# You may not wish to read this...



## Bob Jones (Aug 21, 2009)

Often when friends gather after having been apart for a while, conversation takes a turn towards one-upmanship concerning scars and illnesses. If we can't take delight in experiencing physical ailments, we ought at least get some pleasure from inflicting stories of our suffering upon others.

This afternoon I spent in the hospital having kidney stones removed. As someone has said... getting old is not for sissies.

I haven't been eating a lot of alfalfa, and I am not sure what the calcium/potassium ratio of my diet is, but one of the primary 'suggestions' by the Kidney Stone Owners manual is: Drink more citrate. Yes. There really is a Kidney Stone Owners manual. 

I spent 50 years drinking 4-6 liters of various carbonated sugar drinks before I got my first stone, and have almost exclusively imbibed Lemonade for the last seven years. The first stone was a mere 6mm which I was able to pass, though thought impassible by the experts by drinking as much as I could the night before the surgery was scheduled, and then wrapping a towel around my torso at kidney height and pulling on the two ends to squeeze my kidneys and produce a pumping action on the stone. I named it Rocky.

In seven years I have managed to grow a stone to 14mm which has amazed the urologist in it's ability to make it as low as it has. I think I will give up on the lemonade.

The first time I was attacked by this stone was back in January. The general doc prescribed pain pills, and suggested I find a Urologist. I was grateful for the pills, but I didn't have any money to invest in the European currency, so I delayed contacting a Urologist.

After a few bouts, the stone found a place to hide which did not bother me, and had resided there until the Tuesday after the rendy. I was at work when the stone hit. I finished up a conference call and a meeting, then let the boss know that I was headed home.

He asked what I do for a kidney stone. I said, "I usually..." then fell screaming to the floor writhing in pain with my tongue lashing about. Hopped up and said, "That."

I still had some pain pills left over from January so I didn't see an immediate need to see a doctor. I have nearly perfected a mind game with pain. Since I almost always have back pain I have a fairly high tolerance for it. Small stuff is just noise in the constant flood of signals from the pain nerves around the back. So a kidney stone can do a lot of moving around and blocking tubes before it really gets my attention. RockyII felt neglected. 

There is story called "The Monkey's Paw" which has been adapted and retold many ways. There is a version which I have not yet found on Netflix which I saw many years ago. It is about a trinket which grants the possessor 3-wishes. In the classic form, the wisher wastes a wish to find out that the thing works, then wishes for something really big. And in classic style the wish is granted in a way that costs the wisher dearly. In this case granting the wish cost the life of the husband. He has been dead sometime before the wife realizes that she still has one wish left, and in her grief wishes that her husband would be alive and live forever.

Immediately screams come from the casket as one of the friends realizes that the body of the husband had been filled with formaldehyde in preparation for burying and was causing the newly resurrected husband unimaginable pain as it coursed within his revived body. In her horror, the wife attempts to kill him to put him out of his misery by chopping him up with an axe. In this adaptation the story ends with the chopped up body parts writhing in the casket for a foreseeable eternity while screams of utter agony continue to pierce the room.

The doc asked if that's what my stone felt like, and I said that it wasn't anything like that, but that I would prefer that to the kidney stone.

So when RockyII would make himself known, I would hop in a scalding bathtub and concentrate on making the hot water feel cold. This can be done since the interpretation of nerve signals is done in the brain.

A few years ago, the results from two studies were released in the same week. the first said that fish have enough nerves in their mouths to feel the pain of a hook. The second said that they did not have enough brain cells to interpret the signals as pain. I am not sure what conclusions can be drawn considering the practice of piecing ones own body in many places, but certainly the ability to interpret the practice one way or the other has been impaired. I try to sit at least a couple dozen feet away from people with nose piercings, in case they sneeze. They could put out an eye that way.

As the scalding water starts to feel cold, the pain goes away. So either I have become a meditative master in controlling my ability to reinterpret the signals, or I lay there long enough for the water to turn cold and the pain pills to kick in. My ability to interpret the practice has been impaired.

After a week of this, without it going away, I called the Urologist. I don't know if you have noticed, but doctors used to have nurses set their schedules.

