Rider Recuperates from Shock(wave Lithotripsy)

Imagine Paul Newman and the sweaty chain-gang from Cool Hand Luke breaking rocks along a rural road. Now take that scenario and picture them all pounding a single rock 3,000 times a second for 45 minutes.

That's what happened to Madge the kidney stone yesterday.

I was X-rayed and tranq'd and sleeping like a baby, while a machine I call Mr. Vibrato 3000 bombarded my inflamed ureter with sound waves that shattered the 6mm calcium stone into sand.

See that orange ball in the picture to the left? It's made of soft rubber and feels like a wonderful breast--but when the technician flips a switch causing it to vibrate faster than the eye can see, it's like the angriest breast you've ever felt up. More like an electrical shock than a vibration.

I was glad I didn't put my tongue on it.

I now have a red rash below my ribs. If you squint at it in a certain light it looks like George Kennedy's face saying, "Get some water here, boss?"

That's one stone down, one to go.

R.I.P. Madge The Stone

Rider texted to say he is heading home from a procedure that obliterated his annoying kidney stone, Madge.

Turns out Madge has a twin brother named Buster, though. He won't be dealt with for a few more weeks.

Anyways, send Rider your thoughts. He said he "feels like Nick Nolte's mug shot."

Madge Is Soaking In Him

Rider emailed me last night, saying he wasn't feeling up to posting. He should've just Cc'd it here and published it. I'll do it for him. Funny stuff, although I didn't get his subject line (used as the post title here). Maybe someone can explain it.

Madge The Ginormous Kidney Stone is too big to be flushed out of me. She is now self-aware and speaks to me in the voice of Sarah Palin. "You'll never get me out, Rider, fer gosh sakes."

I'm waiting for health insurance red tape to allow me to get a procedure done at a futuristic facility where they will bombard Madge with sound waves. This would cause her to shatter and scream, "What a world! What a world!" The physician who will dole out this punishment said it will "feel like you've been kicked in the back."

In the meantime, she's dug in pretty well and causing all kinds of inflammation and pain. I'm on three different meds to deal with this experience. I feel like Keith Richards without the talent.

Note: I Googled the Madge phrase and found this YouTube video of an old commercial. I get it now.

Rider's Been Released

I received a text from Rider. He was released from the hospital last night. He said "Madge" is still inside him. I take it Madge is the kidney stone, not the pilot of a microscopic submarine in his bloodstream.

Patient 5 Blogs at 3:33 in the Morning

Add "thumped in the back by a male nurse" to the list of things that make me howl.

I've got kidney stones. Well, a kidney stone, to be exact. 5.9 millimeters doesn't sound like a very large chunk of renal calculi to me, but I'm told its sheer size is the very reason I couldn't go home and piss it out.

I'm in a clean hospital with free Encore on the TV, smiling nurses who inject me with dilaudid--"eight times as strong as morphine!" I was told with a smile--and a free laptop.

It's an IBM running Windows, which explains the slow processing speed and the freezes. I am a Mac, not a PC, and I feel as if I'm cheating on Steve Jobs using such an inferior operating system. But it's free so I'll shut up.

So later today I meet with a urologist who will hunker down and give me the Game Plan for destroying this rock before Bruce Willis and Steve Buscemi land on it with explosives.

I just asked nurse Danielle for more dilaudid.

I'll be out of it for a while.