2. Kidney Stones- a bladderful of fun

I've had kidney stones once, maybe twice before. My first kidney stone was in 1998 and was fairly mundane, as episodes of horrible pain in your abdomen go. I thought I was dying and went to the ER (with one heroical Father Christmas acting as my wheelman, gods bless 'im) where they told me they could shoot it with ultrasonic waves for a lot of money or they could give me a prescription for pain meds and I could hole up at home with those for a couple days. I chose the latter and tried to grind a Percoset up into a joint. Blah blah college.

The second time was maybe a year ago, and may have been a kidney stone or may have just been some mild food poisoning (my doctor, back when I had one, thought the latter), but at any rate, after puking like Veronica Cartwright did in The Witches of Eastwick right before she died while the guy who later played Nathaniel Fisher just read his book, I felt fine.

That's not even from the right movie, but that's what it looked like.

Come along after the break (this seems to be the thing to say in this format) and I'll tell you about my latest experience with mineral buildup in your innards.

 Tuesday and Thursday nights I have French class. I take the train across town to this district filled with bars and GAP stores. I'm usually a little early as I like to allow for train delays or or particularly crowded ones I can pass up for the next one. So I often stop at this little traiteur asiatique (Asian/Chinese Takeout) and get un brochette de poulet (chicken on a stick). Then I go another block to a nondescript door between a restaurant and a hair salon that has doormen and enter a code. The class is on the third floor. I sit in a little room with three or four other people and try to understand what this lady is asking us in French about a worksheet.

This past Thursday started out no differently. But shortly in, as we were looking at the subtle differences in the conjugations of lire (to read), dire (to say or tell), mettre (to put or place), and repondre (to respond), my belly started to hurt. Moments later I broke out in a cold sweat. I played it cool for a bit, though; the room's not air-conditioned (the French seem opposed to atmosphere control) and, well, let's just say that the prevalence of cheese in my recent diet has been causing some...difficulties in the normal functioning of some bodily processes. Vous Comprenez? So I decided I was just a little warm, and who knew? Maybe that brochette had been sitting out a little too long, you know? Nothing serious. It'll be gone in a sec.

But it didn't go away. It got worse. So I got up to go to les toilettes. I wasn't going to drop a deuce in here because everyone in this place would hear me (bathrooms are small things here, with little thin doors between you and the rest of the establishment) and I've got weird hangups in that department anyway, psychologically and (currently) physically, but maybe some air and a chance to move around would help me. I felt like I needed to pee a lot, but just like when I peed when I first came in to class there was just a trickle.

[Mes Cheres Amis: as this story revolves around a condition that often touches on urination and body regions of a somewhat personal nature, these things will be coming into our story a lot. Be strong.]

Despite all that I did in fact feel better. I returned to class and rocked an activity where we identified other verbs that conjugate like the ones we'd been studying. Class ended, I went home.

By the time I got home I was convinced my troubles pooping were serious. My gut hurt bad. I spent some time on the can but, uh, got no relief. Megan began to get worried when I stopped playing down the pain. She unfolded my bed for me and I lay down, just wanting to go to sleep and deal with this thing in the morning, when the pharmacy opened. At this point I was still thinking I just needed something to move the mail along, if you get my meaning.

But no! No sleep for me! Captain Agony's just getting going. It hurt so much that I had to puke. I remember fondly that time where I felt this bad, but after a truly astonishingly violent hurl-fest I felt completely cured. I knelt before the porcelain altar to make offerings.

This is where the magic happens.

Sadly, they were no help. And I worked at it, ladies and gentlemen. At one point I felt as though I was conducting a gastrointestinal archeological expedition, where I was trying to figure out what- well, you don't want all that detail, do you? Anyway, the puking did not help me feel better.

Eventually Megan, who had been on MD.com or one of those kinds of web sites, asking me specific questions about the pain, said, “I think you have kidney stones.” At first I was all, “No, it's just constipation,” but as the evening wore on and the pain got worse I started to consider it. Or rather, I would have considered it but I was in too much pain. I couldn't lie still. A twisting, writhing pain like a kick in the jibblies rolled around in my left lower abdomen, and a fine net of fire overlay my bladder. Only moving offered any relief, and even then it was minor.

Just like this.

Megan asked, “Should we go to hospital or wait until the morning for a pharmacy to open?” I couldn't decide. At this point I was still holding on to the idea that all I needed was a massive poo and all would be well. I remembered this one episode of Jeff Corwin where he ministered to a constipated elephant by putting on these arm-length industrial strength rubber gloves and manually dis-impacting him. By this time I was so jealous of that elephant (and you, dear readers, are so lucky I can't find pictures or video of that episode). But to wait til the morning for a pharmacy to give me a laxative or even one of those enemas-in-a-bottle seemed impossible. I could barely handle a five minute wait, much less the six or seven hours that stood between me and their opening.

But the hospital! To get our visas we had to get this specially-designed insurance plan for people in our situation. My insurance had lapsed when I was no longer employed by the school district, and the university wouldn't cover Megan while she was out of the country. France wasn't going to enfold us in its universal healthcare arms, so before they'd give us a visa we had to get this plan, put together for people in our position. It's got a $500 deductible and I think it's doubtful that it would work at all. So the idea of going to a hospital and amassing huge costs did not appeal. It horrified, it panicked. But the pain! It could not be borne! I opened my mouth to reply but couldn't.

Megan, the angel, said, “Or do I need to make this decision?” I think I nodded.

Megan started calling cab companies. Nothing. None of them answered. We needed to go through this automated service that would assign our request to one company or another, but to do that we needed to enter which arrondissment we were in, and our phones won't let us access the keypad while on an active call!

I'd been pacing- as much as was possible in le petit bateau- face all twisted. Finally I said, “Let's just walk up to Montparnasse and St.-Michel and flag one down.” Those are two big streets that intersect about a block from our building. We would have to go down the 111 anyway, so we might as well get moving. We went.

I hurt and stumbled down the street, Megan holding my arm tightly. I joked that I looked too drunk for a cabbie to want to pick us up. She said that I just looked like someone who needed to go to the hospital.

At the intersection we had to flag for a while before we got one. He flashed his lights at us from across the intersection, waiting at the light. When we got in, Megan frantically told him to go to the hospital. They said things back and forth to each other for a sec. Then he swerved and made a 270-degree turn in the middle of the intersection, cars honking, veering out of our way. Turned out the ER was really just a block or so away, but rather than take us some circuitous route, following traffic laws, he just swung around and took the shortest paved path. This happens in France a lot. Paved surfaces are for driving on; the rules and such that modify which ones you can drive on when and in which direction seem to be somewhat optional. Usually this is a point of annoyance. You never know when someone on a scooter will decide to drive on the sidewalk for a while because it's easier to get to a parking spot he wants. But right then, since we survived, I was glad for that tendency. I could have walked that extra block, but I wouldn't have been happy about it.

The driver went right up the ramp for ambulances. A trio of twenty-somethings stood outside, and as we clambered out the one girl started talking to us. Megan said a couple things to her, then looked at me worriedly. Then I noticed that one guy had a mashed-up nose with a wad of tissue crammed into it, a messed-up face and a shirt covered in dried blood.

“What's going on?” I mumbled as we went through the doors and the girl said “Bonne chance!”a bit sarcastically.

“She said the place is really understaffed,” Megan murmured. “They've been here for five hours and still haven't been seen.” She led me into a waiting room filled with people on which gauze and bloodstains figured heavily. We sat down at the registration desk. There was no one on the other side, and no medical staff visible. It was kind of hard for me to see straight.

Stay tuned for the rest of this exciting story!