The Horror, the Horror: Stent Removal, Part II

So yesterday it was time for my stent to be removed. To refresh your memory, I had the stent put in early last week when the monster stone was obliterated. This stent, thankfully, did not have any drawstrings attached to it, so the removal needed to be done in the urologist's office.

I was called back, gave a urine sample, and was taken to the back room. This room has a small chair area for the patient. It reminded me of a birthing room. I was told to remove everything below my waist and have a seat. "This is going to hurt, isn't it?" I asked. "It won't hurt, but it certainly won't be very comfortable. Are you sure you don't want your mom back here with you? If this were happening to me, I'd definitely want someone back here with me," the nurse responded. Naturally, I came back with: "So it is going to hurt!"

I had some topical numbing cream, but it did no good. It numbed the outside of ... where they were. But they weren't sticking tools along the outside. The outside didn't hurt. What did hurt was the scope going in and coming out with the stent. The urologist asked if I had ever seen a stent after he had pulled it out. I curtly reminded him that I had one removed at home awhile back. I think he took the hint and realized how traumatizing this whole experience was. I can honestly say though that it was in fact much easier in the doctor's office than doing it at home. I had spasms again afterward, but percocet knocked them out yesterday, and they didn't return this morning.

It's funny, though; being on percocet is much more enjoyable when I don't have classes to attend, finals to prepare for, or finals to take.

One other thing: the urologist gave me a couple pills to ease the burning during urination. They have one weird side-effect though: blue urine. For some reason these pills turn your urine blue. I'm guessing most of you have never had the privilege of peeing in any color other than yellow, clear, or maybe a little red. Let me tell you, blue really freaks you out when the urination occurs. It's really weird.

On a different note, I had my orientation at the University of Akron on Tuesday. It was, in a word, fantastic. It was 100% better than Ohio State. When dealing with my academic advisor at OSU, I always felt I was more of an obligation that she wanted to deal with as quickly as possible so that she could get back to her research. At Akron, my advisor and I went through and scheduled all of my classes together right then and there. Later, an advisor in the Honors Department got hold of me and had me brought to his office. It turns out whoever was in charge of checking me in did not check "Honors" on my card, so my advisor did not schedule me for Honors classes. The Honors guy, the head Honors advisor, then rescheduled all of my classes with me. I didn't want to go back to the group and sit through a boring presentation so I asked a few extra questions, and he decided to take me on a tour of the Honors building. It was pretty great.

I know what you're thinking: "Hey man, how did this guy know you scheduled incorrectly after just a few hours?" As it turns out, he knew that one of the classes I needed was closing quickly, so he was registering me for it. Himself. Just to make sure I would get into it. The head advisor in the Honors department. How crazy is that?

It's good he caught me, too. As it turns out, Honors status gets me out of a lot of General Education classes that regular students have to take and honors students do not need to take. So my schedule is a lot better than it would have been. And my future classes are going to be a lot better than they would have been. No Intro. to Speech. No Western Civ. No Eastern Civ.

Good times, and Go Zips! -IW

No Strings Attached

So here it is. Finals week. Three gruelling tests were all that separated me from the glorious escape of summer. Ohio State was nice enough to schedule my three exams all on Wednesday (today) and Thursday of an exam week that went from Monday to Thursday. So I decided I'd go home for the long weekend so that I could focus on studying without having to worry about food or comfort so much. Ha. Comfort. Last Thursday the stone moved. Friday I was in a great deal of pain. Saturday was the same. So I decided if I was still in pain Sunday morning, the E.R. was probably in my future.

On Sunday I woke up around 7 in more pain than I have been for quite some time. Obviously, the stone couldn't wait one more week. So to the E.R. my dad and I went. A CT scan showed that the stone had indeed moved and was blocking my ureter. The urologist would have to go in and do what he accidentally did last time, only this time on purpose. But it was Sunday, and urologists take Sunday off. And it wasn't an emergency so I'd have to wait until around 5 p.m. on Monday to have the 5 minute procedure done.

I'd stay in the hospital overnight so that they could manage my pain. That night when the toridol they had given me wore off, they gave me more, only this time the pain never subsided. I went all night buzzing the nurse as soon as I was allowed another dosage of morphine. It's not as though I wasn't up already though, my poor roommate was having trouble sleeping so he watched TV ALL night. The volume on these TVs only had two settings: off and loud. So I would have been up anyway. Being in pain all night was awful, but it did make me a priority for the urologist who had me brought down to surgery around 7 in the morning.

It turns out the stone had completely lodged itself into my ureter, so they were going to go up after it again. Just like last time it fell back into the kidney, but the urologist's bendy laser tool was able to get it in range this time. I imagine it was similar to the Death Star being destroyed in Star Wars. That's right, the stone has been destroyed. Which means: I don't have to have surgery to remove it! Hooray!

Going in to the surgery, the plan was to push the stone back into the kidney if they couldn't get it and put a stent in. This I was not so excited about. When I was being prepped for surgery, one of the doctors was going over what the plan was with me. He mentioned the stent, and I stopped him and said, "The stent is not to have any strings on it. I don't want to be able to remove it myself." His response: "Did you not like that last time?" The understatement of the century.

When I went into the operating room, the urologist came over, and I told him, "This is not to be a remove-it-yourself stent." He said that he understood, and it would not be. Then the anesthesiologist went to put the mask on me. Before he did, I stopped him and announced to the entire room, "Everybody, the stent is to have no strings attached!" Most in the room chuckled and agreed.

The next thing I know, the urologist is waking me up and tells me they got the stone. Blew it into oblivion. That was exactly what I wanted to hear.

It is amazing, though, how unprepared you are for final exams when you spend the entire weekend prior to them in the hospital. My calculus exam was this morning. I think it went OK. Not great, but OK. I have two more tomorrow. And then I'm done. At 6 p.m. tomorrow I should be in the car pulling out of the parking lot of 404 West 12th Avenue in Columbus and I never have to come back. I'll be on my way home - with a quick stop at Arby's of course.

-IW