"I am in writhing pain with a kidney stone, when can the doctor see me?"
"Is morning or afternoon better for you?
"Is it morning or afternoon right now? You see I cannot discern the time of day since I have been writhing in pain for most of a week so as not to disturb the doctor over the 4th of July holiday"
"It is morning right now."
"Then please schedule me for the morning."
"OK. That will be the morning of September 23."
"You don't seem to understand. I have a kidney stone which has put me in great pain and would like to get in as soon as possible."
"Oh, well you said you wanted a morning. I can get you in on the afternoon of September 20."
"I don't think we are communicating very well at the moment. You do set appointments for a Urologist, right? And you do know what a kidney stone is, don't you? Are you telling me that I should plan my kidney stones attacks in advance, or that I should go to the emergency room and get a different doctor than the one you represent?
"Oh, I'm not telling you anything like that. I am telling you I can get you in to see the doctor on September 20"
"If that is all you can tell me, then please put someone on the phone who can tell me something different."

Naturally the nurse was able to squeeze me in to see the doctor right away since the way Urologists make their Euros is primarily by mining kidney stones.

The doctor explained to me the risks associated with xrays and drinking radioactive orange juice to track flow through the kidneys. I told him to take as many pictures as he wanted because I am of such an age where the long-term effects of anything, haven't got a chance to get me. I am now allowed to eat all the lead-based paint chips I desire, and do those things which can make one go blind, or lose one's memory, if I could just remember why I wanted to, and see well enough to find them.

When I got home my wife asks if there is anything she can do for me. The standard answer is always "more sex". "Will that help" "Normally I would say it couldn't hurt. But even if it does we should do it because it usually cost a lot of money to get someone to put you in great pain for sex."

Have you noticed that the hospital nurses are always trying to trick you:
"Are you still at this address in West Jordan?"
"Of course not, I am standing in front of you in the hospital."
"Please get on the scale. What are we doing with you today?"
"You are weighing me."
"Do you have any allergies?"
"Benedril... what should I take for a Benedril allergy?"

Then they do not inspire a great deal of confidence. I wasn't nervous going into the hospital, but I had to reconsider that attitude:
"Do you have high blood pressure?"
"I thought that's why you put the cuff on me."
"I mean usually"
"It's on and off. I only have it when the cuff is on me. All the rest of the time I am fine."

They have a chart so you can describe your pain level. I like the hospital better than the doctor's office. The doctor gives away lollipops if you are good. According to the pain chart, if I have a smiley face I get "sin dolars". I'm not sure I know what they are, but they sound more exciting than lollipops. 

An unanticipated side effect is that I dribble constantly and profusely. I am 98% water and so even without drinking anything I can apparently continue to dribble endlessly. So the nurse says she is going to give me a pill and then hands me a cup of water. It had to be a test to see if I was awake. I know the difference between a pill and a cup of water.

My concern was getting out of the hospital and I didn't think a pill would act quickly enough to help me regain control, so when she did hand me the pill, I attempted to use it as a plug instead. 

There is a positive side to not having control. On my short trip out of the hospital I laid claim to a desk, chair, portable xray machine and a nurse, by marking territory.


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## Bob Jones (Aug 21, 2009)

I just saw a video, not worth the link, entitled "How to live off the grid in 1 hour". It's yet another free energy device. Someone with good videos of their goats should label their pack trip the same. It only takes me 40 minutes to be living off the grid.
I'll bet your you tube would get a lot of hits from all the people looking for videos on perpetual motion machines.


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

... Well if it took you 50 years of drinking pop to start getting em, I have a few years left before I have to stop


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## Bob Jones (Aug 21, 2009)

I had to go in for a followup so the Doc could remove the stint he had left inside me. The purpose of the stint is to keep scarring from blocking off the tubing from the kidney. It is supposed to be run from the bladder from the kidney, but I think the one he left in me detoured through my left ankle and my right shoulder.

They explained that they were just going to go in and grab the end and pull it out. When my wife left he asked if he had scared her. "Yes, and you scared me too. This is Utah, I'd like to do it by proxy. Grandpa never had a chance at this experience, so go get him and let him do it for me. Are you sure that Euthanasia is not one of the prescribed treatments for this?"

The pain afterwards was a great as the stone. My wife asked if there was anything she could do. Well... you already know the answer to that one. ;-)


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