Stoned
Category: Medicine...
Posted Monday, January 08, 2007 at 03:40 PM [GMT-6]

As if to add insult to injury -- or, perhaps, vice versa -- Jen has been afflicted with a kidney stone. As I mentioned in a comment to her post, while I can't really relate to her being confined to bed rest for the duration of her pregnancy, I do have up close and personal experience with kidney stones, having experienced two bouts over the years, one of which required surgery and both of which required screaming like a little girl.

One of the attacks came as I was home alone in Midland while my wife was enjoying herself at a convention in Las Vegas. I drove myself to the emergency room in the wee hours of the morning -- our car at the time had a five-speed manual transmission so I ran a lot of red lights in order to not have to exert any part of my body more than absolutely necessary. Truth be known, I was hoping to catch the attention of a police car, preferably one inhabited by a trigger-happy nervous cop who might put me out of my misery. No such luck, however, until I slipped the surly bonds that bound me to a morphine-free consciousness after a suitable 16-hour waiting period (OK, not really, but it felt that way) to make sure I wasn't already a junkie.

Anyway, none of that's really important. Suffice it to say that I have experience in this area, and I also have experience in empathizing with others who are going through the ordeal. In fact, ten or so years ago, we had a friend who also had a kidney stone, except hers went undiagnosed -- for reasons known only to God and the Marquis de Sade -- for weeks. We shared great umbrage at the doctor, such that I was transported by the muse to enshrine our outrage in poetic form. Thus cometh the following, which is best sung to the tune of Rock of Ages:

Jen, get well soon. Don't make me write another poem!