The Stone Belt

Did you know that we live in the Stone Belt? A little medical humor for ya. Only funny to doctors. Really, it's not that funny at all, just a nickname for the span of states between Georgia and Arizona where the most occurences of kidney stones happen.

The point, please.

Greg woke up Friday with terrific pain in his left side, right where the..... oh wait, there's really nothing in your left side. Lots of phone calls to my really wonderful nurse friend and a trip to the Urgent Care place later, he had a probable diagnosis of kidney stone. CT Scan confirmed it, and a painful weekend was what we looked forward to.

Saturday morning arrived with almost no pain at all. Weird? Apparently, Stoney has stalled. Somewhere between the kidney and the.... ummm, exit. Monday we went to a urologist who was very informative and quite interesting. The short of it: lots of small kidney stones, one big'un that's causing all the problems, x-ray now and again in a week to check Stoney's progress, and then we'll see what needs to be done. I learned a new word too: Lithotripsy. It's a doctor's showy-offy way of saying, "blast that sucker to smithereens and the pieces of it'll come on out on it's own."

So there you go. Greg mowed yards today (I maintain that sitting on his riding mower is about as hard as driving a motorized wheelchair... he even gets to stretch his legs out like an armchair!) and he's living life like normal, waiting for that stone to move. Maybe it will, maybe it won't! He feels a dull ache in his side all the time, which is from his kidney being enlarged and bothered, but other than that, he's good. Got the vicodin on stand-by, just in case.