Travumentaries Flashback: "Surviving the Stone"

I'm cleaning out my files with material from the old site and came across this medical retrospective. I share this today for two reasons. First, it appears to be that all important fourth anniversary of such a significant historical event. Second, I embrace the opportunity to share things from my life that are slightly embarrassing if I feel it has entertainment value or could bring a smile to someone else.

Surviving the Stone
April 2004

“Am I not too young for this?”

That was my first question upon learning I had a kidney stone. Actually it was my second. My first question (or maybe it was more of a suggestion) was regarding the possibility that it may be my appendix flaring up. A battle with a problematic appendix would surely bring more sympathy than a kidney stone. More cards and flowers, maybe even a balloon or two.

A bout with a kidney stone brought just what I thought it would. Many repetitions of “I’m sorry to hear that. I heard they’re not fun.”

Not fun? A 40-minute near death experience in a Denny’s men’s room at 10:00 in the evening requires something more descript. Although I’m not quite sure how to describe it myself now that I ponder backwards. I knew nothing but the surety that something evil was lurking inside of me and I wasn’t sure exactly when, if and how it would be exiting my person. I did fear an obituary ending with “and it all ended in the Denny’s men’s room” was certainly not the grand finale I would like to have written.

After forty minutes in the lavatory. I exited looking like I was surely up to mischief or heavy drinking behind closed doors. I had entered this fine dining establishment looking sharp. I was, after all, returning from the office with suit pants, dress shirt and tie in tact. My exit had me wide-eyed, striped down to an untucked white undershirt with a combination of sweat and tap water glazing my face and highlighting my hair. I had cheated death and would try to continue my journey home.

I made it about halfway. That’s when I stopped at my second restaurant, a Wendy’s, and called for backup. I told Rachel I would be the sweating, scraggly looking guy in the Wendy’s parking lot breathing heavily behind fogged windows. My foresight was perfectly accurate.

The remainder of the two week saga was not nearly as exciting. I joked with Rachel and the nurses in the emergency room until the morning hour of three knowing that expiration was not near and that sympathy was in short supply for the guy with the stone. “I’m sorry. I heard they’re not fun.”

I spent the better part of two weeks submitting to X-rays, straining my bodily fluids and glimpsing into my future fifty some years from now. I now know what walking, moving and peeing will be like when I reach my Golden Years.

And alas I am back to normal. Feeling fine without the assistance of drugs and free from the constriction of foreign medical objects in places I would rather not discuss. Two weeks forced vacation with my new young son and his mother was more welcome than the circumstances for my sabbatical.

Now if I could just convince Rachel of what so many mothers and fellow stone survivors have told me. Many have suggested that the experience of a kidney stone was more painful than childbirth including my grandmother who had eight (children, not stones). Rachel’s not buying and I would not wish the same experience on my worst enemy. I’m also quite certain that the miracle of childbirth is in my personal medical future.