It was a dark and stormy night....
It was of course dark, as night seems to be around these parts. It wasn't stormy, but being January in Saskatchewan it was bloody cold.
I remember going to the bathroom before bed, and noticing that my urine was darker than normal.
"I need to drink more water."
At three AM I was awoken by the worst pain in my life, combined with an urge to pee. I stumbled to the bathroom, but no pee was forthcoming, as the waves of pain washed over my body. I remember grabbing on to the sink, fighting the urge to black out from the pain, telling myself, over and over, "if you black out you will die. If you black out you will die.."
And then common sense.
"Honey, I may be dying. I need some help."
She got me back to bed, assured me I was still among the living, and phoned the hospital. The nurse on duty knew what it was, prescribed Advil and said come in at 6AM. ("Take two Asprin and call me in the morning.")
Let me explain this. You may think I was just having pain in my....ahem...male appendage, but I assure you there was not one speck of pain in that...area. The pain was racking from my shoulders to my hips, and it had me in tears. Blinking Advil was not going to touch it.
And it didn't.
At five-thirty AM my wife loaded me in the car, and took me to the hospital, where I was met by the admitting nurse who greeted me with,
"Kidney stones eh. Bad pain, but not as bad as childbirth."
"Thanks Nurse Ratched. I'm dying here."
They took X-rays, and gave me a shot of Demerol. The X-rays showed nothing, (more on that later), and the Demerol didn't do a thing for the pain.
When they gave me the second shot of Demerol (didn't help) they also brought a little strainer device.
"Pee through this."
That killed any notion about sitting down to pee for stability.
The screen did not collect a stone but it did collect a few specks which looked like,
"flesh?"
"Uh huh."
A third shot of Demerol. No change in my pain. Then the directive.
"You need to go to Saskatoon for an ultrasound."
"Get me out of here."
"Don't forget your screen."
We need to speed this up.
We piled into my truck, purchased seven months previously, so new it still had the new truck smell. Me in the passenger seat. My wife behind the wheel.
I was beginning to feel a little bit better, and was enjoying being chauffeured to and through the city. And then it hit.
We were just entering the Buckwold Bridge when a stream of projectile vomit ejected from me, and with no time to open the window, covered the dash of my new truck, (goodbye new truck smell) and covered me and my jacket.
And there we were. Me finally getting the window open and puking all the way across the bridge and halfway down eighth street.
What a fetid mess. My wife entered the imaging clinic first to let them know I was on my way, and what shape I was in. I stayed outside for a bit, removed my puke soaked jacket and dumped it in the truck box, and then was directed to the clinic bathroom where I cleaned up the best I could.
We need to speed this up.
I told you that the X-Ray didn't pick up any stones. The ultrasound did. The reason why was explained as being because the stones I had were a type formed by high protein, and they were undetectable by regular X-Ray.
The tech also told me that the reason I was having so much pain was because, (this is the moment I embellish the story, and I will type this embellishment in bold), my stone blocked a duct and the back pressure burst my kidney and let the liquid into my body cavity.
The Urologist, who I saw later that afternoon explained it to me better.
"The pressure caused your kidney to breech, leaking liquid into your body cavity."
"That can't be good."
"It's not bad. It got rid of the pressure. Have some drugs. Don't forget to use your screen."
Finally, the end.
Over the next two weeks I had a couple more episodes of nausea, which were more controllable than the one that broke in my new truck. I did eventually pass a couple of small stones into the screen. I never felt any discomfort at all when they went through.
If I was telling you this story around a bar table I would expect free drinks the rest of the night.
But it's OK.
Just shoot me a wave once in a while. A like. Tell me how much more pain there is in childbirth than what I went through. I'll just smile and nod my head.
I know the real truth!
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