stevenpiziks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stevenpiziks) wrote2023-11-01 01:11 pm
stevenpiziks) wrote2023-11-01 01:11 pm
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Kidney Stone Update: Yay!
Yesterday I got my bi-annual x-ray to see what my kidney stones were up to. Last time I checked, I had two of them. One was hanging around in the lower-middle pole of one kidney, and the other one was a speck embedded in the kidney wall. Neither were worth worrying about, but kidney stones--especially mine--have a tendency to grow. So I headed over to x-ray to have a look.
A few minutes after I got home, I got an alert that I had new test results at the patient portal. That was quick. A little nervously, I called it up. What were we going to see this time? How many stones? How big? Where were they in my kidneys?
The words came up, and I stared. I read them three or four times to make sure I had it right. The initial report said "no radiopaque calculi detected." In other words, I have no kidney stones!
Now this is a preliminary report, not read by my specialist, so it's possible something was overlooked. It's entirely possible the one stone made its way out, but the embedded one? Hmmm. I do have a follow-up appointment with the urologist to make sure.
But here's the thing: I felt a surge of unexpected relief. I felt lighter. Weightless.
This kidney stone thing started five years ago. I've been getting kidney stones off and on since my mid-20s, but they weren't too hard to deal with up until 2018, when they went into overdrive. I had countless painful and terrifying operations that destroyed me physically and emotionally. And every six months, I have to check on them. Not to see if they're gone--they never are--but to see if they're becoming a problem.
It created a sense of bad anticipation. Waiting for the other stone to fall, as it were. This heavy dread became a part of my daily life, so pervasive that I stopped noticing it.
The new test results declared me free of stones and suddenly that heavy dread vanished. I was both surprised and giddy. A weight I had forgotten about vanished.
I haven't felt like this in a long, long time.
A few minutes after I got home, I got an alert that I had new test results at the patient portal. That was quick. A little nervously, I called it up. What were we going to see this time? How many stones? How big? Where were they in my kidneys?
The words came up, and I stared. I read them three or four times to make sure I had it right. The initial report said "no radiopaque calculi detected." In other words, I have no kidney stones!
Now this is a preliminary report, not read by my specialist, so it's possible something was overlooked. It's entirely possible the one stone made its way out, but the embedded one? Hmmm. I do have a follow-up appointment with the urologist to make sure.
But here's the thing: I felt a surge of unexpected relief. I felt lighter. Weightless.
This kidney stone thing started five years ago. I've been getting kidney stones off and on since my mid-20s, but they weren't too hard to deal with up until 2018, when they went into overdrive. I had countless painful and terrifying operations that destroyed me physically and emotionally. And every six months, I have to check on them. Not to see if they're gone--they never are--but to see if they're becoming a problem.
It created a sense of bad anticipation. Waiting for the other stone to fall, as it were. This heavy dread became a part of my daily life, so pervasive that I stopped noticing it.
The new test results declared me free of stones and suddenly that heavy dread vanished. I was both surprised and giddy. A weight I had forgotten about vanished.
I haven't felt like this in a long, long time.