My kidney stone baby

More than a quarter of a century ago, as I labored to deliver my second son (VBAC, pitocin, sans pain medication), his uncle passed a kidney stone. For a short time, distracted by his own pain, Uncle M’s delivery eclipsed my own. The family didn’t learn about the new Lilly until later in the day when M had his medical situation under control and remembered the phone call announcement he had received in the throes of his own agony.

Welcome to the family, Griffin Hudson!

Recently, this all came full circle.

G had complained last week about having dreadfully painful gas. For about three hours he suffered from what he described as excruciating pain in his lower abdomen. He believed it was related to some crappy takeout food from the previous night. Eventually, his pain resolved and, with a vow to eat better, life went on. Until yesterday.

This time the pain woke him up. There was vomiting, belching and discomfort beyond what he had experienced the previous week. After learning about his situation (I was at work), I phoned his primary care doctor and asked a nurse to reach out to him. The next thing I heard was that he was in the ER at Memorial Hospital. I left school and headed right over.

There is nothing that brings out my momma lion than seeing one of my children in pain. I did my usual ER things – called my brother for his opinion from afar and spoke quietly, yet forcefully, with staff asking them to please get him something to dull the pain. Watching my adult son writhing in agony left me feeling powerless, with his tears prompting my own.

It was almost unbearable.

I did what I could – got him warm blankets, held his hand and encouraged him to focus on breathing deeply and evenly. We waited. After about 90 minutes, with his lab work being processed and his iv fluids finally being augmented with pain medication, he slept. When the MD made his way into the room, G was woken up and related his symptoms. The doctor’s assessment was a kidney stone, which was confirmed a couple of hours later with a CT scan.

While we waited for discharge instructions, including a referral for a urologist and various prescriptions, I was surprised to note that the problematic pain scale of 1-10 was still featured as a graphic on the wall. Happily, the MD only dispensed 6 tablets of pain medication in his orders. That’s 24 less than the oral surgeon made available after one of my son’s wisdom teeth extractions.

I can’t argue the validity of the claim that passing a kidney stone is more painful than childbirth, having only experienced one of those situations personally, but I definitely am convinced that kidney stones can be excruciating. Those of you who have had the misfortune of being in the position my son (and his uncle) was in, what advice might you offer? Have you had repeated kidney stones? Have you made changes to your diet or other behaviors? And, women who have birthed babies, which would you rather deliver – a baby or a stone?