I recall some comedian doing a bit about gas, food, and lodging, suggesting that as bad as gas food is, it is even worse when it lodges in one's windpipe.
And as bad as that is, some things are worse. I drove over to the ER yesterday morning and shuffled in. And, I must say, in my lifetime of experience with ERs this was by far the cleanest, newest, most modern and best looking ER I have ever visited. The service was impeccable, I was shown to my guest suite within minutes, and the staff was, by and large, a good looking bunch, especially my first doctor, a tall redhead - Hubba Hubba! But the shift changed in an hour and she was replaced by a nice, but less statuesque doctor who was about 7 months pregnant.
Anyway, after they got enough morphine into my system I was able remain still and they proceeded to give me:
a cat scan.
That, along with the blood they drew, led to:
a Lab report.
Along the way there were many fun times, jokes, bad puns, classic hospital humor - like the time I laid back on the bed and pulled the blanket up over my head - that one is always good for a chuckle.
Anyway, after close to twelve hours there it was determined that I could in fact be served the finest food available in the hospital:
In keeping with the food themed posts here let me suggest that while the tiny can of Shasta ginger ale had a piquant taste, the Zesta brand saltines were past their prime. But even stale saltines are pretty darned good when one is hungry.
And after living through all of that, I got to see a great sunrise this morning:
25 comments:
Get well soon, Sixty.
Thanks, I am probably ok, but I am also okay with taking it easy for a while.
Sixty! You gave me a fright. Hope it's just a speed bump.
Triumph: A Wonder Dog and An Artist
Dr.John pounds out love on them ivories,
Sixty finds shapes in trees --
Praise and fall on thy knees
For their something from nothing victories.
I'm sorry to hear you're doing poorly. Hope it's minor and short. Do you need meals brought in?
I am good, windbag, thanks for asking. I am ambulatory and stopped at the store on the way home, so far, so good. Today, just resting. Slacking is more like it, but I will take any excuse I can get to avoid operating heavy machinery, just sayin'.
I never hurts to take a day or a couple of days off.
Looking at that sign, never stay at a place that offers LODGING FOOD GAS.
Get well soon!
I like what you say, AllenS - a day or two. Excellent concept!
How awful. Hope they diagnosed the problem and provided you with the appropriate healing. I was at the ER for a kidney infection earlier this year and I was similarly amazed by the cleanliness and order and ... luxury (it's true) of the place. My last ER experience was a kidney stone (damn kidneys!) about 15 years ago and the place was a dump. Smelly and dirty and filled with weirdos ... and those were the employees. Same hospital.
Something happened!
Is that your cat? Scanning?
I have cat envy. She or he is gorgeous.
You nailed it Amartel, it was a kidney stone which showed up 27 years, almost to the day after my last one. I crawled around on the floor of the ER back in '91 - I am probably lucky to have survived that adventure.
And both the cat and dog are mine - the cat is over 18 years old now and he has been a boon companion for all these years. The dog is my Chocolate Lab mix, he is 16 now and age is slowing him down. We might as well be twins, hard of hearing, gray around the muzzle, doesn't walk like a youngster now, but hanging in there nonetheless.
Booooooo, kidney stones! Hideous pain. Like something's gnawing it's way out of you.
Bleh.
You are blessed with wonderful animals, though.
This too shall pass.
What?
OMSGAP
And I just planted a winter crop of spinaci.
There is an undue focus on the calcium and not enough on the anionic counterpart: oxalate
Oxalate should be very unstable. That C-C bond should snap like a twig, and the carbons should shed those few remaining electrons and become two CO2s. But no, oxalate has to go and find a calcium and make a really stable, insoluble salt. Why doesn't magnesium oxalate make kidney stones? There's plenty of both (Mg2+ and Ca2+) around. Probably a better fit with calcium.
Betty Davis song (Miles' wife, not the actress), covered by Mahalia Barnes.
