When I was in Japan a few years back to write a story about former Royals manager Trey Hillman, I woke up in the middle of the night with a kind of crazy back pain. I wrote a bit about it -- and how Bruce Springsteen's "Girls in their Summer Clothes" helped save me. But the thing is I never really knew what happened that night. I figured that it had something to do with how hard the bed or something. The funny part is that I was talking about it with Dave Owen, brother of Spike, who was Trey's bench coach in Japan. And Dave said: "Well, at least it wasn't kidney stones."
And I said: "Well, that's good to hear. I was actually worried that it was kidney stones."
And he said: "Oh, if you have kidney stones, you will know. Worst pain of my life."
Sunday morning I started feeling a bit of back pain. I will not take you through the awful next couple of hours except to say that soon a little bit of back pain turned into quite a bit of back pain turned into quite a lot of back pain. There were other symptoms I'd rather not describe. But the back pain was the thing and after a little while I decided I better go see a doctor. We happen to be in Florida, which made things a bit more complicated.
We went to a nearby doctor, and we sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes. It's fair to say that things did not get better at that point. I will explain the symptoms just slightly for effect ... I could not sit down so I walked across the room and grunted like a madman. People were holding on tight to their children. I twice had to go to the bathroom where I unloaded comical vomiting sounds that could be heard pretty much throughout Tampa, which was bad since we are in Orlando. At that point, I told Margo that we probably should go to the emergency room because it was possible that an alien was trying to emerge from my stomach.*
*I have little doubt that scene was inspired by a bout of kidney stones.
I actually did not tell Margo that exactly. What I said was "URRUEOJOFHGHHH!" There was no light joking going on during the intensity phase of this thing. When my daughters were saying, "Are you OK, Daddy," I wanted to say, "Oh, yes, don't worry, Daddy will be fine, I apologize to you both for delaying our spring vacation." But what I said was "URRUEOJOFHGHHH!" No comedian, not even Louis CK or Chris Rock, could work the kidney stone wing of the emergency room.
That's where we went ... to the emergency room next, where I got to sit in a waiting room that held roughly the population of the Fox River Cities. I certainly do not want to make any comment whatsoever on the health care debate -- we all know that I try to avoid politics -- but I will say that after having to wait more than three hours to get anyone to even look at me when it felt like an alien was coming out of my stomach ... you can finish the thought.
After waiting an hour I went up to the front to give them what I considered a rather alarming bit of news about what I had done in the bathroom. They alerted me that there were only 10 people in front of me. Ten. This is not a joke.
The one thing they did keep doing was asking me to rank my pain, 1 to 10 -- one being "pain free" and 10 being "the worst pain you have ever felt in your life." They repeated that exact phrase at least a dozen times: "Rank your pain 1 to 10, one being pain free, 10 being the worst pain have ever felt in your life."
Nothing at that moment felt funny at all, but if you think about it this is really a funny question to ask someone. The pain, seemed to me, to be A LOT. I mean, we all know I'm kind of a statistical guy -- I have another baseball stat post ready to go for later today -- but I really didn't have any great way to rank the pain beyond "A LOT." On the one hand, I didn't want to seem like a wimp. On the other hand, I wanted them to give me a pain killer that would knock me unconscious, if necessary. Sure, if I'd had my computer with me, I could have tried to whip up a little formula for POPC -- pain over paper cut.
But in that setting, without a calculator around, I didn't really have any reference point. I could not remember the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. It could have been one of my many accidents as a kid. It could have been the feeling after I had my adenoids removed. It could be the time I slipped on the ice, fell back on concrete stairs and was sure I had paralyzed myself.
But this pain had one strong advantage over those in that I was feeling it RIGHT THEN. And that was my feeling. I wanted to say, "Compared to all the pain I am feeling right now, this pain is really the most excruciating. The time I cracked my head open on the window sill when I was 8 does not really hurt now."
I decided to go with 5 on the pain scale at first, which was convenient because before the day was done I would say the pain doubled, which would have made it 10. Of course, I never said "10." The highest I ever went was "7 or 8," which made me feel tough, but perhaps did not reflect the urgency of the situation. I was in the emergency room for more than 12 hours. They gave me three different kinds of pain killer. The first was morphine and it did nothing -- the worst pain I felt all day happened after I took it. The second worked a little bit better. The third knocked out the pain, though I suspect this was not so much because of the pain killer but because the kidney stone moved.
