A friend of mine,
who’s in his 80s, recently called to tell me he’d just passed a kidney stone.
“Worst pain I’ve ever had,” he said. “I’m not sure, but I think it must be easier and less painful for women to pass them…considering the male anatomy.”
I had to disagree with him. I remembered when my former boss, Marge, had a kidney stone and said that up until then, she’d thought labor pains were the worst agony she ever would be forced to endure.
My friend’s call also made me think back to the time when my husband suffered with kidney-stone pain…and was determined to hide it from me.
It all began one day when I happened to notice he was walking slightly bent over.
“Backache,” he explained when I questioned him about it. “I must have pulled a muscle or something.”
“Doing what?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Adjusting the position of your recliner?”
As the days passed, however, his posture grew even worse, until he bore a striking resemblance to Quasimado. I then began to take his pain more seriously.
“Maybe you should see a doctor…or a chiropractor,” I suggested, even though past experience had taught me I probably would have had a bigger response if I’d have suggested it to my Rottweiler.
“No, I’m fine,” he said, forcing what only could have been described as a constipated smile. “It’s nothing…really!”
The next night, I woke up to discover I was alone in bed and the house was completely dark and silent. I was just about to get up and search for my missing husband when I heard faint moaning coming from the living room.
“Honey, is that you?” I called out. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine!” his voice responded, almost too brightly. “I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to disturb you with all of my tossing and turning. You go back to sleep. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“But I thought I heard you moaning,” I said.
“Me? Moaning? Don’t be silly!” He forced a laugh. “I had the TV on for a few minutes. You probably heard that.”
Sighing, I rolled over, closed my eyes and tried to get back to sleep. Just as I was about to doze off, I heard a much louder groan, followed by another. I sat up.
“Shhhh!” I could hear my husband’s hushed voice scolding himself out in the living room. “Stop groaning or Sally will hear you and make you go to the doctor’s! Why are you groaning anyway, you idiot? It’s not helping anything!”
No sooner had he finished saying the words, did an unmistakable cry of pain slip out.
“Are you sure you’re OK?” I called out to him. Not waiting for an answer, I got up and tiptoed out to the living room. There, kneeling on the floor with his arms wrapped around the footrest of his recliner and his head resting on the seat, was my perspiration-covered husband.
“I’m fine, honestly!” he was shouting, still thinking I was in the bedroom. “You go back to sleep now!”
I cleared my throat. “Having a secret affair with your recliner?” I asked.
His head snapped up, his eyes as wide as saucers. “Uh, this must look pretty weird, huh?” he said. He wiped his damp forehead with the back of his hand.
“That does it! I’m calling the ambulance!” I headed for the phone.
“Nooo!” he cried, struggling to his feet. He tried to block my path, but took only one step and doubled over in pain. He sank to his knees and hugged the recliner again.
“This will go away,” he said, his voice muffled by the seat cushion. “I’ll be fine by tomorrow. No need for a hospital…no need at all.”
A half-hour later (only because I threatened him with divorce) we were on our way to the emergency room. A half-hour after that, he was admitted to the hospital.
A slew of tests and x-rays followed, then the doctor entered the room. “I have bad news and good news,” he said. “The bad news, Mr. Breslin, is you have a kidney stone that’s causing nearly a complete blockage. The good news is I’m pretty sure we can go up and get it rather than have to make an incision.”
“Go Up? Up where?” my husband squeaked. “And with what?”
It’s a pity cell phones with cameras weren’t available back then because I’d have loved to have captured a photo of his expression at the precise moment the doctor answered his questions.
But if I thought that expression was camera-worthy, his next expression far surpassed it.
“We’re going to start prepping you for the procedure,” the nurse said to him after the doctor left. “I’ll be right back with the Fleet.”
Once my husband and I were alone, he looked at me and asked. “She’s coming back with a fleet? What does the navy have to with any of this? Are they sending in a group of volunteer medics from a ship or something?”
Never before had I struggled so hard to hold back my laughter.
“Um…Fleet is a brand of enema,” I felt obligated to warn him.
My husband did just fine with the preparation and the procedure and later was presented with the stone, which was much smaller than I’d imagined for causing so much pain. But it had sharp, jagged edges that made it kind of resemble a star. And because of those sharp points, the star caused some scratching and bleeding during its maiden voyage through the ureter.
For that problem, the nurse kindly provided my husband with a thick, bulky sanitary-napkin.
The first time he got up out of his hospital bed, he walked as if he’d just ridden a horse cross-country.
“How can you women stand wearing these things every month?” he muttered.
While he was recovering at home afterwards, I made the mistake of mentioning Marge’s comment about kidney-stone pain being even worse than labor pains. Little did I know my words would create a monster.
For weeks after that, my husband talked about how “bravely” he had suffered for nearly two weeks with excruciating kidney pain before going to the hospital. And even then, he said, he wouldn’t have given in if I hadn’t forced him to.
“Women are always saying that if men had to give birth, there wouldn’t be any kids, because men are such sissies about pain,” he said. “Well, I guess I just proved that theory wrong, didn’t I!”
By then, I’d had just about enough of “Super Kidney-Stone Man” and his tales of courage and endurance.
“You know that tiny little stone they removed from you?” I asked him. “Well, imagine that it weighed at least seven pounds and was about 20 inches long when they dragged it out of you. That’s what labor feels like!”
Funny, but after that, he never mentioned it again.
Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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