As a beginning student of chemistry, I could never keep the names "alkaline metals" and "alkaline earth metals" straight. Those are the names for the leftern most columns in the Periodic Table. I write "leftern" because I want it to sound like "western." I see the Periodic Table as iconic -- as iconic as a map of the United States (well the lower 48). So sodium, potassium, rubidium, etc., are the so-called alkaline metals. Calcium, magnesium, strontium, etc. are the alkaline earth metals. Earth you see because they are found in the earth and not in the sea. Calcium and magnesium are poorly soluble. If anything is soluble, it eventually washes to the sea. Salt has a really hard time leaving the confines of the sea. Its support group, water, is always coming and going in the great hydrological cycle. Salt never really leaves the sea. Don't bring up subduction, or you'll wreck the narrative. So in general, the alkaline metals are mostly found in the sea, and the alkaline earth metals are mostly found on land. Well expect for lithium. Lithium is an alkaline metal. But it's not found in the sea to a useful degree. So it sits with the alkaline earths.
The next time I'm sick I hope I'm lucky enough to see Doctor Hubba Hubba. I'm glad they got you back on the road.
Dang, Sixty. Stop getting old would you, though I'm trying and nothing works. Time is relentless, so be dazzled by the beauty of every second... well except when you're doubled over in pain maybe.
Hope you feel better soon.
A time to cast away stones, as the Preacher saith.
Did they have to go in after it? Just so I know how sorry for you I should feel. (I've gone through that twice.)
Thanks, Chip Ahoy, I appreciate it. My adventure was tiny compared what you have gone through so I know that you know what time in hospital is like. I was treated and released, which is okay by me.
Both times I have had stones the doc has said "It's too small to blast but we can go in an grab it..." and I stop them right there - I can't help forming a mental image of one of those flexible 3 pronged grabbers like the one I use to retrieve things I drop behind my desk or television and somehow that puts me off that idea. Seems uncomfortable. Maybe even painful. And forget about the expense! Hoowee - I haven't seen the bill yet but I bet that little trip ran me $1,000 an hour. The crackers should have been fresh at that rate.
"It's too small to blast but we can go in and grab it."
Hey, I can top that. Mine was so small that the examiner in the ER couldn't find anything. Two hours later I get a frantic call that "We found it!" and I could either come back or wait for it to pass at home. It passed at home. Twenty four hours from start to passing. I think that's pretty standard, though some guys endure twice that much time.
My last one got stuck for three months. Three months of never knowing when I might be doubled over in pain, unable to keep down the so-called "pain pills", which, were I in charge might be called anti-pain pills, but that's another story.
I asked for and got my ultrasound pictures and they claimed they gave me the pictures from my CAT scan, but the latter did not load, so I have to take their word for the size and location of the stone. I was hoping to be able to post a clear picture of just how pointy an accretion of various stony elements might look, but I am sure my gentle reader persons here are thankful for that particular failure of technology.
I wondered if kidney stones were primarily a male problem, as I haven't met or heard of a woman who's experienced them, but it turns out, according to the internet, that they do occur in women with incidence on the rise.
In hearing men talk about it, the intensity of having and passing one seems to be such that men who've endured them will be quick to empathize with other men, in one of the few times pain is freely admitted. Which to my mind says it must be horrible
Walking away from a hospital without pain after having a situation addressed or resolved is one of life's wonderful feelings. Having a problem tooth fixed is further down the list, but still a fine thing after the Novocaine wears off.
Glad to hear you were not without competent tech help to assess and see this through with you!
Thanks, MamaM, having proper technicians reviewing my tests is reassuring.
And while everyone experiences pain differently, when I had my first kidney stone in '91 the nurse who was administering my morphine mentioned that she had both given birth and had a kidney stone and that passing the kidney stone was far more painful than giving birth. I cannot speak to the latter, but I will say that the acute onset of pain that puts one into shock can give one pause, so to speak.
In any case, I am back out working in my shop, the nice weather we had earlier this week is gone and we are facing snow storms now. Have I mentioned that I don't like snow? I really don't, you know...
One more thing - during my most recent sojourn into the realm of emergency medicine I talked to a nurse about an inherent design flaw - why, since humans are prone to making kidney stones, are our ureters lined with so many nerve cells? Wouldn't it be a better design if one could move a stone through one's ureter with the same ease that it passes through the rest of the urinary tract? As Mags said on Justified "This is the tough part", and her statement can be applied to many things in life. But both the nurse and I agreed that such things are out of our hands, so to speak.
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