Here’s a funny story about a kidney stone I had one time.
I am going to just lalalalalalalala over the horrible part of the kidney stone and skip right to the shot of Demerol.
DEMEROL IS AWESOME. If you are ever offered Demerol for any reason? Say yes.
So I am all orgasmic with Demerol delight, lying in the hospital room that just a moment ago I thought would be my death chamber.
Demerol, people. Make a note.
OK, and then the doctor comes in and he is holding a large empty plastic container in his hand. He is explaining to Mark that I need to collect all of my urine over a 24 hour period and bring it back in for testing. This strikes me as hysterically funny, and I ask the doctor for a squeegee to pick up the pee I have let loose on the floor.
Note: In the throes of massive kidney stone pain? It is possible to vomit, piss, and move your bowels all in one enormously efficient and agonizing wave of rhythmic contracting horror. Messy and totally squeegeeable.
Mark and the doctor stare at me.
Related note: Demerol makes everything funny.
Now I am home, and the Demerol has worn off. Such a fucking bummer.
I have to pee.
As I am waiting for this tiny piece of barbed calcium crystal to work its way through my body, I am supposed to drink a lot of liquid. Flush that bad boy out. Because I am me, I drink a LOT of liquid, hoping to get some surging power behind my urine stream. My plan is that I will pee from a prone position and hit the ceiling with the kidney stone.
Ping!
Yes . . . I am taking powerful prescription pain medication, so this all makes perfect sense.
But I can’t actually pee from a prone position, because I have to collect the pee.
Focus, Kris.
I hold on as long as I can, trying to build up stone-clearing urine power, and then I pee into a carefully held cup.
I fill the cup to the brim, and I am incredibly pleased with myself. I peer into the yellow murky depths to see if there is possibly a kidney stone in there. I pour the urine through the strainer the doctor gave me and into the large plastic container. No stone.
I repeat this process several times over the next few hours . . . drink enormous amounts of fluids, pee forcefully and copiously, pour pee through strainer and into plastic container, and feel triumphant.
Wait until the doctor sees all this pee! He is going to be so impressed! Yay!
Hmmmm.
I hold the plastic container of urine up to the light to gauge the volume of the liquid within.
Let’s see . . . I am supposed to collect all of my urine for 24 hours. I am now 4 hours into the time period, and guess what? There is a problem.
And the name of this problem is . . . No fucking way this container is big enough.
Because I am on pain medication of the powerful sort, I am full of genius.
I head into the kitchen and dump out the rest of the milk from its plastic gallon container. Rinse that container out. Search through the drawers for a funnel.
And I’m all set!
I fill the original container to the tippy tippy top. This turns out to be a mistake, because the top won’t go on without some spillage. Ack. Pee is all over the floor!
I need that pee or all of this work has been for nothing!
I grab some toilet paper and sop up the escaped urine. Then I carefully squeeze that sodden toilet paper into the funnel-topped milk jug. Yes!
Seriously . . . the doctor is going to be so impressed with me.
I lie down on the bathroom floor to imagine this moment of medical pride.
There is a puddle of pee down here on the floor that I somehow missed. Everything seems so suddenly very very difficult. With outstretched hand, I unroll some more toilet paper. I lay it over the puddle. I watch as the toilet paper soaks up the urine.
I lie there on the floor for a while, appreciating the beauty of yellow capillary action.
Sigh.
I hum a little song to myself.
Gather up the sodden ball of toilet paper in my hand.
And fling it hard at the ceiling.
Where it sticks.
Less a ping than a thwack.
But awesome.
And now I have to pee again, but getting up off the floor is somehow just not in the cards.
May as well try that peeing on the ceiling thing. So I scoot out of my pants and give it a shot.
I am surprised to discover that I get no height at all.
More toilet paper. More sodden balls of urine.
More flinging at the ceiling.
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
Time for another pill, you think?
Maybe . . . yes.
The next day? I drive myself (!!!) to the hospital to drop off my 24 hour urine sample.
I carefully hand the nurse behind the desk the first plastic bottle, and I ask politely, “What shall I do with the rest of my sample?”
“What?”
I speak with great pride as I swing up the gallon milk jug and rest it on the counter, “I had far more urine than the doctor expected, I believe. A little escaped and there is some on my ceiling, but this is most of it.”
She stares at me.
I lean forward helpfully, pushing the sloshing gallon jug toward her, “I had some difficulty, and seriously . . . a squeegee would have been helpful.”
The next part of this interaction did not go at all as I expected it to go.
I’m sure the notes in my medical record attest to my surprise.
Ahem.
i love this. Favorite line by far:
“I need that pee or all of this work has been for nothing!”
