It's been about a week now... The night, I guess you can say started out with pizza -pepperoni, of course-, potato wedges etc. For some reason I felt full a lot earlier than I normally would for a meal that size. No, deserts, no nothing, just wanted to just chill on it.
I noticed that I would get really hot and start sweating, then I would cool down and be fine. Didn't think too much of it, just turned the fan up a notch and vegetated.
Hit the record button for Bill Maher, not sure if I fell asleep or what. Think I coulda' been watching a movie on some other channel.
It was around 2:30 a.m. when I began to feel the hot cold transitions and sweats. My stomach felt a bit upset.
I let it ride for a bit hoping it would pass. It began to worsen. I thought of previous stomach aches I had and how I kept forgetting that we had Pepto Bismol (knockoff), leaving myself to ride it out. This time I took a swill of the pink stuff and laid back thinking of one of the product's commercials, "Nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarreha! Hey! Pepto Bismol!" What I'm feeling falls right in with the dancing chatting actors, each one immitating an ailment from the jingle. I think of the other commercial for the same product showing how it coats and protects the inner lining of the stomach with that tell-tale pink sheen "The one that coats is the only one you need". I would imagine how it was coating the inside of my stomach, making the pain go away. "Just gotta give it a lil' time and I'll be good."
Nope.
The pain kept increasing. I began to stir a bit slowly kicking my legs. The sweats returned. This is one hell of an upset stomach! I went to the bathroom thinking that it might just be a bad case of case, but then again, I've never heard of a good case of gas. Although, if this were just gas I guess it could be a good case of bad gas. I'm sitting there on the toilet hoping that a bowel movement will be the solution to the problem. It was around 3:15 a.m. and as I sat I tried to listen to the television to have something to concentrate on, sad that I was missing the show I was watching. A few minutes after the show's ending credits music I made my way back to the couch. My daughter was asleep between the couches on a cloud of pillows and a comforter. She looked so peaceful, I felt the opposite. Thanks to the wonderful device known as the digital video recorder, or DVR, I was able to rewind the television back to the point of the show where I left off. I tried to pay attention, but the pain... it kept going, and growing. I kicked the fan up a notch because I was still sweating. The show ended once again and I felt a little upset having missed most of it again.
It got to the point where I could not concentrate on anything on the screen and just the light and characters' movements was making me nauseous. I turned the t.v. off and just lay there, enjoying the cool darkness. I tried to close my eyes hoping that I would fall asleep and the problem would just correct itself. No, it kept increasing. I started feeling really sick, like flu or stomach virus sick. I got up and stumbled to the bedroom where my wife was sleeping. "Baby,.....I don't feel good...you gotta go get 'Omi...." I felt like I was in a nightmare in that moment, wanting to scream and being unable to, like my voice had gone horse, and the other person, although right there, cannot hear you. I spoke those words to her as loud as I could muster and stumbled into the kids room. They weren't there of course, those kids sleep everywhere except in their own room. I lay on the floor moaning, twisting, sweating, just in agony. I pull the little blanket off my son's bed to cover myself. My wife steps in to see if there is anything that she can do, and I in typical trying-to-tuff-things-out manner say, I'm groaned "no". She got me a blanket and asked me if I wanted to have our entire bed to myself since I was writhing in such pain, and once again I said no. I lay there on the floor, my mind struggling to understand why this pain in my stomach is so intense. It must be a gas bubble or something... Then I felt it,... you know, that feeling you get when you're about to throw up. You're feeling out of it, not thinking straight, and then there's this little logical voice that says "Get to the toilet NOW!" and you up and run to the bathroom. That voice did it's thing and I got up and made a B-line straight to the bathroom to begin praising the "porcelain god". A moment...silence....lurching... and my body began expelling all the contents of the evening. I hate throwing up, I feel disgusting afterwards, but this time I felt it giving me relief from the pain, it was pressure letting up. I sat there heaving and hurling, my mind keeping track of what was coming up, I could still taste what went down hours before; pepperoni pizza- check, cupcakes- check, root beer- check. "Yuck.", I could still taste it. I flushed the toilet stumbled out of the bathroom and told my wife "I think I wanna lie down in the bed...".
I had the entire bed to myself and the ceiling fan right above me. It blanketed me with a nice cool breeze that felt so good, a second later I was freezing. There were a few comforters on the bed. I reached for the closest one and drew it up over myself, it was nice and warm, a second later it was like I was in a sauna. A few minutes later into playing cover-uncover, I notices there was an intense smell making me nauseous, it was the smell of the freshly washed comforter. Any other time I love the smell of Gain, that product moved itself on scent alone, putting the air freshner guys to shame. I knew that Gain hit the big time when they partnered up with Febreeze. They became the dynamic duo of smell clean/smell good. This time though that wonderful scent was wreaking havoc on my nostrils. I kicked the comforter down and off the foot of the bed, like the lone survivor in a slasher flick kicks the body of the crazed killer off of them towards the end of the flick. I reached for the next nearest comforter, gave it a quick sniff to make sure it was okay, and wrapped it around myself hoping that when I wake up the pain would be gone.
