Really, Really Nice News

[stevenpiziks]

 And now we have some nice news. Really, really nice news. Best I've had in ages.

 

But first, some background.

 

I got my first kidney stone when I was 25 years old. I happened to be visiting my parents overnight, and I woke up with an intense pain in my side that got steadily worse. Feeling like a small child who needed to tell Mommy he didn’t feel good, I woke up my parents. My mother, a nurse, immediately diagnosed a kidney stone and got me to the hospital. By the time I arrived, I was panting and sweating from the effort of not screaming. The ER gave me morphine and fluids until the pain stopped. I passed the stone a couple weeks later.

 

I didn’t know it, but that was just the beginning.

 

Over the next 30 years, I continually had at least one stone. Any time I went in for any kind of x-ray, MRI, or CAT scan, the doctor would say, “…and you have a kidney stone.” Most of them passed on their own, but every so often, a bout of level-10 pain would land me in the hospital. Twice, an attack came while I was driving and I had to change course to go the nearest ER. Without Siri's help with directions, I would have had to call an ambulance.

 

A few years ago, the stones went into overdrive. Out of nowhere, I developed so many stones that the doctors lost count. The attacks ramped up the pain so bad, I seriously thought I was going to die. I had to undergo a bunch of operations that sent scopes up through my body to either pull the stones out or pulverize them with lasers. These operations and the aftermaths were torture, both physically and psychologically. They left me with PTSD so bad I had to start seeing a therapist and go on Xanax and anti-depressants. Just calling the doctor’s office gave me the shakes. And the stones kept coming.

 

Finally, they eased up a little. I “only” had four or five at time, and they were passing without needing operations. But they were still there. I carried little time bombs that might or might not explode at any time, and I carried equal amounts of anxiety about it. The anxiety was always there, woven into my daily life.

 

Yesterday I saw my nephrologist. A tech dutifully ran me through the x-ray machine and I went down to the examination room to wait for the doctor. He came in and after some pleasantries, he called up the x-ray. “You have one stone,” he said. “Four-point-five millimeters.”

 

I cocked my head, honestly puzzled. “Just … one?”

 

“That’s it. And it’s under the 5 mm threshold for treatment. It’ll likely pass on its own. We could go after it with shock waves, but it’s not necessary.”

 

I couldn't quite get my mind around this. Only one? It had been many, many years since I’d had only one. Then something occurred to me. “My husband and I are going out of the country this fall,” I said. “I wouldn’t want this one to cause problems when we’re overseas. Would it a good idea to pulverize it so we don’t have to worry?" 

 

“Actually, when someone is going overseas, that’s exactly what we recommend. Lithotripsy it is. Let’s get you scheduled."

 

And I was handed an appointment for the Monday in June after final exams are over.

 

“I’m going to be stone-free,” I said slowly.

 

“Looks like,” replied the doctor cheerfully. “See you in June.”

 

I checked out and made my way back to the car. I had no idea how to react. For more than 30 years I'd had at least one stone in my body, and for the last several years I'd had many. The anxiety this caused was so pervasive that, paradoxically, I'd stopped noticing it. It was there like air was there. 

 

Now in a few months, I was going to be free of them completely. Sure, they might come back, and I've have to keep checking to make sure, but it didn't seem =likely= they'd come back, and certainly not in such high numbers. Kidney stones ... gone.

 

I got in the car, moved to start it, then held back. I needed a moment to process this. So I stared at the dashboard for a moment. Out of nowhere, the crying slammed into me. I sat in my car, sobbing big, body-shaking sobs, until snot ran out of my nose and my eyes got hot and scratchy and I was fishing in the glove compartment for fast-food napkins. 

 

Why the hell was I crying, I wondered. This was good news, something I rarely got from the hospital. Even when the hospital did have good news, it was always, "Good news, but..." I should be shouting, not crying.

 

I guess it was the utter shock and enormity of the change. I'd been living with this anxiety for 30 years. Sometimes it was low-grade, sometimes it was in the stratosphere, but it was always non-stop. Every time I got a twinge, I got a little jolt of Is this ... ? Every time a twinge turned into pain, the mental dance began. How bad is the pain? Should I wait and see if it fades? If it doesn't, or if it gets a little worse, should I go to the ER, or drink more water and keep waiting? If I go to the ER and the pain fades, I'll have made the trip and expense for nothing. If I don't go, and pain ramps up, I'll be tortured with it all the way to the hospital and in the ER while I wait for painkillers. (And the ER always takes a god-awful long time to get painkillers into you, even when you're howling.) If I go during the Goldilocks "just right" moment, I'll arrive at the ER right when the pain is going into overdrive, but when is the Goldilocks moment?

 

And then the twinge would usually fade. The anxiety, however, didn't. That was just the way life was.

 

But that turned out not be true. Now the anxiety was just ... gone. A big part of my emotional being had vanished completely. Thirty years of relief was crashing over me all at once, and it was a big shock. You know how sometimes you have to go to the bathroom but can't, because you're in the middle of something or not in a place where you can find a bathroom? The urgency grows and gets worse and worse, but you don't pay close attention to it because there's nothing you can do about it just now. Then it gets really bad and you finally get to a restroom and afterward you feel a little rush of relief. Multiply that by thirty years. That's what I was feeling. It would have been strange if I =hadn't= cried.

 

So it was nice news. Really, really nice. After the sobbing stopped, I felt a divine euphoria. I was floating, and I couldn't sit still. I drove to downtown Ann Arbor and did some me-shopping—comics and role-playing miniatures. I spent more than I probably should have, but this deserved a reward! Then I got some lunch and then I went home, where I made celebratory chocolate cookies. 

 

It really was a good day.