The pain.

Most of the time I’ve been writing about the pain we feel when we lose someone, whether it is because they die or the leave us and we have to move on. It’s some bad. Still this time I want to talk about physical pain, like when you hurt yourself, break a bone or in my case, when you have kidney stones. Those unfortunately come quite often to me, and it doesn’t change that each and every single time I get the pain, I just can’t take it. I will probably never get used to it.

There is a movie that always comes to my mind when talking about pain. It is The Witches of Eastwick. With the trio of Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer playing opposite to Jack Nicholson. When asked about they worst fears, each character explain theirs and why, Pfeiffer’s says she is scared of pain. She doesn’t mind death or getting older, but she wonders why there has to be so much suffering. And of course that is used against them by the male character. When they need to overcome their worst fears, she is the only one that cannot do it because she is so overwhelmed by how much pains she’s in that they need to figure out a way around so she doesn’t die from it.

The issue is that most of the time it is so bad that you just want to die, but it doesn’t happen.

I’ve never broken any bones, I have just twisted ankles, mostly the same one. The last time the soreness lasted almost a year, according to the doctor it is because of age. But the time before it was while hiking, we were in France, 2h from the car, at some 2500 m above sea level. We were already going down, returning to the vehicle, when I stepped on a loose stone and it flipped and I twisted my ankle. I fell on the floor and had to sit so much in pain I was. The tourists that were behind me just passed me over, they didn’t even stopped to check on me or even acknowledge I was there. I felt invisible, hurt and mad at them. My friend told me I needed to get away from their path and move one. Honestly it was not like a narrow trail or anything, they could perfectly have diverted and avoided me, they were just selfish stupid people. As for my friend I told him to f off… I was in pain, remember. So I said to him I would move as soon as it would hurt a little less. Which it did and in a few minutes we could resume our way down. Slowly but surely.

Kidney stones is something I know about. I started having issues with them around 15 years ago. At first it was only sand like, so it would hurt when I pee and be a bit annoying in my bladder, but that was it. The worst was feeling some pinching in it. Then a few years later I woke up with an awful back pain. I felt I had broken my spine or something. Then I started to throw up and feel miserable and then hurting like a mofo. It was a proper stone in my kidney. I went to the emergency room to get it checked. I was a mess. I couldn’t walk or stand straight. They took me in but were more into it being some wind or nothing major. Xrays showed 7 mm cristal stuck in the kidney. They decided to keep me overnight for more checking.

That night the hospital was full so I just slept on a bed in a hallway, with my belongings under me, and alone. My boyfriend by that time thought I didn’t need him so he went clubbing as it was the anniversary of the club that day. He would come and pick me up in the morning if I was released. I was too much in pain to be mad, but his friends already told him that was very lame of him, going to have fun whilst his partner was in hospital.

They sent me home with an appointment for more scans a month later, and in the meantime just hoping for it to disappear. I went to several herb shops to get something to dissolve it and get rid of the stones. By the time I got the new xrays they were all gone. It became just a bad memory.

The following years I had just sand again. Always in the spring. Every year I had a little reminder of how it was, but nothing major. I supposed I was out of the woods.

In 2016,while I was with the trash (La Basura) I had another episode. This time it was really bad. He was about to get his Easter days off, me too. But my kidney decided differently. I don’t remember how it happened this time. I remember I went to the ER on a Friday and they did scans and stuff and sent me back home with pain killers for the weekend. The stone was half way down and again pretty big. Saturday I was more or less OK. Sunday I woke up in pain. He had to go to work so he left me there to rot, saying I needed to drink a lot of water. Issue was every time I did it I would have to go throw up because of the pain. He had injectable pain killers but never suggested I could take them.

I layed in bed, if you can call that laying anyway, and then on the floor and on the stairs and basically in every flat surface I found on my way to the door. The thing you must know about this pain is it never stops. There is no position or posture where it goes off… Only one way is in the shower with hot water on your back, but you can’t stay like that forever. So at some point you only wish you could pass out and just don’t feel anything. But it never comes. You still hurt. So I went down to the neighbours and asked them to take me to hospital. The woman was my doctor so she said she could give me some pain killers on the way. When we got to her office she said she forgot her keys so nothing to do. She dropped me at the ER and I went inside screaming.

Once there my ex behaved like a human being and asked for strong medecine. I got to try morphine for the first time and it was the only thing that did calm me down. Finally. They scheduled surgery to put a probe between my kidney and my bladder to release the pain and put the stone back up since it hadn’t moved enough, and then another procedure to get it blasted and taken off. All under total anesthesia. Again my first time to be put off to sleep.

They did it. All went OK. But I had to stay in the hospital for 3 days. They left one CC probe inside me and another one to take the urine out. This last one was pulled off of me the next day. It wasn’t painful but uncomfortable. The second one stayed until surgery, it pinched me every time I went to the loo. Of course my ex complained that he had to spend his days off coming back and forth from home to the hospital. The fact I was there and not happy wasn’t not enough.

After surgery they left another probe for a week just to make sure no more pain, and it was pulled off of me 7 days later with no anesthesia. It was very unpleasant. Just a little pill for the discomfort but that’s all. I swore I would never go back to that again. And I kept the promise for a couple of years.

Two years ago, I was at the beach when I suddenly felt some back pain accompanied by some funny sweat. I didn’t know what it was until I felt that typical crush on the spine. I was 10 minutes from my car and 20 from my house. I made the way as I could. Trying to breathe through the pain as much as I was able to. When I go to the car the seated position was OK. I drove home although I had to stop mid way because I was getting dizzy. I could feel a burst of heat coming up and a scratching pain down my belly, going downwards my bladder. And then it stopped. All gone. I got home and called for help. My best friend came and was going to take me to hospital but as the pain was gone he didn’t. We ate something and in the evening he left. That was all for that episode.

Last Friday I wasn’t feeling well so I layed down after lunch. My side was painful but I thought it was some bad movement. Suddenly the spine hurt. I couldn’t breathe and I remembered all the pain from before. I thought it would be gone soon if I breathed through it, like last time. It did. For a couple of days I was fine. But on Sunday I woke up hurting, and the pain never went. It was there, constant, loud. I threw up. I couldn’t eat or drink anything. Just loud pain. I went to the shower and it stopped, but as soon as the water was off it came back as bad as it had been before. I called my partner and told him to take me to hospital ASAP. While I was waiting for him and cursing and crying and trying to pass out, I remembered how bad it is.

He took me to the ER, we stayed there for 3h. They took me in within seconds of arriving and the doctor came to see me very quick. She ordered some scans and blood tests to make sure I had no infection. The time we stayed there was basically waiting for the results. As the 3 stones were out of the kidney and small enough to make their way to the bladder, she sent me home with pain killers and a pill to smooth the path. She insisted that if I had fever or pain that didn’t go away with the pills to come back, but not to worry as I should be fine.

As I am writing this, I’m still waiting for the stones to come out. I haven’t felt them leave the body and I don’t know if they are still inside me, the pain is gone although I feel sore and I still need to take the pain killers regularly. But the sharp «please someone kill me now» pain is not back, and I hope it stays that way.

When we are OK we tend to forget how awful some things are. And how much we suffer, so we need some reminder of it, although I wish it would not hurt that much.

April 2023