August 16th, 1986, I wake up at 5:30 morning with a terrible pain in my back. Now, I am used to back pain. I broke it in 1975 falling through the open trap door on the Guthrie stage. I know what a sore back feels like. This was much, much worse. A pain that was at once sharp and radiating, encircling my back and then around front to my abdominal area, like a belt of agony. I did some stretches but no relief. Then I started thinking that this pain was originating in my stomach, so I washed down half a dozen Rolaids with a swig of Pepto Bismol. I threw that up within minutes. The pain was getting worse.
It was now 6:30 am and time to leave for work. I had started a job as a Juvenile Corrections Worker at the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center that January, and was scheduled to work the 7-3 shift that day. I had never called in sick before, but knew that I couldn't go to work with this pain, whatever it was. I contacted the duty supervisor, grouchy John Martin, and told him my back hurt too much to come in. He hung up on me. At this point I was getting desperate, and the pain was beginning to cloud my judgement. I knew I couldn't drive. I called my father, who lived just a few blocks away, and asked him to please take me to the ER. As I waited for him, I started running around my basement apartment, trying to escape the pain. I had in mind a sad story I had read, where in some creepy kid had soaked a tarantula with gas and set it on fire, the poor spider then scurrying about the room trying to run from its agony. That was me.
Next thing I knew I was in Dad's Volvo and we are on the freeway heading downtown to the Hennepin County Medical Center. Dad was really worried, as it was obvious I was really, really hurting, but neither of us could figure out why. When we got to the ER my Dad took charge and told the attendings what my symptoms were (Dad was a clinical psychologist of some repute, and knew something about most things) and I was given a shot of a non-narcotic painkiller. I believe it was hospital policy to avoid, if possible, giving narcotics to long-hairs. Ten minutes later I was literally screaming. Dad grabbed the nearest doctor and said "give him some demerol". They did. Within seconds I was the happiest person on the planet. Demerol destroys pain. Demerol also improves one's mood, considerably. I didn't even mind when they shoved a tube up my willie to help me pass what turned out to be a very nasty, sharp kidney stone. Once it was gone, I was just fine. Except for the memory, that is. While waiting for my discharge paperwork, I asked a nurse how they figured out what I had. "We diagnosed you by your screaming" said she.
Twenty years later, almost to the day, I felt that pain again. It was on a weekend day (of course) and I recognized it immediately. My wife drove me to the ER and dropped me off at the door while she went to park the car. I stumbled inside and told the lady at the front desk, "kidney stone". She literally grabbed me by the arm, dragged me behind a curtain, and I had a demerol IV in me within minutes. I passed the stone within an hour, and happily went home.
I have been told that drinking cranberry juice prevents the formation of kidney stones, and I drank a glass a day until I was diagnosed with diabetes, about a year before that second stone formed. I still don't drink the juice, but I do eat some mutant concoction called "cran-raisins" and keep my finger crossed. Last night I had a pain, a bad pain, and for about an hour believed that another kidney stone had arrived. Problem was that the pain was not as intense (no screaming) and not quite in the right place. My wife used an electric massager on the spot and it felt better. That did it. Kidney stones NEVER feel better, not until you get the real drugs homie. I am still in awe about how frightened I was. Nothing scares me, really. I am more than a little bit of a sociopath, but the idea that I had a kidney stone in me scared the living crap out of me. If you had told me at a certain point last night that I had bone cancer in that painful area of my right hip, I would have gleefully danced about the room, clicking my heels. No more kidney stones for me, brother.
Perhaps no more kidneys for me either. Mine are failing due to the diabetes, and I need a transplant. Luckily, my wife Veneta is a match for me, and has generously offered to give me one of hers. There may be a hitch, however, as the doctors are yet to rule out whether or not some vestige of her childhood TB is lingering in her kidneys, which would rule her out as a donor. My brother Joe and son Zeke are being tested as back-ups, but haven't been cleared yet. I guess there is some irony here, but I'm not exactly sure what it is. One thing I do know, I'd rather have no kidneys (and all that means) than a kidney with a stone in it. I still feel really bad for that poor tarantula. I don't want to feel that way about myself, not again no thank you!
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