The pain killers and intensity of the pain turned me kind of loopy I guess ... I know at some point I started telling a doctor why I wear a fedora on my photo on the back page of SI.* Mostly I drifted in and out of some kind of weird sleep with crazy dreams. One, I distinctly remember, involved Cameron Diaz and popcorn.
*That's a conversation I wish I remembered because, frankly, I don't really know why I do wear a hat.
There's plenty more -- I guess I was so dehydrated that it took them eight shots and three nurses to draw blood, which would normally have really bothered me but compared to the back pain that was like nothing. I know you don't care about it. I don't even care about it. At about 2 a.m. they let me go with prescriptions for half the medicines in the place. I was pretty much pain free at that point, though I don't think the kidney stone has passed. I feel OK now, a bit tired, but without pain. I took a cab back to the hotel so not to wake up the family, and when I went into the cab the driver said: "How are you doing today?"
I said: "Well, it was kind of a rough day."
He said: "You need to be positive. You will get a good night's sleep and tomorrow will be a great day."
Oh man. I've been there and it is so not fun. Mine took about a month to pass, with horrible pain conveniently arriving on the weekends.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
I've probably had 20+ stones, starting when I was an undergrad. The first time pain was amazing and easily the worst pain. The next worst thing wasn't the pain, it was when I had my first stone from "the other side," meaning I could get them in either kidney.
ReplyDeleteNow, I hate to say, I've grown used to them. One bad back pain on day one, pain as it "travels" on the next day and then the horrible pain "as it makes it way out."
Amazingly, I've had some I didn't even know where coming. Just a sharp pain taking a whizz and "poof, there it is."
I've had kidney stones keep me from a super bowl party in grad school (niners/chargers). I had one last year when I was on vacation in Boston, which thankfully subsided long enough to go on a date with a girl with whom I was very smitten.
Good luck, Joe
I feel (or have felt) your pain. I went to the Urgent Care clinic the first time I had a kidney stone (although I didn't know what it was as the time (I thought maybe appendicitis). The young woman behind the counter was talking to her friend on the phone about a movie she had seen the night before. As I writhed in agony, she kept holding up her hand to indicate she was busy with the phone call. As I've related the story over the years, I tell people that the motto for that particular urgent care clinic was "We take the urgent out of Urgent Care."
ReplyDelete"Come on, what the hell were you guys really trying to do back there? It wasn't some kinda macho thing, was it? Because if that's all, I'll be real disappointed. I really hate that macho stuff." -Star Trek IV
ReplyDeleteAbsent some sort of blade protruding from the skin, or apendage missing, if a guy (as in normal amount of macho male person) is in enough pain to get off the couch and go to the emergency room, he is by default at least at pain level 5.
Hope you're feeling better.
ReplyDeleteYes, the Pain Scale is fundamentally silly.
If Bill James were a doctor, there'd be two scales: "peak pain value" and "chronic pain value."
There's a big difference between stubbing your toe or getting whacked in the groin--which goes away in 5 minutes--and pain that lasts hours, days or weeks. It's Jeff Francoeur vs. Joe Mauer.
If the ER is like baseball scouting, profuse bleeding and chest pains are the equivalent of Delmon Young and Homer Bailey--flashy, not always serious, but worthy of attention.
You made the bad mistake of coming in with Kevin Youkilis symptoms.
So where's that kidney stone headed anyway?
ReplyDeleteDark Side of the Mood
Could it be that you wear a fedora as a tribute to the recently departed Mike Celizic, aka HatGuy from FJM? I loved reading FJM's break-downs of his articles and Mr. Celizic, being the nice guy that he is, appeared to as well. There were some guys they'd skewer that seemed like genuine jerks, but Mike Celizic did not appear to be one of them.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtK7yzRC_8A
ReplyDeleteBrian Regan has been there.
Kidney stones have been fundamentally misunderstood over the years as represented in popular culture (not here, though). People get the idea that the excruciating pain comes from, well, the expulsion of the stone. But that is the easy part, days or weeks later.
ReplyDeleteThe hard part is when the stone is actually traveling through a microscopic tube near, well, your kidney. And it feels like you're being hit with a bat in the lower back. Repeatedly. For hours.
At a certain point during my last ordeal, it felt as if some sort of spectre had actually reached into my body, grabbed my lower spine with both hands, and tried to break it. Just unbelievable.
