Kidney Stones Are Such a Pain

I don't think I've ever experienced the pain that is considered "worse than childbirth", but I don't think I really want to get that close. Let me tell you about my four “kids”.

Twenty-one years ago I experience my first kidney stone while visiting friends in Elgin, Oregon. I was scheduled for an interview with the fire chief of the La Grande Fire Department that day. When I walked in into his office, I was able to reasonably stand upright; by the time I left I was leaning over and in a significant amount of pain. After attempting to go to dinner with my friends, I soon gave up on that and headed to the hospital where they found a stone the size of a pea an inch below my right kidney. The worst part of that experience wasn’t the long, painful four hour drive home (my friend drove), but waking up after the lithotripsy with a catheter the size of a small garden hose coming out of me.

Seven years later, after I had just started a new job in Eureka, California, I came down with my next bout. After spending a Saturday in the emergency room, I came back a couple days later and admitted myself when it returned. After a couple of days on morphine and a day getting off of it, and the urologist going in (literally) and pulling it out, it ended my second bout.

A few years later, after spending a weekend at Lake Chelan in North-Central Washington waterskiing and extreme-inner tubing (which I think shook one of the stones loose), I felt the ever-familiar pain in my side as we said goodbye to our friends. After spending the afternoon at the Chelan Community Hospital, I passed the stone by the time I got home to Idaho. So ended my third bout.

Then, during a Saturday in November, I was sitting at my computer. I suddenly felt that familiar flank-pain, but within a half-hour, just as I was about to make the decision to go to the hospital, the pain suddenly subsided. Four-hours later the pain came back, quicker and stronger. At the hospital, after being injected with some fun stuff, the X-ray and CT scan determined I had two stones in my right kidney, and one in my left. In December I had my right kidney successfully treated with lithotripsy. Tomorrow I am having my left kidney treated…and I understand my urologist is going to try to figure why I am making stones. So, if you see me carrying around a brown jug for a couple days -- don’t ask what’s inside.

Wish me luck.