Beautiful Bronx Bomber Beat Down

Hello everybody. My apologies for the delay in blog posts. It has been a busy week for me. On Sunday, the fam and I went to the Tribe game against the Blue Jays. At the time, the Indians were 0-5. But they pulled off the victory in front of about twenty fans in the stadium. That's an exaggeration, but it was Easter Sunday, so the stadium was mostly empty.

The Indians sure are playing well lately, though. They went 1-2 against the Royals, but the offense showed signs of life, and, except for one bad inning from the bullpen, they were within reach of all three games. Then yesterday came: Opening Day at the new Yankee Stadium. The best stadium $1.5 billion can buy (Yes, billion). The epitome of American capitalism and gluttony. A cathedral for the religion of baseball. The home of the nation's winningest sports franchise ever. And what's even better than that? The seats are so expensive, the excessively rowdy New York fans who made the old Yankee Stadium such a hostile environment can no longer afford to attend games. So, teams get to spend three or four days living in the lap of luxury, playing on the national stage in front of a sell-out crowd, and only have the rich elite rooting against them, who, let's face it, are more respectful and orderly than some of the others. It's a win-win.

But yesterday, for the Tribe, was a win-win-win, because they won the game. Not only did they beat the Bronx Bombers, they slaughtered them 10-2. Cliff Lee looked more like the Cy Young Award winner that he is. Even C.C. looked great. The Yank's undoing came after C.C. left the game, and the bullpen took over. When C.C. left, it was 1-1. The next inning, our boys exploded for a 9-run seventh inning, including a grand slam by Grady Sizemore and a solo shot by Victor Martinez. It was glorious.

In between Tribe games, I have been exclusively catching up on seven days of missed class. Somehow, I was able to get completely caught up on homework assignments in just three days. It helps that I could probably pass the Chem 101 final right now with just the knowledge I remember from sophomore-year chemistry. But the other two classes, calculus with analytical geometry III and an introduction to constructing mathematical proofs, are certainly not "fluff" courses. I still have a great deal of studying to do for my calc III course (I got a 4/15 on the quiz yesterday ... not the lowest grade in the class. Not even the second lowest grade in the class. The median was an 8). But with such nice weather scheduled for today and tomorrow, I think I'll push the studying back to Sunday.

My stomach has felt pretty ok the last few days (relatively, of course.), and I haven't had any kidney-like pain since last Friday, so that's good news. With any luck, the stone will stay put until June. But, of course, lady luck has not been on my side for a while.

But I think a few good things ought to be mentioned:

Season Tickets. My Uncle Bill bought season tickets to the Tribe, as I've said before, to be split among the Five Families (name it!). Four seats, fourth row, on the aisle, right-centerfield. The view is absolutely fantastic. We had so much fun on Easter Sunday, I can't wait to go to the next game I will be home for: Monday, May 25, against the defending American League Champions, Tampa Bay Rays. It is "I am IN the Tribe" grill apron give-away day. And Shellster's birthday.

Two words: Aero ... wait for it ... Smith. Coming to Blossom Music Center on Thursday, September 10. Suby and I will be in attendance. Even better: they aren't coming alone. They're bringing ZZ Top along. This will be my third Aerosmith show. It's going to be awesome.

Anyway, I have a few things to look forward to. But of course, I am looking forward to nothing more than Friday, June 12th, the day after my last exam, and, therefore, my first day being home for good. Now that is going to be awesome.

Tribe v. Yankees, Part II starts in twenty minutes, so I think I need to mentally prepare. Later gators. -IW

The Horror, the Horror: At-Home Urethral Stent Removal

O what a week. On Monday, the DIY stent was removed. It's a good thing I didn't try to film my reaction, because it wouldn't have been pleasant for anybody. The removal was indescribably traumatic. I am not going to go into detail. The removal was just as painful as I could have possibly imagined. If you are a male who has ever had a catheter removed, imagine that, a little bit more painful, and lasting 10-12 seconds. Ten seconds does not sound like a very long time, but when you are experiencing unbelievable pain, a moment so insignificant it can be argued whether it even occurred at all becomes never-ending. Again, I am not going to go into detail about what transpired. You don't want to know what happened, and I don't want to relive it.