And its true - morphine doesn't do a thing except potentially make you feel like throwing up. All in all, kidney stones are an amazingly awful experience. And you live in fear of the next time, all the time.
Good luck Joe! Make sure to catch the stone so they can analyze it or you won't know how to avoid more!
Hang in there, Joe!! This too shall pass (rimshot).
ReplyDeleteThe worst pain I've ever had, the 10, was a ruptured disc. Urinary issues -- 9.5. I don't like repeating either condition.
ReplyDeleteI had one kidney stone experience. It was Oct, 1998. I woke up with the back ache and soon I was vomiting which was very odd because I'll do anything to avoid vomiting. It was a Saturday morning so off to emergency room with my wife driving and not a real long wait, thankfully, maybe only an hour. Oh, and I vomited outside the car on way to ER too.
ReplyDeleteSo, it was pretty much a no-brainer that it was a kidney stone that was creating the pain and they took X-rays as I recall. The pain meds helped almost immediately and then the hand of God came down and allowed me to pee. I was to pee into a straining screen in case I passed the stone it might be seen. Sure enough, this TINY black speck appeared and it wasn't much different from the size of a speck of pepper. That little speck of calcium or something caused all of that searing pain? I was embarrassed but extremely glad to walk out of the ER within 4-5 hours feeling almost back to normal.
The doc told me to drink tons of water and to not eat raw spinach. (My wife and I like spinach salads and I had eaten a lot of them in previous few months.) I strained my pee for the next 24 hours and never saw another speck of anything. I occasionally still will have raw spinach but I try to drink lots of water and cut back on soft drinks.
I knew one fellow who had almost constant kidney stones when he was in his 50s. I don't know how he could exist, work, sleep but he did until he died suddenly of heart attack. I imagine they were totally unrelated except the body had to at some point say "enough!".
That's hard, man. That's a hard situation.
ReplyDeleteCameron Diaz was at least naked in that tub of popcorn, right?
ReplyDeleteAh yes, the pain scale. It's the most useless invention ever. I've seen a kid in "8 out of 10" abdominal pain playing Wii and eating a chili dog. We had a patient with a 0.75/10 headache once.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure you earned at least an 8. In fact, a lot of the time, the person asking will define 10/10 as kidney stone pain. So the next time someone asks, you'll know what 10/10 really means.
So sad to hear you've been laid low. Next time you should come up to Canada we'd treat you right here.
ReplyDeleteBeen there, passed that. For me though, morphine was a godsend.
ReplyDeleteMichael's comment was spot on--your current stage is the worst part...mostly. It is also horrible right before you pass it because for hours it will feel like you have to pee, but nothing will come out no matter how hard you try. Then the actual passing is a nonevent. Prescription strength ibuprofen was the only thing that helped me as the anti-inflammatory agent eases the spasming.
ReplyDeleteAs you (and I) learned the hard way, acting tough when posed the pain scale question only rewards you with a longer stay in the waiting room. Those who skip straight to a 9.3 are rewarded with an instant morphine drip. Good luck.
Some artist friends of mine got married a few years back and took off for Andalusia the next day. On the way over the groom felt the beginnings of pain. He'd had stones before and could guess what it was, but still, you wait and hope -- what else is there to do?
ReplyDeleteThe next day in Malaga it got bad and they went to the hospital. The long and short is that he had multiple stones and was hospitalized for days. Eventually he insisted that his bride leave and go see the sights. So she'd go to Granada or Cordova or Sevilla and return and tell him all about it. That was their honeymoon. When he got better, he was physically drained, and they cut it short and came home.
Two things: First my reaction was "imagine if this was in the days of no premarital sex -- you'd have been scared to ever have sex again. Talk about scarring." Second, when he left the hospital, he signed his name on the dotted line and owed nothing -- socialized medicine. They figured that, being without insurance, they'd saved themselves a few thousand dollars by flying to Spain when they did.
Been there. Just about passed out in class my senior year of college. I didn't know why at the time. I just know I was on the toilet for 30 minutes, blind as a bat from the pain, and praying to god something would come out....
ReplyDelete@Stephen
ReplyDelete". . . when he left the hospital, he signed his name on the dotted line and owed nothing -- socialized medicine. They figured that, being without insurance, they'd saved themselves a few thousand dollars by flying to Spain when they did."
This sounds like the Spanish taxpayer paid for his treatment, which I find hard to believe. My guess is that they took out temporary health insurance cover for the duration of their trip.
