Kidney Stone Hospital Bracelet (October 29, 2002)

It was late October in 2002 and I was psyched because I had just bought the new Grand Theft Auto game, Vice City. I had been playing it for a while after work and started getting a weird feeling in my back. I thought maybe I had been sitting on the couch the wrong way and was cramped, so I readjusted my position. It didn’t seem to help.

5 minutes later, I was in agony (Keep in mind, I had been dealing with Crohn’s Disease for about 14 years, went through six grueling months of chemotherapy for a cancerous brain tumor, and had been hit by a Ford Bronco while crossing the street. All of those made me pretty familiar with Mr. Pain, but this was like none of them). I crawled upstairs and started knocking on my roommate’s door. “Dude, I have to go to the hospital…”

As we made our way to the car, my roommate asked me where the pain was. After I told him, he suspected it might be a kidney stone. He was relatively new to Waltham, so I tried my best to direct him to the hospital as I was hunched over in the passenger seat. I remember looking up and seeing he was going the wrong way. “No, no, other way. Other way…”

We finally got to the hospital and even though I was experiencing the worst pain of my life, the ER receptionist still made me give her all of my information. I kept thinking, Jesus just get me a doctor and some pain meds, PLEASE. Even after I was done “checking in”, I still wasn’t brought into a room right away.

Eventually, I was put on a bed and was given some pain meds. They didn’t start giving me the really “good stuff” until the scans came back and confirmed I really had a kidney stone. By that time, my parents had arrived and the kind nurse gave me some morphine. I told my mom, “Oh, now I know why people are addicted to this.” Then I told the nurse, “As soon as you can give me more of that, I’d really appreciate it.” Then, I threw up.

They released me later that night/early morning with a prescription to some heavy pain medication. I was happy to be able to go back to my apartment, but upset I had missed my first Focusin show. I was eager to get back to killing people in Vice City.

I have since gotten another kidney stone, and both of my ER doctors told me they had female patients who had given birth and had kidney stones (not at the same time), and said the kidney stones were more painful. That’s good to know…