The stomach flu

 

I had a bout with it when I was a young teenager.  Serious pain in the lower abdomen.  I remember my parents driving me to the emergency room, me hunched over holding my abdomen, apologizing to them because I wasn’t handling the pain better (I was a young male, after all.  We don’t want to show any sign of weakness.)  I was admitted to the hospital.  They watched me for days.  Early on, the doctor was ready to take out my appendix but something changed his mind at the last moment, eliminating my appendix as the cause.  They watched me some more.

 

When after 3 or 4 days the pain subsided, they announced that I had just had a case of the stomach flu and sent me home.  There was nothing in particular to confirm that what I had was the stomach flu.  There were no other gastric symptoms besides the searing pain.  I always had the feeling that they called it stomach flu because they didn’t know what else to call it.  It just now occurs to me to wonder if that was maybe my first kidney stone bout and it went completely unrecognized.

 

As for my current ureterological situation, it has been a long month.  When the urologist first put the stent in and sent me home, I knew there was no way I could last a month with that thing inside of me.  I shifted the focus to something more achievable and made it through the next day; and then again for an entire month.  The ureter is something like the Hulk.  It is a muscular organ and it gets along well with others, but you don’t want to make it angry.  You really, really, really don’t want to make it angry.  Well, I’m walking around with a 6 millimeter-wide stone, and a 22 centimeter-long stent in my 2 millimeter-wide ureter.  My moving about makes things shift, rub, and irritate.  I have my finger in the Hulk’s ribs; and I’m trying hard not to poke him.  I spend a lot of time holding still.

 

But tomorrow, things are going to change.  We report to the hospital at 6am for an early surgery.  This is the part where the urologist goes in with a flashlight, ray gun, and butterfly net to face the beast.  (There are suggestions that there may be a troop of cub scouts accompanying him as well, but I don’t know if I should believe that.)  The stent is coming out.  The kidney stone is coming out.  I hope the urologist survives and comes back out as well.

 

There may be radio silence for a day or two.  There may be drug induced ramblings.  Time will tell.