Just one more.

 

Just one more procedure to go and I’ll be all through with the great kidney stone adventure.  The stone is gone.  All the hard work is done.  All that remains is to remove the stent from my ureter next Thursday.

 

I asked the doctor about it.  He said “No big deal.  We just do it in the office.  We do it all the time.”  No big deal.  Yeah.  Right.  Maybe no big deal for him.  Me, I’ve having a little trouble with the prospect.  I can only think of one way to get to the ureter without making an incision somewhere on my body, and they’re not planning on making any incisions.  I know how they have been getting to my ureter for the previous procedures, but I’ve been anesthetized for them.  I’ve gone to sleep with my private parts intact and woken up with them still somewhat intact, even if a little beat up.  The thought of being conscious and having to hold still while the doctor goes looking for that stent he left the last time he was in there is freaking me out.  I told the doctor.  He said “No problem.  I’ll prescribe a Valium for you.”  A Valium.  That sounds like a nice start, but I’m not sure there is enough Valium on the planet to get me in the mood for this.

 

 

Henry

 

Likes his nature programs on the big screen.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes it's the little things

 

A nice little pantry in the hallway at the back of the kitchen.

 

But it’s dark.

 

Kind of hard to see what’s inside.

 

 

So we just got it fitted with a light that comes on when the door opens.

 

Now it’s perfect!

 

It’s a happy pantry!

 

I freely admit

 

…I might tend to overthink things sometimes.

 

Like driving on a dusty road.  One might be inclined to switch the ventilation system over to recirculate to keep the dust out, but with neutral air pressure in the car, dust still finds its way in.  I find it better to leave the air intake open.  The air intake is up behind the hood in front of the windshield, so even on a dusty road it’s drawing mostly clear air and creating positive air pressure inside the car so dust doesn’t work its way in through any small openings.  Of course all that changes when we meet a car coming the other direction kicking up a cloud of dust.  The ventilation gets switched to recirculate.  Then it’s a judgment call on when the outside air is clear enough to benefit the inside air again.

 

Or drying my hair.  I can dry it all over with a bath towel, using the entire towel at once, and getting a certain measure of dryness.  Or I can start at one end of a dry bath towel, dry until the hair and towel seem to be of uniform dampness, then feed the towel up to the next dry section until it is saturated, and so on.  I imagine that using the equivalent of multiple smaller dry towels produces a superior result to using one big towel all at once.

 

Like I said….

 

 

The good news is...

 

….I woke up from the surgery.

 

 

The urologist emerged unscathed.  The kidney stone didn’t.  The stone is no more.  I don’t know that all the cub scouts have been accounted for.

 

The stone didn’t go away without a battle.  It has been in my ureter since January and has been jammed in place for 2 months straight; for the first month just by being in a place it couldn’t get past, then for the next month, by being anchored firmly by the stent.  When the stone blew up, parts were left imbedded in the ureter.  Those remaining stone parts had to be dug out of the ureter wall.

 

We did what we didn’t mean to do though.  We pissed off the ureter.  If we had left the Hulk in that mood, it would have tied me in a knot by now, so guess what…..  I have a stent in my ureter to preserve function until things calm down!  Normally this would only be a three day issue.  In my case however, the stent will stay for ten days; for a little extra recovery time.  I’m special (or at least my kidney stone and ureter are).

 

I woke up in the recovery room unusually cranky; but I’m over it now.  Now I’m a happy guy.  I’m not perfectly comfortable and there is still more to accomplish before this exercise is over, but the urologist reports no permanent damage.  All-in-all, this whole experience is a giant pain; but it’s only that.  Pain.  There are worse things than that.

 

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.

 

Tony

 

Becky and Brian had a party at their house today for Tony in celebration of his dropping out of high school. 

 

(Yes, that’s Rags the Cat included in the photo.)

 

Tony has just finished his sophomore year.  He’ll never get the high school graduation and prom experience, and the last day at school was pretty quiet just saying goodbye to a few people, so Becky wanted to make sure the occasion was marked with a celebration.  A big get-together; lots of friends and family.

 

It’s more of a dropping up than a dropping out, because he’s headed off to Bard College at Simon’s Rock in August.  http://simons-rock.edu/

 

Early-entry college sounds like a good place for him.  It sounds especially good to Tony; it was his idea in the first place.  He’s ready to move on to college level courses.

 

So even though we’re not there in Colorado to help him celebrate, we’re there in spirit (and by phone and text).  We’re very proud of Tony and wish him the best.  Not only is he smart, he’s a great kid and we love him very much.  Go gettum Tony!