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September 20, 2005
rock crusher
For the past week, it's been all about the stones. The stones in my husband's kidneys, that is. For someone as young and foxy as he is, the guy is uncannily prone to getting the diseases of the old and decrepit. We've spent a total of almost twenty hours over the past week in various ERs, waiting rooms, urological clinics, and stone zapatoriums.
It started with a pain in his gut that grew steadily worse, resulting in us rather leisurely getting our things together and heading to the Urgent Care clinic. The crap-ass doctor there thought he had appendicitis, so she did what any Urgent Care clinic would do and, um, called 911. Thanks, lady! She then sent us to the Worst Hospital in Rhode Island, a good forty minutes away. The ambulance drivers actually guffawed and said to my husband "You know, you don't HAVE to go there..." At this point, my husband was on a morphine drip and not up for debating the pros and cons of various medical establishments so he just sort of rolled his eyes and drooled in approval.
Since I had no freaking clue where we were going, I was told to follow the ambulance. I also didn't know what was wrong at that point. For an endless and heart-stopping ride, I followed the ambulance; running red-lights, driving sixty in twenty mile an hour a zone, and flashing on images of life without my husband while our two-year old sat strapped in the backseat. I was acutely aware through my shock how unsafe it was to be driving like that with the baby in the car, so I started blowing my horn every time I was about to do something dangerous. Running a light? TOOT! Passing cars on the left? BEEP BEEP! Swerving around a semi? HONK!!! The Bean, punk rocker that he is, actually fell asleep on this ride from reality TV that somehow became our reality.
Once there, my husband was eventually diagnosed with good old-fashioned kidney stones, which he has had before so I knew it wasn't fatal. What was almost fatal was keeping a toddler entertained in an ER waiting room for seven hours. The ER was (barely) staffed by harried nurses and doctors who were fiercely protective of both information and painkillers. Inside, gurneys filled with sad and broken people lined the hallways. Outside, it was ninety-five degrees and the liquor stores and halfway homes nearby provided neither shade nor appropriate toddler diversion. The Bean and I did laps around the hospital hallways, crashed the employee cafeteria, chilled out in the hospital chapel and bought matching stuffed dogs at the gift shop. Note to self: GRAB PORTABLE DVD PLAYER WHEN FACING MEDICAL EMERGENCIES. The healing powers of Elmo have proven to be unrivalled.
Today said stones were zapped using incredible, non-invasive technologies and techniques. I've said it before and I'll say it again: SCIENCE! We somehow ended up with the best urologist ever, karmically making up for our horrific ER experience. We were in the recovery area waiting for the heavy drugs to wear off (my husband, not me - sheesh!), and the doctor came over to talk to us. While explaining how to use a paper filter to collect the now-shattered stone fragments for analysis, the earnest and sweet doctor mimed taking out his own John Thomas and peeing into the filter. My husband doesn't remember this due to the drugs, but I for one shan't forget it.
Thanks Dr. Pee Pee for making this home a healthy one once more.
Posted by Max at September 20, 2005 01:12 AM