Of course, the pain did not last just ten seconds. As with most pain that I feel, it lasts longer and hits harder than it ever should. The prescription pain medication that the urologist gave for the pain did absolutely nothing to even put a dent in the pain. So, at 12:30 in the morning, my dad and I hit the open road; our destination: the emergency room. I was in obvious pain, fighting back tears with just-audible whimpers escaping my lips so I was hurried into an e.r. cavern. And pain management, the nurse assured me, was on its way. Then the doctor came to do his check-ups, and he assured me that pain management was on its way. Then a transporter came from radiology to take me back for an X-ray. I refused, saying that I would not be going anywhere until I was no longer in unbearable pain. So my father was able to flag a nurse into my nook, and she assured me pain management was on its way. Notice the pattern? All in all, I waited for over an hour lying on an e.r. bed before I was given any pain medication.

You want to talk about what's wrong with the health care system. It's not that insurance is hard to deal with. It's that hospital care is grossly overpriced and not nearly as efficient as it needs to be. Waiting for over an hour for a quick shot that took a total of 3.5 seconds to push into my I.V. is utterly ridiculous. I told my father, it would have been quicker if I had sent him to get the medicine, and he doesn't even know where they keep it. I can't even imagine how much it will end up costing the insurance. This is the problem though. Insurance wouldn't be so difficult to deal with if everything having anything to do with a hospital costs thousands of dollars. $17,000 for a helicopter ride from Akron to Pittsburgh is unforgivable. $6,000 for a trip to the OSU E.R. where I was given a bed in the hallway, a three-hour I.V., and a paper prescription that I could not fill because the pharmacy was closed is unbelievable. Putting a patient on 24-hour I.V. so that the nurse would have to "deal" with one less patient during her shift at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic has to be a joke. But I digress ...

Now, I am using percocet to manage pain caused by what my parents and I have diagnosed as ureter spasms. My back has felt intense soreness where I usually feel kidney stones ever since the stent was removed. I am still at home. And I am a little upset with my urologist for telling me it would be totally feasible for me to go back to school. While the stent was in, it hurt to sit on our couch, so how would I be expected to walk across campus and sit at a desk in class? I never would have been able to pull the stent out in a dorm bathroom. And I guess I would have had to walk myself over to the OSU E.R. again to deal with the pain, right? This doc drops the ball more than Braylon Edwards. He is batting well below the Mendoza line. He has a lower free-throw percentage than Shaq.

Here is my first ever Public Service Announcement:

Hello, America. How are you? I've been better. Have you ever had a kidney stone or kidney-related problems? If you have, you have probably had at least a consultation with a urologist. If your urologist has ever suggested a stent, please pay attention to the following announcement. The urologist may suggest a urethral stent that sits in the ureter, widening it to allow stones and stone-like debris to pass without pain. It runs from the kidney to the bladder. It sounds great, and it is, trust me. It alleviates a lot of stone-related pain. But it is uncomfortable, and don't let the urologist tell you it isn't.

The urologist may suggest a stent that can be removed at home, by yourself, without the assistance of a doctor, and without the need to come into the doctor's office. This also sounds great, and it would be, if it were the whole story. Here is what the urologist doesn't tell you: The stent is actually ten inches long. Yes, ten inches. The stent is about the same thickness as a drinking straw. It has coils on both ends that are about the same diameter as a nickel. You most likely will not be able to remove it yourself because shifting the fishing line at all causes so much pain that the thought of pulling it out becomes a high mental hurdle to leap. So, do not, I repeat, do NOT, ever have a DIY stent put in place. I'll say it again, never, EVER agree to an at-home stent removal. The doctor will act as if it is an everyday, no-big-deal thing, because, frankly, they deal with it so often, it is no longer a big deal to them. But to you, it is a big deal. About ten inches of deal, in fact. It is painful, it will hurt the entire time it is in and well after it is out, and you will not be able to go about your daily routine while you are dealing with it.

I am doing everything I can to save someone else out there who may be researching at-home stent removals. It is not worth the trouble. Have a regular stent put in and have a doctor remove it. And insist that you will not cooperate unless the doctor knocks you out. This is my plan of action come my June B.R.O. (see: Friday, April 3: "In a Word: Oww")

NEVER HAVE A REMOVE-IT-YOURSELF STENT, EVER

That's what I have been dealing with during Major League Baseball's Opening Series. Unfortunately, my tribesmen were swept by the Texas Rangers in three games. As many in the Indians' fan base feared, the starting pitching did us in. Carl Pavano gave up nine runs today in just over one full inning. Over three games the Rangers averaged 9.7 runs per game. I don't care who you are, you not going to win many games if you give up nearly 10 runs every outing. And Omar just didn't look right today with that "T" on his hat. Hopefully they can turn it around once they get back to beautiful Northeast Ohio. The Jake will open its doors for the first time this season tomorrow. And on Sunday, the fam and I will be in attendance (thanks, Uncle Bill).