I love how rational you are. HEHE!
Grace -
I am all reasonable on pain medication.
Hush.
HAHAHAHAHA! So funny!
Sheri -
Thank you! I do love the humor that comes with distance.
At the time?
Not so much funny.
Snort!
Demerol is awesome. Until you’ve been on it for 10 days. Then you might hallucinate snakes and spiders crawling on your bed.
Not that this ever happened to me. Uh…I read about it somewhere.
I have only ever had demerol for kidney stone pain, and never more than two shots of it.
In that context? It is amazing.
But yes . . . like so many fabulous things?
Too much is a problem.
Annoying.
It wouldn’t be so funny if it weren’t so damn true. The pain, oh my god the pain. My husband thought I was being exorcised. Between the crying, the groaning, the panting, the screaming, the swearing, the grunting, and then back to crying, and then dead silence, and repeat…he thought I was possessed.
I remember that large brown jug. You seriously filled that thing up in 4 hours?? You are a champion pee-er. That’s what you are! I remember having to refrigerate mine.
Oh, and when they rain the contrast dye test, they said I didn’t have a kidney stone, or if I did it was as small as a grain of sand and couldn’t be picked up on the xray. Let me tell you, a week later when I passed that mother fucker kidney stone that was a size of a bebe, but square and with pointy edges, I wanted to go back to the hospital and beat those doctor’s with my brown jug of pee.
2011/02/15 at 1:15 pm
My jug was not brown but clearish white plastic. Perhaps your container was larger? I did pee an awful lot. Ahem.
Kidney stones are horrific when they are bad. I have had some pass with no medical intervention or demerol required, but when they are bad? Ugh.
They are nightmarish.
And the doctors are always so dismissive of the kidney stone itself . . . I have had large ones and I have had small ones, and honestly?
The doctors are always unimpressed.
I so wish I had the power to give them a kidney stone.
Just so they would know what we are talking about.
I so do.
Oh, and I do want to be clear that i did not fill the first container in four hours.
I just knew after four hours that it wasn’t big enough.
Needed to clear that up.
That would be awesome. They totally dismissed me as well. I was left in a room, by myself, for almost an hour, without pain meds. At that point, I was so bat shit crazy with pain that I walked my gown-open-in-the-back self down to the nurses station and started yelling that someone had better come and see me within the next five minutes.
I have had some incredibly horrible experiences with delayed treatment.
Once, because the doctors thought I was having some sort of ectopic pregnancy issue (which I was not).
And another time when they simply refused to treat me until test results came back. Eight fucking hours. Not even kidding.
A nightmare.
Seriously.
I am thankful that I cannot relate to your pain.
Or planting uranus on the floor so you can hit the ceiling with pee.
Drugs don’t make me all geniusy like that.
Love the title though.
You are all kinds of clever even when you’re not on Demerol!
Sue -
Thank you!
I try.
Love you.
Question-Who cleaned the ceiling? Did Maj see the ceiling? Were there seizures involved? Demerol is beautiful. Kidney stones are fugly.
Mark cleaned the ceiling, but I may have neglected to inform him that something other than water had been used to form these toilet paper balls.
He was puzzled.
Ahem.
And this was long before the girls arrived.
Can you imagine?
Maj would kill me.
Thank God Maj was not born yet to see the ceiling.
I have never had a kidney stone, but they must be horrible evil pieces of hell.
Poor you.
that is all
Amy -
Horrible evil pieces of hell. People ask me sometimes if they hurt more than childbirth.
For me?
Unequivocally . . . yes.
Yes, they do.
I was going to ask if they were worse than child birth (I had two c-sections). I had heard they were for some people.
So much worse.
Psychologically worse as well, because there is no progression toward some eagerly anticipated goal.
Just unrelenting pain.
Ack.
I hate to laugh at your pain…but how could I not?
Hysterical. Brightened my afternoon :)
Leah -
Yay!
I love when ickiness turns to funny.
Love, love, love.
Thank you!
BAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
I need to not read you at work. Seriously. Because people are staring. And I have a single tear coming down my cheek from suppressed mirth.
*PING*
What a mental image. I’m sure this is very helpful for Suzanne.
You have totally made my day.
Totally . . . fucking . . . made . . . my . . . day.
Thank you.
Kris,
Okay, seriously, it’s time for PAT readers to vote.
It’s unanimous.
We want live blogging with Kris on Demerol.
With or without kidney stones.
And, question, is this why Mark always wears waders in the house?
And a hard hat in the bathroom?
Bill
Bill -
If I were to try to gather my words while on Demerol?
I am not at all sure you would get what you expect.
Ahem.
