My Kidney Stone

Recently, the beginning of 2006 to be precise. I had the experience of passing a kidney stone.

We had just returned from a yuletide holiday in Canada by car. This takes about 13 hours of driving and sitting... We got home with little incident and unpacked, warmed up the house and got to bed. Around 11:00pm I woke up thinking I had strained my lower back. I took some pain meds (ibuprofen) and went to bed figuring they would kick in soon. I could not get comfortable and the 'back-strain' kept getting worse. It was still a dull pain but now it felt more like I had taken a punch. I proceeded to walk around the house which seemed to help either ease the pain or keep my mind distracted. I also was very, very dry mouthed so each lap inside the house I would pause and drink some water. At one point I pressed my back on the arm of the couch and bent back to an inverted V like position which worked for about 5 min.

By this time the dull pain was to the point where I had to keep moving and even that didnt do much. Even walking itself was difficult to concentrait on. This is when I informed Tina we had to go to Hospital. She took forever to get dressed (probably about a minute in actual time) and we went into the Van.

This was the ride from Hell. I reclined the seat and layed there as pain beyond what I could ever recall just radiated outwards. I never really knew what agony ment until this point. If I thought I knew before, I was just kidding myself. Halfway way across town it occured to me that it wasnt getting any worse, and that let me focus. I was able to slow my breathing and relax my body and for lack of a better term, become one with the pain. This of course freaked Tina out because suddenly I stopped moaning and breathing hard and became very still.

This made the rest of the ride go a little more quickly (at this point space-time had slowed for me to the point were seconds were easily divided into looong periods of time). We get to the ER room and I climb out of the Van and Tina goes to park.

I have to fill out some forms... Any concentration or focus I had ended when I got out of the car and the pain was back full force to the point I could not really see. I recall writing my name and the reason my being in there 'PAIN' was scrawled across the bottom of the form. The next part of being in an ER is a quick evaluation where they take your Blood pressure. This requires sitting down. I get ahold of myself and focus enough to walk back into the room (I had been feverishly pacing around) and sit down in the seat for the BP machine.

My blood pressure was 'elevated' go wonder... Anyways, as I am sitting there the pain slackens off. I am sitting down still and my body is not SCREAMING at me for motion of any kind. Tina makes it into the ER by this point and they promptly hand her 1500 various forms to fill and sign and date and re-sign and inital and stamp and fold and mutilate...

I get brought into a little room, and Im starting to feel pretty good (and stupid cuz im in an ER and feeling better). I get dressed and the nurse comes in and wants a sample. I make it to the bathroom feeling a good 95% better (my back feels like I got punched). Everyone is saying its a kidney stone. Sample done, I head back to the room and sit down there in no pain at all. Just about the time I am thinking of sneaking out the doc comes in and checks me over. They are going to give me stronger pills and a pee strainer.

The nurse comes in the room at this point and shows us the little stone in the sample cup I had just made... That kinda confirms it was a stone...

We named it Malcom...