Happy No Beer...

Happy New Year!


Well as this year came to an end, to another end came a kidney stone.

I’m writing this from a hospital bed, where I am charged with flushing out a kidney stone to my front end. (The original front end as opposed to the front (ne back end)).

Yesterday I’d left work earlier than I’d intended because I felt quite rough, slightly nauseous with a dull ache in the offside kidney area. I decided to make myself popular by not going to Andy and Lee’s house to see in the New Year, and instead lie in bed. Everyone made their way over there at about 6 pm. I was woken up by something at about 10 pm, and then the mutt started barking at a passing windmill or something even less visible, so that was that, I was awake.

So I decided despite my aches to gird my loins and head off to the party, and after cleaning myself up, got there at 11.45 pm. It turned out that it wasn’t a ‘party’ of the kind that I’d expected, but a family get together. I had one glass of wine to knock the edge off my stark sobriety, but didn’t really feel like any more than that. I got a text from Mum and Dad at about 30 seconds to midnight which was really nice, I wasn’t expecting that. By about 1.30 am, we were all more or less lying down, trying to get to sleep. The dull ache became a sharp and full on pain, and I couldn’t get comfortable at all. I felt a bit like a dog trying to find a comfy position…constantly going round and round if you know what I mean.

At some point, going to hospital presented itself, and seemed like a sensible idea, to find out what it was (or wasn’t) at least, and, after insisting to Daile that I could drive myself, I set off to Logan Hospital, about half an hour away to the North.

The road from Jimboomba to Logan is called Beaudesert Rd, but its not all that smooth. If you’re in a standard car (with suspension) its not too bad, but if you’re in my ute you feel every bump. The car has a stiff rear suspension anyway to handle the loads, but to make matters worse, I’d recently over inflated the tyres to 42 psi instead of the more conventional 34, so as to improve fuel efficiency. I don’t normally mind a hard ride as much as I mind an empty wallet, but last night it was a bit too much.

I mention all this because I was driving slowly to mitigate the jarring ride on my by now very sensitive kidney, and was tucked into the side of the road to make it apparent to the cars that occasionally came up behind that I was happy for them to overtake me. But one of the cars didn’t seem to get the message. I gave a quick indicate left to underline my point…and the car behind put on its Police lights. The officer that came over to me was clutching a breathalysing tool, and was expecting me to fail it… but of course I didn’t. He said that he’d said to his partner that this one is DEFINITELY drunk! I was a bit offended to be honest with you! Ha ha. So I told him why I was driving slowly (60 kmh in a 100) and he’d obviously had a kidney stone himself at some point cos he urged me to turnaround and go to the hospital in Beaudesert. He said that the hospital at Logan would have a queue. So I did.

When I got there, it looked shut. I drove round it and was about to move on when I spotted the ambulance entrance and got out with my rucksack, which suddenly felt like a sack of spuds. The doors were locked but there was an intercom. I had to explain why I was there, how long I’d had it, and the mating habits of the lesser spotted wongaronga bird before she let me in. Whilst I’d been explaining all this, the pain had been increasing at an alarming rate, so that when I got in and handed the nurse my Medicare card, she handed me a sick bag, and I promptly filled it! I was on an examination table in minutes, and writhing around in agony. This pain was the most intense thing that I can remember having. They called the doctor on the phone to see what they could give me for it. He said some drug or other, and the nurse said to him (I know it was a bloke by the way) that it was going to need more than that! So he agreed that I could have Morphine, but only 5mg. She gave me that, but it didn’t help at all. She then put something else in my leg, but that didn’t help either. Then the doctor came down from wherever he was, looking sleepy and they decided to give me a drug that came as a suppository! This despite having just thoroughly established that I had a bag, and how long I’d had it! I said ‘….er, and where’s that going to go then?’, to which they both went ‘Aah right’ and then went to get it! I had to then spell it out! ‘I don’t have a rectum, or any suitable orifice for that…of course!!’ Then the penny dropped and I finally got a decent shot of Morphine, which STILL only just made a little difference! But after about 10 more minutes of them scratching their heads, the pain started to abate, as quickly as it had scaled up, and what a relief that was.

They admitted me to the hospital and I got a room, the door to which they left open. By this time it was 4 am. At 6 am they started to have a conversation that woke me up. I’d actually got ear plugs in already, so you can imagine that they were not being all that quiet. The nursing station was directly across the corridor from my room. At about 6.20, a man came into my room with really squeaky shoes on, to empty the bin! WHY is it that hospitals are so impossible to sleep in? In my (considerable) experience of them, they always do this, and they always serve food that you’d never eat anywhere else! When my breakfast arrived about an hour later, it was consistent with that Uber-standard. It seems to be an international one.

My cannula fell out of my right arm, and they were all tutting about that. I didn’t like to point out that since it was on the fold of my elbow, I’d probably pushed it out because I suck my thumb! They seemed unable to get another into the other arm, but finally after 3 attempts by two nurses they did….only to be told by the morning doctor that I could go.
Notwithstanding all of that, the staff were excellent, and I was very glad to be there. I’ll have to go to Logan after all tomorrow to have a ‘CAT’ scan? This will establish where the stone is, and whether its going to make its way out via the ‘old chap’ unaided or whether they’re going to have to ‘bombard’ it, which I believe they do with ultrasound, to break it up. The stone is a crystalline thing I that is jagged, and is made from protein.



They think that its happened because I’ve been eating too much meat, drinking too much beer, and saying ‘gday mate’ too much. In other words, the sham is up…and I’ve got to start behaving like an Englishman again!