Let's Get Stoned

If you had to venture a guess, what would you say is in this photo?

Well, apparently about 10 kidney stones. (You are undoubtedly thinking Krista, are you kidney-ing me? And the answer, my friends, is No, no, I'm not.) I went to the doctor because I thought that I may have a bladder infection early last week. That may be TMI and if so, get over it.

Ok, so I had a bladder infection. I picked up my antibiotics and the world seemed right again. On Thursday, though, the world was ever-so-slightly off-kilter. Again. The pain in my abdomen led to another phone call - and visit - to my physician.

After going through the normal list of questions and poking and proding in my abdominal region, I was given the glorious opportunity to pee in a cup to assess the situation further. Yessss.

"Well", the doctor started out, "I think you may have a kidney stone".

"A what?!"

"A kidney stone."

"Well, tell me this: On a scale of 1-10, what is your current pain level?"

"Uh...well, I'm not really good at that. You see... when I was in labor, my doctor asked me that same question and I told her that I was at a pain level of 3 when I was having horrendous contractions. I was probably more like a 12 or 15 when I said that. So, I guess I'm at a pain level of 4 right now. But this isn't more painful than giving birth."

"Ok...so, uh... well, that doesn't really help. Let's get a CT scan to see what is going on."

The scan was completely painless and I walked out of the digital imagining clinic an hour after I walked in.

On my way home, my phone rang. And, I was completely surprised to hear that I have not one, not two, but TEN friggin' kidney stones. One is stuck and is partially blocking one of my ureters. The other NINE kidney stones were dispersed pretty evenly between the right and left kidneys.

As one of my friends pointed out, my body doesn't just "do" something. No, when it "does" something, it REALLY does it well. Take making eggs, for example: I made 78 billion of them during the IVF process. Not normal but we accepted it and moved forward. Let's talk about having kidney stones: not one, oh no, that's boring. HOW ABOUT HAVING TEN.

Being an overachiever gets so old.

Hopefully I have passed this bad-boy-kidney-stone by the time that I speak with the physician on Tuesday. If not, I may have to get it crushed so that it won't cause kidney damage. The other nine are OK to stay in there as long as they stay out of my ureters.

Man, I feel like I say that all of the time: PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM MY URETERS. Ugh.