Go Tribe. -IW

In a Word: Oww

So I'm home again. After just three days of classes, I had to come home for a Thursday morning kidney stone removal surgery, or as I'm calling it, a Blockage Removal Operation (B.R.O.)

I woke up Thursday morning, writhing in pain and audibly groaning. Apparently, this monster couldn't wait a few more hours and decided to force its way out of my kidney on its own. My surgery wasn't scheduled until 11:30, but my mother and I went in a little early, in search of effective pain management. Marcia, my nurse, quickly took me back and hooked up my I.V. Marcia was a lifesaver on Thursday. She even gave me a quick pinch of lydicane (sp?) in my forearm so that the I.V. wouldn't hurt so much.

After waiting there for only about two hours, it was time for the surgery, and I was taken back to the operating room. There isn't a lot that I remember specifically from yesterday. Most of it is vague and foggy. I woke up from the surgery in pain that was just as bad, if not worse, than the pain I had when I went in, which didn't make a lot of sense to me. As it turns out, the dye that the doctor shot up to confirm the location of the stone actually pushed the stone back up into my kidney, making removal impossible. So the scope was pulled out and the surgery was brought to an unsuccessful halt. The stone, by the way, is roughly an inch in diameter.

Apparently, though, his scope clipped my ureter and a blood clot formed and blocked my kidney, effectively becoming a stone. But as I said, the pain didn't make sense without knowledge of the clot. So the nursing staff had to run a series of tests which took about an hour to come to the conclusion that something was indeed blocking my kidney. The same conclusion that my mother and I reached within seconds of my waking up in pain. It is getting old having to prove to doctors that we know what we're talking about.

So I went back into surgery. When I came to, I was told that the blockage was removed, and a stent was put in place. The do-it-yourself stent. Yes, that is the part of the planned surgery that went according to plan. It was put in place to prevent the stone from trying to pass again and to aid any debris in its attempt to pass.

I went in to have a stone removed and a DIY stent put in place. The stone was not removed, but the stent was still put in place. It is set for removal on Wednesday, unless it is bothering me too much, in which case it will be removed on Tuesday. Yes, I have to remove it myself. I still don't believe it. And I don't quite understand what they were thinking when they cut the line. There is, obviously, a piece of string attached to the stent leading out for me to grasp and pull. When I imagined this, I cringed, and I imagined the line to be about a foot long so that I had plenty of slack, could get a good grip, and could tape it to my thigh to avoid it being tugged on throughout the day, because they told me it would be taped to my thigh.

The doctor, however, had a different idea and decided a four inch line would do the trick. When I woke up, it was taped pretty high up on my thigh as well, providing me with some much-needed (cough) tugging with every move I made. Even with a new tape-job, relief was hard to find. Now I'm trying the no-tape route because tugging is not what I need.

I know what you're thinking: What about that monster stone in your kidney? Well, I'm glad you asked. It has to wait until June because it is not a surgery that I will be able to squeeze into a long weekend and be ready for Monday morning calculus. I will be admitted to the hospital, they will put a tube into my kidney through my back, leave it be for a day (I still don't know why), and then they will go in after it. This will add half an inch to my scar total, which I was kind of hoping would be complete after the second nick on my left upper arm from my second PICC line.

So, yea ... not exactly what I was hoping for when the surgery was scheduled last weekend. So there it is. Suck it up through the pain and burning that comes with each urination until Tuesday or Wednesday, and then bite the bullet and pull. Perhaps there will be a video of the removal (Don't worry, nothing below the neck). It will be PG-13 at the very worst.

