I’ve been bothered by lower back pain for weeks. I thought I had pulled something when I moved out of my house a few weeks ago. Yesterday the pain got worse, a lot worse, and I was nauseous, so I saw my doctor, who promptly had me wheeled into the emergency room at St. David’s, where I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening.
The remarkable thing about it was the intensity of the pain. I’ve had several surgeries, lots of nasty dental work, and been through both a very bad motorcycle wreck and a California divorce. This pain was worse. They gave me morphine, and it didn’t even dent this pain. Then they gave me a cocktail of stuff that finally dulled it while they arranged for a sonogram and a CAT scan to look inside, while they did workups on blood and urine. There was lots of blood in the urine, so that pointed them in the right direction. Good news: No blood clots, no infection. Bad News: a 2mm kidney stone.
Under 5mm in size the regimen is to drink lots of water while it works its way out naturally, hopefully. Strong pain meds. Refrigerated suppositories for the nausea, yippee. Just the thought of poking one of those icy torpedoes up the wazoo makes me nauseous. And peeing through a strainer to try and catch the little bugger for lab analysis, because there are five different kinds of kidney stones. Who knew?
I think Sisyphus had a better deal. He only had to roll his stone up a hill every day. I get to roll mine downhill, but it has to pass through my favorite body part, and yoweee, 2mm is like ¼ of an inch, right? And this rock has sharp points on it, which is why… oh, crap, now I’m feeling nauseous again.
When I was a kid I was fascinated by a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not item about a Dutch guy who had cut out his own kidney stone with a paring knife and lived to tell the tale. I always wondered why somebody would do that. Now I know why. You just want that pain to STOP NOW! And then there’s that whole thing about shoving a camel through the eye of a needle. Errrppp. Time for a visit to the fridge.
Why couldn’t they have at least made it a mojito pop?
But this too shall pass!
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9/16/10 Update - And thankfully it did, with one last little burst of drama, followed by immediate relief. Amazing that such a little thing, like a runty grain of rice, could cause so much grief. Thanks for sharing the journey with me, and thanks for all the good wishes.
Picture follows, if you have the stomach for it. If not, no worries.
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The CULPRIT!
Love, David
© David Kinne.
T-shirt photo courtesy of zazzle.com
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Comments
Sarah - I knew what you meant. Thanks.
FLW - You know, I've always been averse to pain meds. This time, no hay problema. Uno mas, por favor.
Fetlock - I had no clue. But I guess it makes sense. If you can't keep anything down, oral meds aren't gonna work.
Scanner - Sounds like something The Dude would do.
~R
I would rather birth 10 kids..
Just got home and a little late reading..
Rated with hugs
I'm happy you find some humor in this, like Sarah did, but believe me, I'm not laughing.
I am, however, thankful that all I have is lower back pain from 40 years of manual labor.
Tear at your socks
But a stone can ruin your...um...what was that post of yours a few back?
Condolences...
Or more accurately, insurance only covers it with larger stones. They figure under 5mm they'll work their way out anyway, so why go for the highly effective but expensive ultrasound treatment?
hope you heal soon
On the other hand, it is MY grapenut, and MY hooha, and I don't like this "pushing one out" one damn bit!
Been there - didn't quite do exactly that.
First: 2mm is about, approximately, in the area of, ballpark figure, almost, roughly, .07874 of an inch. Nearly. That makes it less than 1/10th of an inch. A size your urethra can handle easily.
Most men have had, a stinging sensation in their johnson at one time or another, maybe quite often. That is probably caused by passing a 'stone'.
Mine didn't cause the level of pain that yours did. I was persistent pain though, slowly building over about 4 days. As my body automatically twisted to try to escape the pain, my back muscles began to ache too. Morphine was blessed relief.
The doctor's advice, "Drink LOTS of fluids. If it will pass, we won't have to operate."
My response: "OPERATE??!! ARE YOU CRAZY??!!" may have led that poor intern to think that I took this thing personally. He was right. I most certainly did.
But the rest of his advice seemed sound. And it fit in beautifully with my own lifestyle. My wife was stunned when I came home with the prescription, in two boxes of 24 each.
"Beer?!!" She was a tad upset. "You go out of here at 4 am in the morning to go to the hospital because you can't stand the back pain and you come strolling back in here at 10 am, with two boxes of beer?!!!!! (I feel bound to point out that two boxes of beer are heavy and that neither I nor anyone else can come "strolling in" anywhere carrying that much weight.)
I spent the entire 3-day weekend taking my medicine. During most of which time I had completely forgotten that it even was medicine, or what it was intended to do. I woke up Tuesday morning, with no back pain, a slight stinging in my johnson, with the odd ability to hear, painfully, every footfall of every ant in the house.
PS
I have had occasion to resort to this remedy twice more in the intervening years - works every time; but, for heaven's sake, can't somebody give those ants some slippers?
Watermelon is an old folk remedy, because watermelon is not only full of water, it's also a natural diuretic. So if you eat a lot, you go a lot. And you get the side benefit of having a lot of seeds to spit, which can help distract you from the ordeal. But all in all, I think I like your plan better. I'll put a slice of watermelon out to draw the ants away.
;-O
Come on over, you can complain every time it hurts and later we can suck down some Mojitos. If people are too wimpy to listen to people hurting so what, I'm tough, bring it on. Forget people who whine when someone else is in pain. I'm sorry your hurting but glad it's going to be okay. Healing and love to you David.
Love, David
Rated.
Rated.
Actually most adults pass wee stones fairly often. Since they are usually very, very small when we do so, the only thing we might notice is an occasional stinging sensation after we pee. That goes away shortly, usually in less than an hour (or before you finish another 3 - 4 beer).
I joked around a tad in my comment above but I really have gotten rid of a stone three times in exactly that manner.
If drinking a lot of beer doesn't appeal to some folks then a large quantity of water will serve the purpose; if not as enjoyably.
If drinking fluids doesn't work the next thing is to give you something that is supposed to 'soften' the stone enough to make it susceptible to the "fluid treatment".
After that its the pinpoint laser or high-frequency sound, to break it up treatment. Again these involve lots of fluids to clear the bits away.
The final thing is a physical operation to remove the stone.
One final note: 99.99% of kidney stones never get any bigger than a grain of sand and get passed naturally without you even knowing that you had one (or more). Despite the excruciating pain, they cause little or no harm except to put a severe strain on your back muscles.
The foregoing will not help the pain you are feeling one damn bit. (a couple of 24s might though).
J & L - You doubled my pleasure, doubled my fun.
SkyPixie - Thanks for providing some balance. I love it when these little talks of ours can be both informative and silly.
Jerry - I'm deeply disappointed too. I don't know how you can live with yourself.
Belinda - Yes, I'm also familiar with the Ribbon of Fire. Need some meds? I'm well stocked.
mhold - I'll get back to you when I can formulate a proper response. Should be any day now.
I can only suggest you drink tons of H2O and cranberry products; avoid greens and cocoa products.
When it hurts real bad, try getting angry and let loose with a loud growl. It works, I swear.
I am glad to see it's out of you.
At first glance, it seems to be that my calcium level is low. I have very little dairy in my diet... a little cheese occasionally, maybe an ice cream, and not so much dark green leafy stuff. Calcium binds uric acid for elimination, so I'll have to up my intake. Enjoying a little Greek Yogurt as I write this. With pomegranate! Not bad.