The attack of the kidney stone

On Wednesday, July 1, 

Six days before my big move across the country

I was attacked by my kidney.

If you've never had kidney stones,

you should thank your lucky stars and also pray that it never happens to you.

It is horrendous.

Some people say that it is as bad as child birth.

But, as a woman who has experienced natural childbirth,

I just want to say...

It's worse.

Unrelenting

horrible pain

and the only thing you get at the end

if you are lucky

is a little rock.

And you do all kinds of embarrassing things when you are in unrelenting pain.

Take my word for it.

I have had this stone since December.

It attacked me the day after Christmas.

Then again in April

Then again in July.

I never passed it...

it just kept moving around and blocking important bodily pathways.

then it would move a little bit and unblock

so that I could go on living with this little time bomb inside of me.

I realize the timing of this last attack could have been worse.

It could have happened while I was driving across the country.

So, even though the timing isn't very good

I see how it wasn't the worst scenario.

The doctor decided that I wasn't going to be able to pass it

and they scheduled surgery.

So I had the little sucker removed on Thursday.

5 days before my move.

As I waited for surgery,

I felt a bit of a negative vibe between my surgeon and the nurses.

I don't know about you but I want my surgeon to be the kind of guy that everyone loves.

Animosity with co-workers seems like a bad thing. 

I guess it doesn't mean anything in terms of surgical skill but it still put me on edge.

I got the impression that the doctor was trying to get this done in a hurry

and the nurses and other staff were annoyed

and feeling like "I'll get my stuff done when I get my stuff done.  Back off!"

So at one point,

the nurse asks if the doctor has been in to see me.

He had.

She says, "Did he mark you?"

Another nurse pipes up with "If he didn't mark her, I'll go get him and make him come back"

I respond, "yes, he marked me"

"Where?  Your arm?" (said with a snarky tone of voice)

"Um. No.  My leg"

Which was apparently the right place for him to have marked me.

And the poor annoyed nurses just had to let the surgeon go.

Days later...

I still have a permanent market "yes" on my right leg

even after multiple showers and lots of scrubbing.

The surgery was a success and they removed a 5mm stone.

It's now being evaluated

So that they can tell me to cut even more things out of my diet, I assume.

The unfortunate thing is that they had to insert a stent.

Which is a big tube running from the kidney to the bladder

to keep the tube open in case of swelling.

this tube does not feel good

So I have spent the last several days

doing a lot of nothing

I was thankful we had packed gradually and in advance

so I didn't have all that much to do.

The movers come today

July 7

and I will probably be trying to find ways to lay down in the midst of the chaos.

Dangit, my kidney hurts!