Until next time ... -IW

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

Winter Quarter's Top 5

My apologies for the delay in a blog post. I have been home since Wednesday night. Most of my time has been spent watching the NCAA basketball tourney, with a little fantasy baseball drafting mixed in. I think the lack of needing a blog-post stems from being home. With the fam around, I have found I am able to vent throughout the day and removes the bottling effect that I get while I am at school. Spring break is going as well as I could have hoped. I haven't even had a kidney stone since exams ended. That of course means that I was, indeed, passing a stone during my exams. While most students were considering test-taking strategies and how to cram ten-weeks of knowledge into their minds for a two-hour test, I was considering when to take a percocet so that it would take away the pain for the test but would wear off enough for me to focus and not be "high as a kite." It was a little difficult ...

But I did receive my grades for winter quarter: two Bs and an A. Not too shabby considering the personal turmoil endured. Let's see ... I passed seven kidney stones. I lost my grandfather, my first grandparent to pass away. I battled persistent loneliness. I started a blog. I feel I was scapegoated for writing truth-facts. I ran into a few friends from high school on campus... two friends who go to Dayton... who are two of my best friends... who came to Columbus to see other close friends of mine... who didn't bother to tell me they were coming and didn't plan on me ever finding out about their visit... I decided to become an R.A. next year. I was eliminated from the pool of potential R.A. candidates. And I made the decision to transfer to the University of Akron.

Upon reflection of the events of the past quarter, I have learned a few things about myself. Here is a list of the Top 5 things I learned about myself:

5) I am bitter. I do not like it when others get something and I do not through no extra effort. These things are usually SGS-related. For instance: getting to party three times a week, getting to eat a slice of pizza and not double over in pain or need to run to the bathroom, not passing kidney stones...

4) I am jealous. See 5.

3) I like baseball. I always knew this. Baseball is one thing that has always made me happy. This year more than ever, though, spring training brought hope. This winter was, as I've said before, not the greatest. The return of baseball brought the return of a fan's hope for a World Series Championship Flag being raised above Jacobs' Field (Jacobs' Field, not Progressive Field). This was also helped by the Farrell-clan's shared season ticket package and the promise of getting to see at least ten games at the park for the first time since we gave up our own season tickets.

2) I am independent. I went to see Watchmen alone. It was pretty unenjoyable, but I did it. Some would say, "you're a better person for going through that." That comment is, of course, false. But I did it. And every night I walked a few blocks and got dinner, alone. And every morning I ate breakfast, and every afternoon I ate lunch, and every evening I ate fourthmeal, each one alone.

1) I am awesome.

-Intestineless Wonder

Happy Birthday?

I'd like to welcome Mr. Andrew Subak to the growing list of followers. A wonderful addition he certainly is.

So yesterday was my 19th birthday. I came to the conclusion that birthdays are more of a "non-day" for me now. What am I celebrating? I'm nineteen so ... what? Two more years and then ... I still can't drink? It seems to me that it now makes more sense to measure years from the November 2 date. My parents explained to me that we need to celebrate March 15 because these birthdays were very nearly taken away from me and my family. I understand that and tried to remember it. It didn't work so well. That was mostly due to Kidney Stone number 14 tearing through my right ureter. I think I need to start naming these the way they name hurricanes. So here are the names of my 14 kidney stones in order: 1-Andrea, 2-Blake, 3-Christine, 4-Davey, 5-Emily, 6-Franklin, 7-Georgia, 8-Harrison, 9-Ida, 10-Jackson, 11-Katelyn, 12-Leonardo, 13-Madeline, 14-Nathaniel.

Stone Nathaniel was a doozy. It was easily the worst of the most recent seven stones, which occured over a year after my first seven stones. I was joking with my aunt that I needed the percocet to get through family visits because I can't drink. Ha. It gave me a chuckle. Mostly because it isn't true. I love seeing the fam, especially after it has been so long.

And now it is study time. Exam week has hit with full force, and I need to study. Even though the only thing I want to do right now is sit on espn.com and spend four or five hours filling out my NCAA bracket. I don't even know when I'll be able to fill out the bracket. Tomorrow I have to go back to Columbus for a 5:30 exam. Then on Wednesday I have tests back to back at 1:30 and 3:30 before coming back home. The games then begin on Thursday.

The selection show and bracketology weren't very entertaining last night, mostly because I was so strung out. It's hard to care about anything when you can't feel anything. Staring at the wall is entertaining enough to pass a few hours when those narcotics are doing their job...

