Lamentable Lessons Learned Over the Past Two Weeks

1. Hernia Surgery? Not a huge deal. The most painful part? The pre-op shave. Still got the scars. Same with the little medical hieroglyphic the surgeon drew on my right side; which no doubt signaled “Cut Here”. The little smiley face, which I drew on as soon as the doctor left, is also there. 

2. Afterwards, the nurse came out and said a bunch of words. (Which I hoped my wife was paying attention to as I was still pretty out of it.) Then Wendi took me home. The next several days were spent in bed, being catered to, while watching stuff on the iPad. Much icing down of the groinal (?) area and Wendi even bought me some ice cream as a treat. Granted, Rocky Road isn’t great; just chocolate ice cream trying to be quirky. Despite this, I was feeling very optimistic about my recovery and even dared the stairs after a couple of days. 

3. OxyCodone. In my specific case, not worth the trade off. The surgery wound pain relief gained was negated by the constipation, which caused pain in the straining. It was a week long game of Rock, Paper, Scissors: Oxy beats pain but causes constipation (and often nausea). Constipation causes pain. Milk of Magnesia hurries things along but often at inconvenient times and often with more pain. I mostly stuck with large dosages of Ibuprofen and Tylenol; at least till the pain got really bad.

4. The pain gets really bad. And the vomiting. This was Sunday evening. Wendi ascribed it to not correctly timing the Oxy, food, and anti-nausea meds. 

5. This was also when my lower right back started to flare up. There had been occasional minor flare ups before the surgery but my back’s always been hinky so it didn’t register until Sunday night. Top. Bottom. And now the middle. All bodily sections very unhappy. After an exhausting time Talking to God, I crawled off to bed. 

6. 4.20. The Pain/Vomiting return. Like, laying in on the bathroom floor trying to decide which end to point at the Porcelain Telephone. This despite taking all the Rx meds. No physical position minimizes the stabbing pain in my lower back, which I was still ascribing to the surgery. Wendi calls the Consulting Nurse, who offers moral support but mostly suggests we go to Urgent Care. 

7. At this point, Wendi has taken charge. She’s doing most of the communication, packing for UC, driving, keeping me from collapsing. And keeping calm and collected. (She later admitted this was very difficult for her: seeing me in so much pain.) 

8. Urgent Care lasts for hours and hours. The initial blood test is..concerning. More tests followed: urinalysis, X-Ray, CT scan, ultrasound. After everything, the UC doctor comes back with a new diagnosis: a kidney stone. A 2mm whooper. Not much to do except try to pass it. Lots of water. Straining the stream, hoping to see the stone. And higher pain meds Rx. Once very medicated, Wendi takes me home. 

9. While at UC, the doctor cleared up a mystery for me. Wounds will slowly creep down the body from gravity. This is why the Meat and Potatoes was looking rough despite the 5mm distance from the hernia surgery wound. Before and after shoots below. *

10. The Percocet, MiraLAX, and Promethegan wear off. The pain returns. The worst pain in my life. That first, very thorough, prostate exam? Extremely intense but short duration. Saving money on dental work? Pfft! Child’s play. Kidney stones? They rocked in every category below. (You catch that?)

11. A new formula just occurred to me.**. Intensity divided By Reoccurrence (If divided by Unpredictable Reoccurrence, subtract .5 from this denominator) MULTIPLIED by Duration = Physical Agony. Not sure which professional journals I should submit this new equation to: JAMA, Annals of Mathematics, or ClinicalPsychology. I am sure formula is going to need a professional yet catchy name. 

12. I’m thinking “Oh, Fucking Hell!”

13. Wendi drags me to the Emergency Room. Where I spend the next 4 hours groaning in pain. Wendi keeps it together because I am in every sense, completely wrecked. The ER team slowly adds more medicines while awaiting test results. Morphine. Lidocaine. Torando. By 4:00 AM, then send us home. 

14. At this point, I should fess up about my kidney stone ignorance. Hearing about the experience as described by friends, two main points stick out. First, very painful. Second, “they” have machines that will atomize the stone with minimal fuss. KS = Hurts&Zap. I was very familiar with Point A and had..sort of expected the second part to come into the picture at the hospital. When the ER nurse came out to prep me for shipment home, I asked about Plan B and she only thing like that at St. Michael’s was sending a little camera/laser device upstream to disintegrate the stone. Now that was what I wanted, Friggin’ Lasers!

15. Then came the record scratch moment. She told us the procedure was only used on stones 7mm or greater.  7 millimeters. My little Nugget of Pain was 2mm. My future regimen included being heavily drugged, drinking a crapton of water, very carefully pissing into a little sieve, and then checking for, hoping for, some little leftover stone. 

16. ….It’s 2026. Both Blade Runner and Back to the Future 2 take place before this year. This is The Future. And the number one cure for this common yet excruciating medical problem is for one hand to hold a tiny plastic colander and the other hand to aim at it? It just feels….a let down. 

17. Yet, strain the stream I did. Never been so completely focused on a health outcome. Sure, I’ve been tangentially involved with life or death outcomes with friends or family but only as a witness, offering assistance, or an opinion but Tuesday night, it was all up to me. It was (ha ha), all in my hands.

18. But Tuesday evening, The Ordeal ended. I very carefully put transferred the pinhead-sized nugget onto a Q-tip, took just the correct photo, and set it to my long suffering friends and family. 

19. At the UC Nurse’s recommendation, I brought it in to the KP lab the next day. And did another kidney function test. Everything is fine. Mine was the most common type of stone; taking an average of 1.5 years to create with a high likelihood of reoccurring some time in the future. So, I guess, everything is not fine. 

20. In the sense that for the rest of my days, any lower back twinge; especially on the side, will make me think “Another one?” My bad back is no longer just an annoyance but a cause for anxiety. 

21. A couple other takeaways. First, the caregiver also suffers. I know, 50 points to House Obvious. What’s maybe not so obvious is the caregiver has every right to demand patient take their recovery seriously. Whatever the doctors, nurses, and/or PAs recommend, the patient has the responsibility follow those instructions. So, even though not helping around the house is a big challenge for some (unnamed) people, you do it. 15 pound limit weight limit? Not a suggestion; even when she hates vacuuming and I hate walking on particles of kitty litter. 

22. Last night, I was informed that our Dyson vacuum cleaner was only 14.8lbs. It’s a win for everyone. 

This is all the wisdom gleaned from the past two weeks. 

*Seriously? Perve.

** Yes, this true. Stop judging me!