20mg of hydrocodone and nine and a half hours later, I am stone-free. Probably.
Normally when you "pass a kidney stone", what really happens is a part of the stone breaks off and passes through your urinary system. Sometimes you pass the whole damn thing, though. See:
I'm reasonably sure that it's the whole thing because a) it hurt like hell coming through, and b) the ultrasound sized it as 4-5mm, and this stone is about 3mm x 4mm (stone with ruler (87k)).
Next step is to get it analyzed for content.
Well, not for long.
A couple of weeks ago I went to see a specialist about my kidney stone, and we all agreed to leave it alone, since I hadn't had an attack in two years. The alternative is breaking up the stone (I prefer to say "blowing it up") with sound waves in a process called Extracorporeal Shockwave Lithotripsy. The downside to this process is that the fragments of the stone pass out in the usual way, and as any kidney stone sufferer can tell you, it's the transition from kidney to bladder which is painful. One stone in the kidney is better than 500 in the ureter.
So went my thinking.
This morning I woke up at about 6:00 AM with a minor back pain. Well, stabbing back pain but minor compared to what I have now. I tried changing position or massaging it, but it didn't go away. That was, I guess, the first indication of a kidney stone attack.
About half an hour later I decided, to hell with pain coping, I'm getting some drugs. So I took two tylenol + codeine pills. That worked for another hour. Ten minutes ago I took two tylenol + hyrdocodone pills given to me by the good Dr. Schumb back in 1999 when I had my first attack. I will probably be unconscious for the rest of the day. Cheers!
And yes, it still hurts like hell. In fact, it hurts more now, through the building fog of painkillers, than it has at any time in the past. Thank God there's no memory of pain.
And my wife has promised not to go into labor until I wake up, which is awfully sporting of her.
Good night.