| I had a kidney stone a few weeks ago. It was excruciating. Some of the worst pain I’ve ever had. On par with my motorcycle wreck 25 years ago where I had incredibly severe road rash (bad enough to have some large skin grafts). The pain started at about 9pm and the stone finally passed at about 3:30AM. In the ER they gave me a few doses of Dilaudid (synthetic morphine). It did dull the pain a bit but definitely did not stop it. When the stone passed, I finally saw the thing that had caused 6 hours of hell. It was about the size around as a sharpie marker tip but flat, maybe the thickness of a credit card. Point being, it was very, very small. And it caused an ENORMOUS amount of pain and disruption. Isn’t life like that though? Cruising along, doing your thing and then BLAMMO something hits out of nowhere and causes a tremendous amount of pain and disruption. And very often, when it is over, turns out, it was something pretty small. How is it that we allow that to happen? I think some of it is woven into our being. Kidney stones are apparently somewhat genetic. Likewise, we have traps built into our lives simply by having lives that involve ourselves and others. There is also a lot of influence from our outside world and the things we do to ourselves. The ER doc said that he sees much more kidney stones here than he did in his former hospital in the north. Harder water. Maybe worse eating habits. Same goes for life. Do we put ourselves in places to avoid the little pitfalls or do we keep ourselves in environments that the pitfalls are inevitable? Are we doing things to actively minimize the pitfalls (spoiler alert, you can’t completely avoid)? And then the last question, are we educating ourselves and putting safety nets in place for when the pitfalls happen? I was completely unprepared for the kidney stone. Never saw it coming, never had one, didn’t know I was susceptible. Now I do. When I have another one, I will recognize it. It won’t hurt less, but the panic and unfamiliarity will be minimized. That alone will make it easier to get through. What’s your story? What kidney stones are headed toward you that you could predict if you just took the time to look and be honest with yourself? How can you prepare for them? |
