Holy moly. A new realm of pain. I spent yesterday morning in the emergency room. The night before I had some pain in my side, and I thought it was just something I ate (like maybe a tornado or a rocket launcher), but it didn’t seem to be getting any better. Still, I didn’t think too much of it when I went to bed. But in the morning, right after going to the bathroom, I collapsed in the hall due to the pain. Saw stars, nauseated, the works. I thought maybe it was my appendix. I called out to Susan, who was still in bed with Exie, and she called 911.
By the time the paramedics arrived, the pain had subsided a bit. They thought it was probably a kidney stone, but said that I should go to the hospital. So we did. But we didn’t want Exie in the ER, so Susan took her home while they checked me out. The pain increased again shortly after I was admitted, but fortunately I only had to bear the worst of it for 10 minutes or so before they juiced me with the first of two morphine doses. A CT scan soon revealed that it was indeed a kidney stone, and a big one: 6mm. Apparently, people have a 90% chance of being able to pass stones up to 4mm, then it drops to less than 30% for bigger ones. Bummer.
When asked about how much something hurts on a scale of 1 to 10, I have always considered 9 and 10 to be out of bounds; 9 should be reserved for women in labor and people who have just accidentally cut their legs off with a chainsaw, and 10 should be reserved for people who have passed out, or are already dead. But this time, unable to stifle a long stream of (what I was told later were horrible-sounding) groans, I gave it a 9. It bears mentioning that throughout the course of the day, three people (one woman and two men relaying their wives’ comments) claimed that their kidney stones were worse than childbirth. But before the female population jumps down my throat, let me state firmly for the record that I can’t imagine that it’s in the same ballpark (and it certainly didn’t last as long), but at least this corroborates that it really freakin’ hurts. Perhaps I should retroactively downgrade my response to an 8, but I think if it happened again I would probably still say 9.
2 Comments
Holy mother of pearl. Did you get to keep the stone and carve it into a the shape of a tiny kidney? Maybe that wold be too literal. I passed one once. It was tiny, but wow did it hurt. I cannot image a 6mm stone. If only there were a bypass from the urethra to the colon. I could see how that might be problematic as well.
I didn’t get to keep the stone. I meant to ask for it, but at the time, I forgot. Maybe ’cause I was unconscious. But I forgot when I woke up, too. As long as you’re making bypasses, let’s just make one straight to the trashcan.