right in. The only catch is that it has to be "chest pains". Apparently, if it is not chest pains they dawdle and fill out paperwork, ask all sorts of inane questions, and generally drag their feet.
"Is there any place I can lie down?"
"No, there will be a nurse here in a minute."
I'm looking at the floor and wondered what sort of settlement my bride would get if I just collapsed on the floor and died of some sort of staff infection.
20 minutes later I'm ushered into a small cubicle so a disinterested male nurse could take my vitals. Couldn't get a temp, tried three times, changed thermometer twice. "STOP WITH THE STUPID TEMP! I DO NOT HAVE A FEVER!" I may have over-reacted.
Finally they showed me to my room. By the way, all the this moving around was under my own power, hunched over, trying not to gag when the pain cycled upwards. I crawled onto the bed, drew my knees up and prepared to meet my Maker. I was done, this was the end. Then they introduced my savior, the name is morphine, it is my friend. Oh, and warm blankets. We have GOT to get us the machine that keeps the blankets warm.
Gradually I began to feel well enough to ask the pretty, young nurse about the scrubs she wears, Koi with a Peaches warm-up. She was bright and efficient and probably smart. My comment to my bride was that I found it sad that the bright nurse was wearing a competitor's brand while "numbnuts" the disinterested male nurse was wearing the brand I sell. Irony is not your friend at 5:30AM in the ER.
The on-call Doc came in and said I had a kidney stone...no kidding, Sherlock. They were going to do a CT scan. Which revealed the stone still in the kidney and too large to pass. So another procedure and another trip to the hospital is in store. I'm sure that story will come out in another blog. But I am here to tell you that after my visit with the urologist there is no one I want handling my junk like that anymore. They handed me a printout of what will happen while I am asleep.. I haven't read it. But we are going to separate the stone and kidney, the stone is being forceably removed, evicted, kicked out. It annoys my kidney and I love my kidney more than the stone.
Godspeed on this journey. Some days are diamonds, some are stones. I'm getting rid of the stone days.
Don
