centre of the universe - the dreaming: My Night

09/08/2005: "My Night" My Night
- by cenobyte

"Hi there, can you pick up some cough medicine for me and The Nipper on your way home?"
"Sure, if I don't hurl first."
"Oh dear."

His Nibs came into the house looking a very peculiar shade of green. He spent the next four hours or so within a stone's throw of the loo.

Got the kids to bed.

Had a backache. Thought, 'meh, what's new?' Chanced on having a hot soak in the tub, between His Nibs' attacks of humours. Baaaaad humours. Not funny.

"That's odd," thought I, "my backache isn't getting any better in this hot tub. Hm. Maybe something's wrong. Ow. That really hurts. Why, this feels a little like back labour. Ow. OW!"

"Honey," says I, to the pekid pea-coloured man in my bed, "I think I'm going to call the hospital. There's something really wrong with me".

Now to his credit, he didn't launch into the myriad things that could be or are wrong with me. He just said, "I'm sorry", which was odd, because it certainly wasn't his fault. I called the hospital. Described the mind-numbing labour-like pains I was having on my right side. Started in the back. Moved across my hip and into my groin.
"How would you rate this pain?" asked the Helpful Nurse.
"Somewhere between almost not bearable and fucking awful?"
"On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst pain you've ever felt?"
"Okay, well, let's just say my labour pains were about a seven or eight on that scale, I'll put this at a six or seven."

After a few more questions, she determines that I ought to get in to the hospital within the next four hours. I realise the following:
Mike can't drive me. He's upstairs having a hot and sweaty date with the contents of his stomach.
I can't drive me. I'm in the process of trying to 'visualise' my way through searing pain.
The Captain can't drive me. He's in bed. Plus, he's only five and can't reach the pedals.
The Nipper can't drive me. He's in bed too, and hasn't quite got full control of his hands.
I don't know anyone in our town well enough yet to ask anyone to drive me.

I call 911 and tell the kind 911 lady that I'm experiencing sudden extreme pain. She calls the ambulance. I hobble around at home, walking through the pain like one does when one's in labour. The ambulance guys arrive. I feel like a dolt, standing on the street waving them down. In the ambulance, I explain my symptoms to the EMT student and the actual EMT. I apologise for having to call them all the way out here. They say they don't mind, especially when I'm not bleeding, barfing, or peeing in their bus. Or worse.

We arrive at the hospital. I then tell the kind nurse about my pain, which by now has subsided to maybe a three or four on the above mentioned scale. She (the nurse, not the scale) asks me to take a seat in the waiting room. I did. I tried making up stories and commentary for Riff and his lovely wife Raff who were sitting beside me (remind me sometime to tell you the terribly politically incorrect vegetable joke sometime - Riff and Raff had the voices from the joke); the hoity-toity upper-middle-class twits across the way, and the beautifully rotund pregnant woman with her one-legged boyfriend (not a euphemism). But the pain came back. Not wanting to be a noodge (is it noodge or nudge or what?), I politely waited as long as I could, walked around a while more, then went to the nurse's desk.

"I'm sorry to be a bother," I said, "but the pain is suddenly quite a lot worse than when I came in. Is there somwhere I could curl up into a little ball and whimper?"

She smiled kindly and put me in a bed in a hallway. I've always wanted to be the patient in the bed in the hallway. The guy in the room across from me was chained to his bed (he also had two of his very own prison guard escorts), and gave a rousing play-by-play (*and* colour commentary, for the record) of his proctological examination, complete (what proctological examination would be complete without) with asides as to now knowing why his 'lady friend' screamed when he did that. 'Being a prisoner,' I thought, and then didn't follow that thought up much further, due to the pain in my back. The lady in the other room across from me had the flu or something similar. She had a Scots accent, and was invoking The Father as waves of nausea floated over her. I felt very sorry for her. At one point, I heard something drop to the ground, and this little polite Scottish voice say, "oh, and I've dropped it. And I need it. Oh, Heavens, I can't get it, not there, no no. Oh dear. Oh my. Oh dear. Oh Lord, Oh dear." Then she found the call button and said, when the nurse buzzed her to see what the problem was, "I've gone and dropped something and I need it because I need to be sick in it..." Very sweet. If not for the huge "DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING IN THIS ROOM OR CERTAIN DEATH AWAITS YOU" signs, I might have stumbled in to help.