With any luck, my test tomorrow night will be cake, the two tests on Wednesday will pass without problems, I will be able to put some time into the brackets before then, and I will win some money. Either way, at least spring break is in sight. In 48 hours I will be on my way home for a week and a half. Later e'er'body - IW

S-GUT

Behold! I have risen from the ashes, a glorious Phoenix, reborn. It sort of seemed appropriate considering the recent issues and the latest episode of 30 Rock, which in my opinion, has overtaken the Office as the funniest show on television.

The first thing I would like to address in today's post is the description of the blog located at the top of the page. It reads: "An open forum for those attempting to live and deal with Short-Gut Syndrome to share and swap ideas on what does and does not work." Simple, concise, and, yes, totally accurate. Anyone and everyone who has been affected by SGS in anyway has access to this web page and the ability to post comments. Hence, "open forum." The problem with making this page private is that it would do just that: make this page private. Anyone familiar with SGS knows that if there is anything we SGers lack it is intestines. If there is anything else that we lack, it is information, whether located in books, the interweb, or any other medium for collecting and reviewing information. There's nothing out there. Nothing. I said in my first post that there were only about 1200 Americans with SGS. 1200 out of 600,000,000. Many of these SGers have had the condition since infancy. By the time they are old enough to use the internet to get an idea for what does and doesn't work, they already have there own idea, or they have already reached the best it will ever get and nothing they do will change their life, or they don't make it that long. Hence, "share and swap ideas on what does and does not work." So making this page private would do SGers no good. I can't find them, they can't find me. Power in numbers. Short-Gutters Unite Today. (Hint: write it as an acronym)

Speaking of "share and swap ideas on what does and does not work," what do you think is the key word of that selection? "Ideas." Not "facts," or "cures," or "treatments." "Ideas." Most of what I know about my body has come from (unfortunate) trial and error. Let's see how rice works instead of pasta. What if I ate a carb-rich meal right before going to bed? Does it really matter if I drink a low-cal sugar free, electrolyte beverage, or is regular Gatorade tolerable? (By the way SGers, G2 is NOT that low in sugar, Powerade Zero is sugar free and tastes better than G2, BUT Vitamin Water 10 just came out. It is low in sugar with 3 grams per serving, and tastes fantastic.) So again, Short-Gutters Unite Today. We need to have ways to share some ideas, because, let's face it, I come up with more ideas than my doctors do.

And I am in agreement with my fellow SGer Renee: dealing with SGS is about so much more than just an undiscoverable diet. Nobody has ever heard of Short-Gut Syndrome, and don't fully understand it unless they are incredibly close to someone who has it. Even members of my close family and friends don't quite understand, and it's frustrating. So frustrating that even the smallest things can cause me to snap on a random day after that small thing has never bothered me before (i.e. a suitcase).

Back home, I dealt with pent up frustration, both before and after 11/2, by talking with my best friend for a couple hours every couple weeks or so. We called them "Man-to-Man's." Just the two of us talked as long as it took to get everything out. We never divulged any of what was said to anybody. There are two that I can recall clear as day. The first was after school on Monday, October 29, 2007. I remember the exact day because it was our last before my peritoneal muscle gave out. After school that day, the two of us claimed we were going to go run (yea right, a week after cross country ended, and we're going to run) and just got into his truck and sat in the parking lot. I think that one went for about two and a half hours. The other one I remember was Friday, May 2, 2008. I remember that date because it was the last time we had to come in to the school senior year, it was the morning of prom day, and it was the six-month anniversary of 11/2. This time we were in my car, it was pouring down rain, and it went about an hour.

This blog has become my new Man-to-Man. The friend I speak of goes to school back home. We talk on facebook from time to time and still hang out almost every time I come home, but he is inconsistent in replying to messages and sometimes disregards them all together. So, my frustration is released here. Frustration about being so incomprehensibly different from everyone else, about classwork and dorm life, about not having that Man-to-Man to use as a crutch to get through every couple weeks, and about not having a "replacement" friend here.

Yet another point in the plus column for transferring home. Perhaps the Man-to-Man will return to form. I hope it does. I am going home tomorrow after classes. Spring break could not come at a better time, honestly. I think everyone could use a break to allow everything that has transpired to blow over. Good riddance, winter quarter. I welcome Spring quarter with open arms and hope that a fresh start and a better class schedule won't be drowned by the inevitable April Showers.

Until next time, Short-Gutters Unite Today!

-The Intestineless Wonder