Epilogue

I spent the rest of the weekend drinking more water than ever before but without a positive result, accompanied by mild pain which the vicodin was taking care of. The following Monday I attempted work, but made it only a couple of hours before having co-workers Todd and Matt drive me home.

Yumi then made an appointment to see a urologist up in Green Bay to have the stones surgically removed later that afternoon. I’m still not sure how she squeezed me in, and, frankly, wish she hadn’t.

The surgery went fine though I had some severe post-operative pain---which was normal considering the procedure and the “way in” the doctor took to get at those little bastards.

Another trip to another medical center

Living the next few days with a stent shoved up my tallywhacker was not my idea fun, and urinating was an adventure I’d rather not repeat, though it was marginally better than the constant labor pain-like hell I’d experienced in Wyoming.

On Thursday morning Yumi and I drove back up to Green Bay to have the stent removed (more fun) and began driving back home. I was planning on going back to work that afternoon to preserve a few vacation days but in 20 minutes the familiar abdominal pain was coming back as strong as ever. What is going on here?

Yumi, who is an RN, told me that this is normal when a body has a foreign object removed and that the pain I was feeling was nothing more than my innards moving back to their normal position. I had my doubts but took her word for it.

The rest of the day was spent in bed, medicated by my old friend, vicodin.

I woke up Friday morning feeling good again and went back to work. But like the previous Monday, I was only able to last a few hours before the pain came back in full force. Again, more bed rest and vicodin was about all I could do. I was pretty sure that Yumi’s diagnoses was wrong when I considered the small size of the removed stent, but a internet search didn’t reveal any explanations either.

#2 son , Matt, had a soccer scrimmage the next morning about an hour’s drive from home which I wasn’t going to miss. I went, watched for two hours, felt no discomfort and even did some yard work when I got home. Still no problem.

On Sunday afternoon I felt some very mild pain for about 20 minutes, but this disappeared and I was thinking maybe Yumi was right and the entire ordeal was over.

Then, around 2 AM Monday, I get hit again with pain so bad it kept me awake even after popping another vicodin. I spent the rest of the night unable to sleep, but by 6 AM the pain had subsided to nothing so I went in to work---and made it thorugh the day without any more pain.

Meanwhile, Yumi was having doubts about her post-op pain theory and called the doctor to get some sort of explanation. It was then that she found out that the surgery had only removed the larger stone. The smaller of the two was still in the kidney and, thus, could not be surgically removed. I knew it!!!

I made it through that day and every day since without any kidney stone-related pain.

About a month later I went back up for an abdominal x-ray and was told at my follow up visit that there were no stones showing. Probably. The physician’s assistant told me there was a chance that the stone could have been hiding behind, and there’s no delicate way to put this, fecal matter. I can’t say I remember passing anything so it’s possible that little bugger is growing, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike again.

The popping in my knee is another matter. It’s still extremely sore, though the pain comes and goes. I’ll be getting it looked at whenever my life settles down a little bit.