I know Joe doesn't want to buy into the health care debate here, but for anyone interested there's some excellent stuff, all anectdotal, here . . .
http://potentialandexpectations.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/this-americans-experience-of-britains-healthcare-system/
There's even this kidney-stone story among the comments . . .
"Our health insurance, for the small fortune it costs us, tends to not cover very much at all. Here’s one small example. One Friday evening, I started to get a terrible pain in my lower back. I knew exactly what it was – a kidney stone. Anyone who has had one will know it is incredibly painful and not something you can just put up with.
"The only place in town on a Friday evening open for treatment is the E.R. at the local hospital. As soon as my wife gave them the insurance card, you could see the $ signs light up in their eyes. A load of unnecessary scans and tests later, we walk out with a diagnoses (kidney stone) and some extra strength pain pills. The next week, two things turn up. A denial letter from the insurance company – they felt I should have waited until Monday to see my regular doctor, and a bill from the hospital for $4,200. I’m still paying the thing off 8 months later."
My two cents worth, as a Kiwi, is that I'd rather suffer kidney stone problems in New Zealand than America. Actually, given any health problems, I'd rather be here than there.
— Graphite
I get to deal with the pain scale daily, and it is kind of silly. I don't think it has much validity person-to-person; it just [sometimes] helps you track one individual's pain experience.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, here is my favorite pain scale-related thing: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/02/boyfriend-doesnt-have-ebola-probably.html
Hope you feel better soon, buddy.
You have my condolences, Joe.
ReplyDeleteI have had two kidney stones, and they are, without a doubt, the most painful experiences I have ever had. Broken bones, torn ligaments, shingles (though they had a higher career pain value, lasting for 2 weeks) -- nothing is really even close.
The second one was a little less bad, since I sort of knew what to expect. The first one... well, I would think "It can't possibly get any worse than this" when the stone moved a little; the pain would go away for 10 minutes or so; the stone would move some more and it turned out, YES it could hurt more.
Being a guy, I would never even dream of saying this myself, but five different women who have experienced both childbirth and kidney stones (including a nurse at the hospital where I went with the first one) have told me that the pain of kidney stones is actually worse.
In fact, the HR director at my current job was the most recent to make that observation; she said if someone held a gun to her head and told her she had to either have another child or another kidney stone, she would have the child.
Hope you're feeling better. And next time, when they do the pain scale question, tell them it's at least a 10 -- you'll probably get better treatment. There really is no benefit to trying to macho your way through it (well, unless you're a serious masochist).
Joe, the best pain scale, with visual cues, is here:
ReplyDeletepacificu.edu/optometry/ce/courses/22746/ocularpainpg1.cfm
It is Figure1 of the article. and, you were at '10'.
Second, if you can opt for lithotripsy, do so. My doctor advised against it, cuz the stones were 'too small'. Yup, they were small. But what we couldn't see was the spines they bore, like Sauron's mace, each one 1 cm or so long.
Upshot: my stones passed 11 years ago, but left the pain behind. And I mean ALL the pain. So if you can, crush the little buggers before they tear up any more of your insides.
best wishes,
Avi
I'm going to refrain from (over)sharing my own story, except to say: one trip to the ER in my life, and that was it. Believe me when I tell you that 13 years later, I'm still very motivated to drink a LOT of water.
ReplyDeleteFeeling your pain...
Dealt with two stones last August. It was painful, but I don't think it was the worst ever. One moment that was worse (though it was quick) was when I was having a vasectomy about 13 years ago. Turns out when the doctor was grabbing one of the vasa deferentia, there was not enough anesthesia in that area. Rut-roh! In less time that it takes to blink, I went from laying there fairly relaxed to a full facial sweat, overheated, and ready to vomit. They shot me up immediately and everything was soon fine -- but that short experience was pretty amazing, how quick the body reacts to something.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, kidney stones, yeah, what that guy said about drinking water!
THIS is why you have the fedora and cigar:
ReplyDeletehttp://cache1.asset-cache.net/xc/2695720.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=77BFBA49EF878921F7C3FC3F69D929FDF18C803E03C69ECF5276244540E479E7E5361182575F1203B01E70F2B3269972
I was reading from the first and felt very. As soon as, I came down and was reading more than got sadness and enjoyment turned out into sadness. I can realize the pain because my husband had the same problem but now is in getting diet for kidney stone which is really helping him and hope to get removal of kidney stone.
ReplyDelete
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