Gone Fishin' ...

...for a kidney stone. No joke.

A trip to the local Urgent Care last night revealed the biggest kidney stone the doctor had ever seen lodge in my lil ol kidney. Actually, if you want to get technical, the body is only capable of passing a 4 mm stone. Mine is a whopping 3 cm. Fantastic, huh?

I spent most of the YearlyKos Convention trying to pass one that was nothing compared to this. For those of you who've had kidney stones, you know how bad they are. For those of you who haven't, imagine childbirth, or so I've been told by mothers who've had the stones.

Tomorrow I find out if it's going to get lasered to be blown up into smaller pieces that my body can handle, or if I have to have yet another surgery to have it removed.

So, I might be out for a couple days, but hopefully not.

The pain's terrible, the prospect of another medical procedure, much less a surgery is terrifying, and I'm reminded again of the realities of life with Crohn's Disease.

While my Crohn's is in remission, and there's no active disease within my body, the absence of my large intestine (colon) makes it very hard for my body to absorb nutrients and minerals, particularly calcium. For some reason, calcium has always been hard on my body since my ileostomy surgery 9 years ago. I've grown used to the calcium forming these stones in my kidneys several times a year and then my body trying to rid itself of them. Problem is, this is the first time the stones have been so big I can't physically pass them.

The problems my forever-weakened immune system now face are a serious kidney infection, and my blood count being too high and too low, all at the same time. If left unattended, this particular stone has the potential of causing permanent damage to my kidneys, and my body's not quite equipped to deal with that or a serious infection, after a previous infection years ago nearly killed me.

I'm not complaining, because I'm still alive. This is just another day in the life of a person who lives with a chronic illness and the frequent reminders of how precious the good days really are.

This maybe not what I have ordered, but it's another opportunity to learn to appreciate what you have and to continue to make a difference in the lives of others, because in the end, that's what life is really about.