Kidney stones and I go way back.
The first inklings I ever had - although I didn't realize the significance at the time - was a weird, burning pain I kept getting somewhere to the right of my belly button. It started sometime around 2001 or 2002.
Of course, I was drinking and partying all the time so I never really paid attention to it. The second time I was in rehab, I remember getting called for repeated urinalyses every morning for a while, finding out that labs were finding blood in my urine and then getting sent to the ER only to be diagnosed with prostatitis.
The doctor was a schlub and really didn't do much to get to the bottom of what was going on, but it got me in the door with a referral and I eventually discovered that the blood in my urine and the pain in my side were likely related. Unfortunately, it wasn't until around 2009 when the pain returned one night with such a vengeance that I went to the emergency room and found out I had a kidney stone that I knew what was really going on.
Turned out I never had prostatitis. I also never really did much to treat the stone and I eventually passed it (I named her Opal, since she's the stone for the month of October).
That degree of pain remained at bay for the next few years, but I did experience intermittent stones that I'd pee out without knowing I had another one. What usually happened is I would have a dull ache in my lower back for a day or two. I'd start running a low-grade fever and generally feeling like shit and then - Surprise - a big stone would pop out mid-stream (and a couple times get stuck right where I didn't want it stuck) and clink against the porcelain bowl.
When I got the Yakima post and headed this way, my health wasn't really on my mind. For six days, I was only focused on not dying on the way to the Pacific Northwest as I drove through what everybody said was the worst winter they'd seen in years.
I ate fast food. I drank a ton of Red Bull. I spent hours at a time seated upright in my car. And the trip that was only supposed to last three-and-a-half days max took all week.
I got to Yakima very late on a Saturday night.
The first thing I did after unloading my car was check Grindr (first time I realized I'd moved to the land of the uncircumcised penises). Immediately after, I ran to the McDonald's behind my place for the number three (we're old friends, that Quarter Pounder and I).
The following morning was the first real sign that I needed to start paying closer attention to my body.
I blogged about it once before, but let me reiterate: I peed brown!
Not like a really dark colored urine. No! Actual brown. Thick and hot and pretty much the consistency of coffee.
But I didn't do anything about it. I mean, I'd just moved here and I was starting this great new job the next day and I was eager to hurry up and get started on my new life.
So, I drank a ton of water and my urine normalized. And I ignored it.
Then the pain started again.
It was one night during that first week. When I was still sleeping on the floor and waiting for furniture. It was that same excruciating burn on my right side, a couple inches to the side of my bellybutton. Hot and frightening. So bad that I broke out in sweat and got nauseated and wanted to vomit and had to get up and walk around and smoke cigarettes and drink water and remind myself that it was only a stone and it would eventually go away. And after about an hour, it did go away.
But it kept happening.
Always overnight. Always for an hour or two at a time. And not always on my right side. It started hitting my left side, too and I was hoping it was something that could wait until I had a chance to go to the doctor because I'd just started this great new job and things were hectic and I couldn't possibly take any time off.
So I waited. Because that's what I do: I wait until the last possible moment and then I go do something about it.
The X-rays showed that I had multiple, bilateral kidney stones. There were seven in my right kidney and three in my left - and these weren't counting the three fat ones that I peed out at North Town Coffee the very night of the day when I had the X-ray taken (funny how things work out like that).
When the doctor said surgery and explained the way it would go down, I was more than willing to jump at it and hurry up to get it done.
July 6 was the first procedure, but they were only able to attack three of the stones in my right kidney. The doctor said they zapped me 3,000 times (not a record - just the maximum number of times they can hit you in one kidney), and they stuck a stent in my right side and I spent the next few days recovering from the experience and dealing with the stent and waiting for them to order the next procedure: July 25.
That was Tuesday and I'm a few days out and still peeing out little pieces of pulverized stone, but the stent's gone and the pain is far less intense than it was.
Next step, what does the doctor say I need to do to prevent this from happening again?
And wait to find out just how much I'm going to have to pay out of pocket for this little medical setback.
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