And as for what Mark wears to protect himself during his marriage to me?
That is none of your beeswax, sir.
Snort!
I’ve never had Kidney stones: but I have had gallstones. And a 19 hr pitocin induced/driven labor with no pain-killers. That pitocin drip was easier! At least with labor, you get a break between contractions
The last gallstone attack was on hubs’ birthday, and we had tickets to a play. I figured it would hurt just as much at home as out. So…I puked my way through brunch and then from Santa Cruz to San Francisco. I can tell you the best places to vomit at a half dozen tourist traps in SF. I then puked my way through The Producers. Once in the first half. Once just before the intermission; when I was done, I saw a line of -not kidding- 100 women in line…so glad I got there first. And then one more time just before the end of the play: puked in every garbage can between my seat and the bathroom, and then proceded to heave hard enough to slam my forehead on the toilet, leaving a bruise!
I tried to be superwoman the entire drive home: passing up UCSF, Stanford, and a dozen other hospitals.
30 minutes after turning the lights off at 3 am and after 18 hours of pain, I cried uncle and asked hubs to get dressed again and take me to the emergency room.
He asked the surgeon for, and kept the gallstones as a birthday gift…go figure. I keep threatening to make them into cufflinks for him.
I have never had gallstones, but my stepfather and my mother have both had issues.
And it sounds very very bad. Very bad.
I cannot compare the two experiences, as I have only had one of them. We’ll call it a draw.
And I LOVE the idea of cufflinks!
That’s awesome.
So fucking funny! Thwap! Also? Demerol is only wonderful as long as you are not allergic to it. My hubby found out the hard way that he is, in fact, allergic to demerol. Thankfully? I am not allergic to demerol. Yippee! :)
Amberleigh -
ACK! An allergy of any kind is not good at all. At all.
But yay for you!
Because seriously . . . in a moment of need (minus troublesome allergies) . . . it is awesome.
Yippee!
When I was eighteen I got rear-ended. Not that kind, silly! By a truck. Ummm, I was in my car. My car got rear-ended by a truck.
He was doing at least 45, and I was stopped at an intersection. Crunch! So I had some pretty bad whiplash and back pain. Some doctors really make me wonder… I was loaded up with Tylenol III, Vicodin, Darvocet, Flexeril (muscle relaxer) and and anti-depressant to help me sleep. Yes, I had MAJOR pain for a while. But I only weighed about 85lbs, and was taking something like 12-15 pills a day. Physical therapy would have been a much better option for back and my poor liver, I think.
Looking back, I can’t believe what idiots those doctors were giving such hefty drugs to an eighteen year old. I was “knocked out” for probably 9 months. Seriously. But it was SO FUN!! Except I don’t remember much… And now? I can totally understand why so many people get addicted to pain pills. I was so very close to becoming one of them.
Amberleigh -
If you have been with me for long?
You know that I hate taking pain medication. Not because it doesn’t work, but because I just fucking LIKE the feeling of being on the pain medication so much. Ahem. I have talked about being an addictive personality . . . I so am.
But in a moment in which demerol is required . . . the exquisite release from agony is almost more than I can describe.
A feeling you apparently know well.
I could easily become addicted to pain pills. They are fabulous.
But I hate being out of control. And I hate that I love the out-of-control feeling I get when I am on them. So I avoid them whenever I can. To a crazy degree.
Kidney stones are an exception. There is no getting through that alone . . . not the bad ones, anyway.
And a car crash? Another exception.
I am so glad you found your way through to the other side of that experience.
Much love, you.
I made light here today.
But much love to you.
Not a ping but more of a thwack. Best line ever. Holding my sides type of laughter. The kids want to see what’s so funny. They are 5,3 and 1…this..THIS WRITING…is why they need to learn to read.
I had to do an overnight urine sample once. I was 8 mos pregnant and our insurance company switched. I had to bring them a urine sample for a pregnancy test. I did mention above that I was 8 mos along right? Grrr…Right before I went in to plop my 4 oz container on the front counter, I went in the bathroom and splattered the outside with water. Swung that sucker up on the counter, drops flying everywhere and was pretty pleased with myself.
This is why your children should learn to read?
That is possibly the best compliment I have ever received.
Thank you so very much for that.
As for the other?
You are my kind of uncooperative and defiant woman.
You so are.
OMG, I am rolling and rolling and trying not to wake my DH who is sleeping in the same room. I have never been privileged to have demerol but will have to try and filch some next time I’m at the clinic.
And you write the most brilliant tags i have ever seen anywhere.
Miri -
I love you. I love the image of you rolling with laughter as your husband tries to sleep.
Happy sighs.
Thank you, babe.
Thank you very much.