Anyway, eventually my turn came around; the nurse gave me a risque little hospital gown and a warm dressing jacket to go over it, and weird little paper slippers to change into. I had to pee in a cup and give them vials of it. Then I was back to waiting.

Felt a bit better, though.

The doctor came in, asked me a few questions, then left to check the lab results on my pee. Came back in a while later.
"I think you probably have kidney stones," he said. "You may have even passed one tonight. We'll need to do a CT scan, but if you're not in pain anymore, we'll just send you home and you can come back tomorrow morning for that. I'll send some pain medication home with you to take if you need it."

That's it.

Kidney stones.

Let me just tell you this one thing.

Gentlemen, if you'd ever like to know the *kind* of pain that women go through in labour, get yourselves some kidney stones. It's a very similar kind of pain. Not as long, and not as intense, but then again, the end product isn't as much fun either.

Stupid kidney stones.

"Uppicus Datidus" "I cock."

8 Comments

Der Kaptin , on Thursday, 8th September:

Oh my. I'm so sorry to hear of your travails. Fingers, and other appendages, are crossed for your speedy return to health, well, to a somewhat more healthy state.

When I was on a cot in the hall at Pasqua emergency last year, I was at least dancing with the daughters of demerol. Very pleasant indeed. The day I spent there, waiting for a room, passed in a flash, or rather, a blur.

A (male) friend has had a bout or two with kidney stones. He was rather detailed in his description of the extraction process. I'm glancing about for something else to cross in your defence.

cenobyte , on Thursday, 8th September:

I just finished reading the Kidney Foundation of Canada (KFOC, which is an incrediby funny acronym) website and their brochure about kidney stones. They say, "kidney stones can range in size from virtually unnoticable, as a grain of sand, to about the size of a golf ball".

ABOUT THE SIZE OF A GOLF BALL!!???

Jeezum Crow. A golf ball.

Now, I've passed something the size of a watermelon through something that's normally not much bigger than a garden hose. Two somethings. But let me just say that the thought of having a GOLF BALL SIZED KIDNEY STONE gives me the screaming horrors.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

^^^^^^^(screaming horrors)^^^^^^^^^

I don't know if they did the up-the-urethra-with-a-little-claw-on-a-stick extraction method for your friend, or the ultra-sonic-sit-in-a-bath-while-sound-waves-break-up-the-stones method, but if I have more of the little beggars, I'm going to opt for the second.

I went through this whole process without the use of any drugs, except for the one over-the-counter cramps medication I took at home.

The doctor, as I was leaving the hospital, gave me some highly sought after opiates, but as the pain has not, as yet, returned, I haven't, as yet, had the honour.

Just the experience of being the patient in the hall while the prisoner in Bed 8 described his proctological exam in no uncertain terms.

neuba , on Thursday, 8th September:

I have never had a kidney stone, and from your descriptive I don't want to ever get one.

I hope everthing works out, and you get better soon!

Ooblik , on Thursday, 8th September:

Sorry to hear about that, and I sincerely hope that it never happens to me. *smile*.

It's a pity that they kept you waiting, dying, the way they did. With that kind of medical facility, you might has well move to Alberta, and die in the waiting room, literally.

Der Kaptin , on Thursday, 8th September:

It was up the urethra with the claw on a cable for my fren', which in *his* case was an even longer journey. In round two, he opted for the six-months-of-medication-that-slowly-dissolves-the-stones. Don't know how that's going, exactly. I heard that the ultrasound-for-gallstones thing is pretty much a HOAX, so I don't imagine it's much difrent for the kiddlies.

Please be well as soon as you can. You're much too young to suffer from anything more than tainted karma.

R:tAG , on Friday, 9th September:

Erg. My father had kidney stones he had to get removed. They broke up the major bits with some sort of sonic probe, but there were som hard bits which they had to remove manually. And not by opening him up either. They did it by placing a long contraption with a basket on the end up the urinary tract, catching the leftover bit, then pulling the now-enlarged basket back down the tract. Yah. NEVER want to go through that. Erg. Erg Erg.

Smarty Pants , on Friday, 9th September:

That's it. Bottled water for me from now on.

cenobyte , on Friday, 9th September:

Bottled Water? How would that help?

Oh. You're being witty. I see.

(grin)

distractions