• First place in the Fat Man Race • Tallest Midget • Most Recent Believer that Apollo Space Landing Was Faked • Kidney Stones Are More Painful Than Giving Birth I’ve had three kidney stones and they hurt. A lot. For some reason, however, there is an immediate need for people to compare the passing of a kidney stone to giving birth. This is a competition with no trophy for winning. If the Olympics Selection Committee was involved, then you know it was rigged and the winners were from Eastern Europe, and doping was involved. These facts set aside, the first phone calls made to family and friends for rearranging rides, appointments and the like after the necessary “Oh man, that has to hurt,” is the comment, “I’ve heard that it’s worse than giving birth!” For myself, location has mattered in how I have handled these comments: ON THE FLOOR , eyeballs examining the carpet that I could have sworn
was cleaner than it is now that I am at this angle, feeling as if I have been
hit with a baseball bat in the lower back. In this moment, I am indifferent to any other opinion other than “get me to the hospital!” IN THE CAR , on the way to the hospital, moving around, incapable of
getting comfortable, writhing, really, on speakerphone, grunting words that sound like “Eff!…call…later…drugs,” but spoken through a marshmallow on a high school football game PA system. UNDER MEDICATION at hospital, don’t know, Jen is talking to them and
I am in a happier space that is willing to consider getting another puppy. My family is prone to kidney stones. This was not in the user’s manual. I believe a user’s manual should have been handed to my brother, sister, and me upon entry into the world as we exited the womb. The manual could have included other items describing items like: seasonal hay fever, short tempers, and a preference for sweets. Alas, the “user’s manual” was not provided, leaving everything to on-the-job training for the understanding of our bodies. I have found out that the user’s manual for all human bodies is woefully incomplete. For example, my brother Tim received genetic Stage IV Lung Cancer. Carajane has embolisms that require her to take blood thinners to keep her from dying from lung clots, and I have intractable epilepsy and had a heart attack before I was fifty. Boo-hoo. The one thing that was on the last page of every user’s manual was the statement in large print, “NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE.” I’m not being cruel, I’m really not. The arithmetic of the last page is truth. The rest of each of our user’s manuals is determined on the way. For my family, one of the discoveries after thirty-five years of age is that all of us have kidney stones. My first one brought me right to the floor in the bathroom upstairs at the very beginning of the morning, before the kids were even awake. As my wife was passing my face-down yoga position known as “I think I’m gonna die,” she looked over her shoulder and said , “Are you OK?” How do you respond to a question like that? I needed to get to the hospital, so antagonistic or humorous responses
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may have delayed or eliminated a ride that I desperately needed. Conversations between couples in moments like this are sometimes indicative of how all conversations go. Here is an example: Tom: I need to go to the hospital right now! Jen: What’s wrong? Tom: I don’t know, my lower back on the left side hurts really bad, and I have to keep moving around. Jen: Well, what do you think it is? Tom: I don’t know. I need to go to the hospital! Jen: When was the last time you went to the bathroom? Tom: Honey! Jen: When did it start? Tom: [starts crawling on face and knees towards door] Jen: Don’t move! [Goes into closet to grab clothes. Comes out with clothes, fully dressed, hair brushed, matching outfit, laptop bag, reading materials, separate change of clothes, NORAD nuclear codes, yoga mat.] Tom: [weeping] Jen: I have to get the girls to go with us in the van. On the way to the hospital in the van with the girls and Jen, I am doing the relaxation breathing techniques that I learned at pregnancy support training class, yoga, or anger management group therapy. It is not helping. My daughters are assisting by alternatingly asking me, “Why do we have to get up so early?”, “What’s wrong with you, Daddy?”, and “Are you going to die?” (I’m not kidding, these are the inquiries.) Fortunately, we live close to the hospital and it is early so there isn’t much traffic. It’s a new hospital, so I can moan and shuffle to the front of the paperwork line. If you come into a hospital ER with multiple gunshot wounds, there are still forms to be filled out. It’s like the little guy at the gate to the Emerald City yelling down, “Come back tomorrow!” I pace the empty lobby as Jen finishes the paperwork. I get taken back to the ER exam room where an intern says, “Let’s take an x-ray.” I’m thinking “Let’s take a Valium.” A doctor comes in 20 minutes later and says, “Well, W i nni n g t he Fat Ma n Rac e
you have a kidney stone, and those hurt like hell, so we’re going to make you feel better.” A nurse is right behind him and injects me immediately. Bliss! Competency! Satisfaction scores moving from -3 to 9+ within only two minutes. I don’t know what else was said. Moving from eye-watering, painful discomfort to a disassociation from having a body is mentally consuming. In the room, I know that discussions, instructions, and equipment were being had. I believe that I nodded knowingly and with (what much have appeared as) comfort, understanding and commitment. This was all sock-puppet theater. I waved at the nice people in the waiting room and started to look in the plastic bag of things to take home for potato chips to eat. I had the munchies. PACKAGE OF PILLS . Their use was not immediately understood, but
I soon realized these were for pain management. We got a package of pills, a set of instructions, recommendations for gallons of fluid and strainer to be used when I urinate. The connection of all of these should have been drawn on a whiteboard, but I was still in the blissful state, unable to argue. I learned a couple of things. NO JOKE . Kidney stones do not need a score, they need treatment. Im-
mediately. There are people who have them, have had them, blah, blah, blah… Pick up your trophy in the gift shop. For me, the answer is professionals and prescriptions. I’M STILL SCARED. Lots of people are scared of doctors and hospitals.
Of course you are. They are not resorts. Bad things can happen there, people can give bad news there, mistakes get made there. I just figure that I am the customer. If I don’t like the service, I leave. I’m serious. I have left doctors, hospitals, and clinics. Drives my wife crazy. If I don’t trust what I am hearing or the people, I leave. I stay if I don’t like it, so long as I trust it. I can take bad news I trust. Trust is the key.
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