What Fresh New Hell Is This?
kidney stones, or, pissing hot glass
First, just let me say that, no, I will not utilize that oft made comparison to child birth. Besides it being both a diminishing and patronizingly misogynist way to treat the experience of having a baby, there is a larger reason for me not to conflate these two experiences, and that is I have no reasonable way to know what giving birth actually feels like.
However, I can count myself among those unfortunate souls who know all too well what the experience of kidney stones is like.
Fuck!
Perhaps this is the universe getting me back for all the times I have in some way questioned the claims of my patients when working as a paramedic and treating men with kidney stones. More than once I can recall silently thinking, “stop rolling around and suck it up buddy, it can’t be that bad.”
Oh yes it can.
Please don’t misunderstand, I always tried to be empathetic and compassionate, and if the poor dude truly appeared to be in pain I would gladly max out our morphine orders, often before we arrived at the hospital. Though secretly, after the call, I would do the sarcastic eye-roll and think “yeah, big fucking baby.”
Not anymore.
It was this past Wednesday around noon that I was sufficiently and appropriately schooled. About to leave home to chair a community advisory board meeting for a study I am involved in, I had just walked and fed the dog and was putting my laptop into my backpack when I felt what seemed to be a mild left sided back ache. Similar to that of a dull muscle pull I brushed the pain off as maybe a strain, the likely result of an unusually vigorous early morning swim. Leaving the house, I barely gave the growing pain a second thought.
Ten minutes later as I’m waiting for the street car, I literally couldn’t stand still I was so uncomfortable. Slowly, the thought that this might actually be a kidney stone was dawning on me. And, like the idiot former paramedic who should know better, I, of course, hopped on the streetcar. Just the place one wants to be when experiencing discomfort of the specific variety that makes staying in one place a monumental fucking task.
I’m sure those situated around me had one of several possibilities swirling around their heads regarding the sighing, wincing, grimacing man who was sweating profusely and hopping around like a deranged seal out of water. Potential options were vast …
- He is floridly psychotic.
- That guy needs to take one hell of a piss.
- Probably a speed freak who is higher than God.
- Oh fuck, what a drama queen.
- Perhaps he is suffering from kidney stones (if they happened to be a medical professional not yet jaded or overly cynical).
As the streetcar passed St. Mikes hospital, I made a quick decision to forgo the research ethics meeting and stop in at the ER. Somehow, and this was really cool because it rarely happens to me, the stars were aligned just so and the powers that be looked at me with kindness that afternoon, as the triage nurse was someone I knew well from my paramedic days.
As I sat in the triage chair, Vanessa took one look at me, shook her pert, little red bob and said, “Shit, looks like someone has kidney stones?”
She needn’t have used that questioning cadence.
Because just shy of an hour later, the pain only mildly relieved by no less than 3 separate, 10 mg IV push doses of morphine, several things had been confirmed. The first, as evidenced on MRI, was that I did in fact have kidney stones. Several, to be specific. Large, too, if the description of “fucking pellets” by the attending doctor was to be believed. Lastly, as evidenced by my red, swollen, blotchy skin which had begun to cover itself in raised welts and was itchy as fuck, I was in possession of a not so small allergy to IV morphine.
Bring on the 0.3 mg SQ epinephrine and 50 mg IV push Benadryl.
With those two drugs and the 30 mg’s of opiates on board, probably a speed freak who is higher than God was a description that proved increasingly convincing with each passing minute.
Cut to today.
The vacuously grinning mug on the idiot you see below is mine, and I am only slightly higher than God in this specific shot. Morphine has been replaced by hydromorphone, and as you can tell by my I’d-like-to-buy-the-world-a-coke facial expression, successful pain cessation has splendidly been achieved.
And then some.
A s it turns out, a recent brand switch of the one and only medication I take on a regular basis has a rare yet under reported side effect. You guessed it.
Risk.Of.Kidney.Stones
So, barring an unlikely recurrence, I should be released Monday morning (no one gets released on a weekend). Which will be a welcome relief after an excruciatingly unpleasant several days that included a diagnostic ureteroscopy to determine the size and amount of stones, followed by a partially successful extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy. A long ass way of saying they zapped the fuckers with limited success. And the finale which occurred several hours ago, that age old, tried and true method of passing them yourself.
Not a fan.
Pissing shards of hot glass, would be an apt, non-hyperbolic description. The result of which included a toilet bowl not dissimilar in appearance to the makeup residue sludge of a Walking Dead extra.
However, that method did seem to kick some serious ass, since I went from a pain scale of 10/10 to one of 0 in less than a second.
That’s one way to spell relief, I suppose.
The take away here, if there is one? For me, besides the glaringly obvious one of reading the fine print during medication changes, it was the needed reminder to never assume an expression of pain is anything less than exactly what someone says it is.
This will now conclude the Saturday night TMI show with your host, Allan.
About The Author
A classic ENFP, alto left a career as a flight paramedic to obtain his MFA in creative nonfiction. As a qualitative researcher in public health, he examines intersections of HIV, stigma, and PTSD through both personal and community narrative. Stray dogs, satire, and Starbucks do not displease him.
