Kidney Stones (x 4) (parental advisory)

[Weirdcuba]

A couple of weeks ago, I immensely enjoyed myself over the weekend at the show in Munich with my law partner. We usually cycle and other stuff when I’m over there, but I wasn’t interested this time for some reason.

After the show, I flew to our office in Brussels and found myself doubled over in pain on Tuesday night (even passing on a wonderful Belgium beer I had just ordered). I then found myself in the (French speaking) ER in Brussels at 5.30 am on Wednesday morning. After a few hours (and a CT Scan), I was pronounced with not one, two, or three, but FOUR kidney stones. Being equal opportunity sadists, I had two on each side, the largest of which was 3 cm. On top of that, I was in partial kidney failure due to the stones ( this explains why I wasn’t interested in great cycling with my law partner). I cajoled them into letting me get on a plane the next day with a bunch of meds and returned to the states (that was, shall we say, a long and painful ride).

NO payment required for medical services in Belgium, which was quite the concept, irrespective of one’s view on these things.

Then Friday morning here in the states, I had stents put in both sides to drain the kidneys, which made me feel better (sort of, but only sort of - really just replaced one pain with several others). These babies were too large for lithotripsy or basket retrieval, so on Wednesday, they lasered two of them on the left (entering through perhaps the worst avenue one might imagine), and that brought a bit of relief (but yet new varieties of pain, into which I will not go for purposes of not offending my audience).

Then, I attended my daughter’s high school graduation yesterday, which was a wonderful event and I was glad to be there, but it was not without pain. I somehow stumbled through and she walked the aisle (headed to Wellesley next year!). I’m scheduled to have the last two removed the old fashioned way on Tuesday - with a knife because they’re too big to get out any other way. Then, they remove the stents (via the same avenue in which they were inserted - yes, that one!), and hopefully I’ll be done.

This is my fourth bout of kidney stones, but it had been fourteen years, so I thought I had found the solution (boy, was I wrong). All in all, I made it back to the states, attended my daughter’s graduation, and shouldn’t have any long term effects from this, so that’s good. That said, the different types of pain, over such a long period of time, and the fear of it recurring is not pleasant.

My best wishes to all who have suffered this and similar pain - may we not suffer it again.