A Long, Hot Bath

So that unrelenting left flank pain turned out to be an 8 mm kidney stone that decided to leave its comfortable home in my kidney and venture down the ureter. I tried many different things to relieve the pain but discovered that the only two things that really worked was Zofran (an anti-nausea medication) and a hot bath.

I took so many baths this past week that I wasn't quite sure that my skin would return to a non-pruney state before the next bath. Now, I love my soaking tub and I enjoy taking baths but sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. I think I might have hit my limit of enjoyment of baths. But if taking a bath meant not needing to take the pain medication that's what I did. I have decided that the havoc that pain meds wreak on my GI tract is way worse than the pain of a kidney stone.

Fortunately the stone is now gone. I had it broken up this afternoon. The original plan was to have an ESWL procedure but because of the location of the stone the doctor had to go in with a laser and break it up that way. I wasn't thrilled when I woke up and found out that had happened because that meant I had to have a stent placed. So it's back to the bathtub for me until I turn into a prune so that the spasms from the stent won't be so bad.

Speaking of prunes, I think I'm going to send Dave out for a year's supply. I might eat them all in the next few days to counter-act the effects of the anesthesia. I'm hoping that I'll have another five year stretch before I get to have this much fun again. And I hope that it doesn't happen during "love" month because this has made it a little challenging to find "lovey" things to blog about.