Up again. Going to the bathroom...again. Vomiting more. I kept pressing on my lower abdomen in attempt to dislodge whatever this lump I was feeling in there. It didn't work. I believe that my body had given up all the food I had eaten that evening, and although the pain was still there, the pressure that a full belly had put on it was gone at least. I managed to get back in bed, but got up once more to take half a trazadone to put me to sleep. I don't know if the meds worked halfway by allowing me to doze off every know and then, or if I was just blacking out from the pain. Time crept along so slowly...
It was around 7a.m. when I began to call for my wife. I just couldn't take it anymore. I told her to call my sister (a nurse) to see if she knew what was going on. "Do you just want me to call an ambulance?!" my wife asked. "I don't care..." is what I think I said. My wife got me up and dressed and I went to go lay on the couch in the living room and wait until the paramedics showed up. Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, EMT's arrive, pain. "What hospital do you prefer?" they asked me. I thought they just took you to the nearest facility. You learn something new everyday. I said the VA Hospital. After a quick blood sugar check I was on one of those gurneys and being wheeled towards the awaiting vehicle. I apologized to my wife because I knew that this incident was causing her distress. I lay there on my back, the only things I was able to see were the ceiling of the ambulance and occasional tree tops through the back window. The rest of the time my eyes were shut tight from the pain. Now that I think back I'm like "Damn, my first trip in an ambulance and I didn't even get to enjoy it!"
The culprit turned out to be a kidney stone. It felt to me like the business end of a morning glory (or mace...whatever). I think about the clip in an episode of Family Guy where Muddy Waters is in the bathroom trying to pass a kidney stone, pants around his ankles, guitar in hand,screaming/singing, with his band behind behind him playing that all too well know blues rift (duh-duh-duh, duh-DUH!). I saw B.B. King in Augusta, GA back in '99. Him and Kenny Wayne Shepard, good show. I spent three days there at the VA, getting poked by lots of needles, some putting medicines in, others taking blood out. My roommate was a guy who was recovering from throat cancer removal surgery. Nice old guy, he made a few jokes about them coming in and scanning his armband so often that he should be getting fuel perks. Another one was that he was getting so much blood drawn that he said they should just install a tap. His wife was there too, a really nice lady. The two of them would sometimes argue, like old folks do, it was comical.
At one point I woke up to see three doctors standing over me, smiling. I thought to myself "Am I dead?" No, it was just the docs checking up on me. Two cute younger Indian doctors and a senior doctor to whom the ladies appeared to be shadowing more or less. It was futile to even think to try to get into a "mack daddy mode" (lol). I was in a VA hospital bed, in one of those open-back get-ups, IV in my arm, urine container nearby, no shave, with a kidney stone that, 12 hours ago, had me curled up in the fetal position and praying for some relief. No, sir... don't even look in their direction. The nurse brought me a pair of pajamas to wear instead of that gown, but the bottoms were waaaay too small and the top fit like the t-shirt of a 1960's greaser. If I would have worn them together I would have looked like a clown in a buttom-up baby shirt and too tight capris. I grabbed the pants that I wore to the hospital and put those on, but decided to keep the pajama top since it was smaller than what I normally wear it made me look bigger. All I needed was a pack of cig's to roll up in the sleeve. Unfortunately, the footwear my wife chose for me were my pair of "fishin' shoes". The ones that I would wear when I'm going to spend some time down by the river and I don't care if they get messed up because they're beyond wearable with anything anymore, and they look like they were removed from the body of some deceased soldier and then issued to another soon to no longer be among the living soldier from the Civil War. The kind that has no left or right distinguishment, just dig through the pile and find two that are the same size type of shoes They should have been hanging from powerlines somewhere a long time ago. I was wearing them to cut the grass about two weeks ago and a piece of the heel just came off. The shoes are actually desintergrating. Quite a sight I was! The shirt, pants, and shoes had me looking like a passenger on the Freedom Train making my way north. Eventually the shoes will be reduced to just the fabric and laces when the soles are gone. My feet will stick out the bottom like The Flintstones car.
This story has been going on for too long, plus I'm starting to forget things. To sum it all up; kidney stone = incredible pain. Did I pass the stone? Pretty sure I did at some point. My uncomfortably religious neighbor asked me if I learned anything from the ordeal, as if I had had some type of religeous awakening while in pain or something like that. I learned that that was a stupid question to ask. Jerk.
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