No Longer Stoned. I Hope.

I’m no longer stoned. I hope.

While Gilda went with Ken and Jane to what turned out to be a dreadful play Saturday night, I opted to stay home and drink and drink and drink. Orange-flavored water, mostly followed by a lemonade-flavored vitamin water chaser I stocked up on at the local Stop & Shop. The doctor had said to swill four liters a day, but I could barely manage half a liter until Saturday evening.

Drinking all that fluid had its natural consequence. Wagon trains crossing the dry southwest didn’t cut deeper ruts than the path I carved from our TV room to the bathroom every 10-15 minutes or so. It would have been impossible to sit through a 90-minute play with no intermission. It would have been rude to the actors and the audience to witness my repeated excursions.

It also was kind of hard to watch a movie at home when so much action was happening off screen, but, truth be told, the interruptions made it a little easier to absorb all the violence in Fury, the Brad Pitt World War II film. Gilda came home just as the end credits started to roll. She would not have been able to sit through Fury.

I still didn’t know if I was stone free. I hadn’t had any pain since 5 am Saturday, but that followed the pattern. I suffered only twice a day, presumably when the stone was making its way down my urinary canal. All that extra drinking was intended to speed its flow. Still, I had been cautioned it could be a painful journey of several days.

Indeed, two people—neither of whom had experienced childbirth–told me the agony associated with a kidney stone compares to the pain of bringing a baby into this world. As our daughter is days away from delivering her first child (our third grandchild, second granddaughter) I will not presume to suggest they were right.

Our nephew Eric forwarded a link to a Seinfeld episode wherein Kramer copes with a kidney stone. Here it is: http://youtu.be/uiioP_bQVMA

The good people at the hospital emergency room the other night had sent me home with a handful of paper strainers that look very much like Mr. Coffee filters with mesh at the coned bottom. To catch the stone you are supposed to pee into the funnel of the strainer and, like a gold miner sifting a pan of water, hope that a deposit shows up.

At 1 am Sunday I thought I saw something solid at the bottom of the funnel. I had been expecting a round, dark sphere about 2-3 millimeters wide. Instead, it looked like shreds of poppy seeds. I saved them in a container the urologist  gave me for just such a purpose. Hopefully, it is the stone, or the remnants of the stone, which can be analyzed to determine why it showed up and if I could do anything to prevent a recurrence.

As I get ready to post this blog it is past 1 pm Sunday. I’ve been pain free for more than 32 hours. I’m hoping it’s a positive sign I am stone free.

P.S. Now it is Gilda who is under the weather with a sore throat that will keep her away from work Monday and Tuesday. Though we are not age-conscious, looks like turning 66 for both of us this month has been a trying experience.

Genetics Suck

For her birthday on Tuesday, I gave Gilda two days to remember and a three millimeter stone. No, I didn’t mean a three carat ring. I meant a three millimeter stone, as in kidney stone.

It all started innocently enough as we prepared for our flight home from a grand week in London. Flying to London I watched two films, Foxcatcher and Whiplash. I had hoped to watch St. Vincent and Fury on the return trip. But it was not to be. 

At the airport for the first time during our trip I ate a traditional English breakfast—two fried eggs, bacon, baked beans, sausage and grilled mushroom. I didn’t eat the cooked tomato. (Are you sick yet?) 

I started to feel queasy when we reached the departure gate. I couldn’t decide which orifice should take precedence to alleviate my discomfort. But nothing was forthcoming. 

I boarded the American Airlines Boeing 777-300 and took the middle spot in a three-seat row near the back of the aircraft. Until right before we left the gate it appeared I’d be able to slide over to the aisle seat, but a fellow traveler arrived to dash those hopes. Meanwhile, I had been grimacing discomfort since we boarded. I wanted to hit the bathroom but had to wait until we reached an acceptable altitude to get up. 

The lower right side of my back hurt no matter how I sat. My front right abdomen hurt. No matter how I tried to go I couldn’t. 

The flight crew witnessed my agony, was supportive but couldn’t do anything other than offer me their seats in the last row and a makeshift hot water bottle. At one point the head steward asked if I wanted to see if a doctor was aboard. I said Gilda is a nurse practitioner so they brought her a stethoscope and blood pressure monitor to check me out. I think they wanted to make sure I wasn’t having a heart attack. I noticed on the flight map we were near Labrador so I surmise they were checking if an emergency landing was necessary. The flight was eight hours of unrelenting pain. 

After we landed and was able to stand a while I felt slightly better. But the ride home brought the pain back. Tuesday night I slept okay. When I woke up at 5:45 am I was able to drive Gilda to work in Manhattan. I ate a full can of lentil vegetable soup, then went to deliver food to the elderly in Yonkers as I do most Wednesdays. Afterwards I went to Costco where a true sign of my deteriorating condition revealed itself. The pain returned so severely I couldn’t conclude my shopping expedition.

After napping for an hour I felt good enough to drive back to Manhattan to pick Gilda up. Big mistake. An hour into the two-hour round trip the pain returned with a vengeance. Once home I slept again for 90 minutes before eating a light dinner. I felt good enough to watch some TV before turning the lights off at 11:15 just as the pain returned.

I tried to drink some vitamin water but wretched it up. I walked around. The pain persisted. Finally, around 12:30 I woke Gilda to say we needed to go to the emergency room. I had checked the Internet; my symptoms suggested an intestinal blockage. It was a painful 10 minute ride but like the toothache that doesn’t hurt once you show up at the dentist the pain magically disappeared once inside the hospital and did not return for 24 hours.

We were at the ER for more than six hours. Gilda had slept less than two hours in 24 hours. 

A CT Scan showed I have a kidney stone 2-3 millimeters in size. So I have to drink a lot to pee it out. When my brother had a kidney stone 45 years ago they said he could drink beer. Medical science has either progressed or regressed as they told me to drink lots of water!!!

Bernie also told me he’s had three or four kidney stones, that our father had one and his brother, Uncle Willy, had multiple kidney stones. I'm not looking forward to a recurrence. Genetics suck. 

Both our parents had gall bladder issues. Indeed, our father was discharged from the army during World War II because of it. Bernie and I haven’t suffered through that affliction but our sister Lee has. I’ll say it a different way—genetics can be a real pain.