Let's Go Office Space on the Indiana Jones Boulder in the Backyard

Lots and lots to talk about in this post.

First of all, I would like to publicly thank my parents for my birthday present. Better late than never right? Definitely right. They bought me a, drum roll please, Omar Vizquel jersey. Yes, the same Omar Vizquel jersey that I wrote about in one of my first few posts. It is glorious. I can't wait to rock it to the stadium this year.

Next we move on to the happenings of Spring Break: that one week of the year when college students let loose, go some place warm, where the beer flows like wine, where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano (Name it!). My spring break was a tad bit different. It consisted of an appointment with a nephrologist, an appointment with a urologist, a twenty-four hour urine collection (which is exactly what it sounds like), a blood draw, a dentist appointment (where I was informed of the ticking time bomb that are my wisdom teeth), an ultrasound and an x-ray of my kidneys and bladder, and another appointment with the urologist.

After the ultrasound and x-ray, things were going about as well as I could have hoped. My doctor appointments were finished for the week, and I had two surgeries scheduled for June. The surgeries were stone blasts, which is not the technical term. This is when I am put under and high frequency, high volume sound waves are blasted at a localized area of my back. The sound travels into my kidney and pulverizes the stone (hopefully). But then the urologist called after reading the ultrasound and x-ray. The woman on the other end of the phone whispered (because she had laryngitis), "John needs to come in and see Dr. Spear because there is a stone blocking his right kidney."

Son of a bee sting! So my mother in I get in the car and make the drive to downtown Akron, where we had just been to have lunch with my dad. Dr. Spear informed us that the multiple stones I have been experiencing have really been this one stone attempting to move, getting stuck, and falling back into my kidney. It needs to be removed within the next few weeks to avoid permanent kidney damage. Unfortunately, the stone is currently lodged in the first part of my ureter (the tube connecting the kidney to the bladder), which makes sound waves extremely dangerous and no longer an option. The only option is for the doctor to go up after it.

Attention: Reader Discretion is Advised.

While he's up there, providing he is able to remove the stone without pushing it back into the kidney, he puts in place a stent. A stent sits in the ureter and widens it so that any smaller stones or debris may pass with less obstruction. The problem is getting the stent out one week later. As a minor, patients are put under for stent removal. But I'm nineteen now. So I have two options.

1) Come back in and have the doctor go up after the stent, wide awake, with just a little bit of local anesthetic.

2) The stent has a fishing line attached to it. The line leads out of the ureter and into the bladder ... and out of the bladder ... and then out all together. It stays like that for the week. And if that's not crazy enough: after the week has passed, the stent needs to be removed. By me. Myself. Using the fishing line. Let that soak in for a little bit. Yes, I am expected to pull a four-inch piece of plastic out of my area, starting at my kidney, using only a fishing line and zero anesthesia. This leaves me with a two main questions:

1) Are you freaking kidding me?

2) Isn't one minor surgery without any anesthesia enough for a person's lifetime? This will be my second thanks to physician's assistant Dan of the Cleveland Clinic who so willingly removed my first Hickman catheter with zero anesthesia. In his defense though, he did use "enough local anesthetic to put down a horse." O you did, physician's assistant Dan? These tears rolling down my face must be in my imagination.

I asked the urologist if the removal hurt... Let me rephrase that. While I picked my jaw up off the floor, my mother asked if the removal hurt. He responded, "No ... well, umm ... There is a little discom- ... It's probably a little weird ... I've nev- ... Yea, it will probably hurt." Let me say one thing: "Duh. It's four inches long and not a stream of urine. It's going to hurt."

So that's the latest addition to my list of medical maladies. It's a big one.

If a normal-sized, pain causing kidney stone, which is usually about the size of a grain of sand, is blown up to the size of a playground pebble, I wonder if this stone would be as big as the Indiana Jones boulder? Sounds like a job for math. Ha. Maybe I'll ask Dr. Spear to put the darn thing in a jar for me so I can measure it, take a picture with it, and go Office Space on it in the backyard. -IW