Jay Dreyer

Romancing the Stone

So I’ve been a really bad blogger as of late. No excuses, outside of the fact that I’m really, really busy at work. Anyway, I haven’t had time to share my story. A tale that I refer to as “Romancing the Stone”. It deals with kidney stones, and things get kind of nasty, so if you’re not interested, run away now!

So here is my tale. Maybe it will help you in the future, so here goes.

I wake up one morning to get ready for work. This usually requires a, ummm, leak. So I go to the bathroom and instead of the normal golden glow, I get this disturbing red/blood looking output. “Hmmm…that’s not normal,” I think to myself. Being the guy that I am, I hope that it goes away. Sure enough, later in the day things look “golden” again. I’m happy.

Two nights later, around 2 or 3 in the morning, I’m in pain. Bad. The best way I can describe it is that someone is squeezing my right testicle, really hard, while another guy is punching me in the kidneys. “Hmmm…this is definitely not normal, and I think I will go to the hospital.” So, at 4 in the morning, I asked my wife where the hospital is and drove myself there.

When I arrived, I walked to the emergency room and told them what was up. “Kidney stone. Definitely a kidney stone,” they replied. They did a bunch of tests, including a CT scan, and sure enough, it’s a stone. 3mm X 6mm. They give me a prescription for some pain killers and send me on my way. They tell me it should pass “relatively soon”.

For the next couple of weeks, things were hit and miss. A vast majority of the time, things were fine. I felt no pain and had no problems. But then the weekend would hit and I’d be doubled over in pain rolling around on the floor. Jack would ask DeAnne, “What’s wrong with Daddy?” DeAnne would reply, “Daddy’s pee-pee hurt.” That’s the simple answer, and it worked on Jack so I let it slide. By Sunday I would feel fine again and would go back to work.

My doctors through this initial stage were my fraternity brothers, John Evans and Jeff Montgomery. Poor John is on our speed dial for medical emergencies so he got the first calls. Eventually, he “referred” me to my other fraternity brother, Jeff, who happens to be a urologist. Jeff put me on Flomax and recommended I find an actual urologist that I could see. I took him up on his advice and found Dr. Hackett. That’s right. He’s a urologist, who performs vasectomies, and his last name is Hackett. Fantastic.

In reality, Dr. Hackett is great. I can’t recommend him enough. If you need kidney stone help, or want to get snipped, give him a ring.

This went on for a while. Eventually Dr. Hackett suggested we go for surgery, which calls for a laser to blasts the stone to smaller pieces. This sounded good to me, until he told me how they get the laser into position. Let’s just say there’s only one way in, and I wasn’t interested. I decided to tough it out a while longer and see how things went.

Luckily for me, about a week and a half later, the stone plopped out one morning. Believe it or not, I didn’t feel a thing. I fished it out and put it in a zip loc bag and took it to the doctor. He was surprised at how big it was and brought the staff together to take a look. It was pretty nasty looking, and I meant to take pictures to post here but I didn’t get around to it. It was pretty neat, though, and I wish I would have.

All told, it took just under two months to pass. Two miserable, freaking months. It’s out now, and I’ve increased my intake of water significantly. This is supposed to help. I don’t know if beer helps, as well, but I’m testing out my theory.

So, my advice to all is, drink lots of water. And, if you start peeing blood or it feels like someone is playing hackey-sack with your testicles while another guy is pounding you in the kidneys, go to the doctor! Or call John.

| posted 04/11/2007 09:58 PM