Speaking of kidney stones, I have a funny memory that I'd like to share. Don't worry, it will be not be too tedious. My dad had two tickets to an event that he wanted to go to and that my mom probably had less than no interest in attending, so he took me instead -- the annual dinner of the University of Iowa's main athletic team-supporting organization, whose exact name I can't remember right now. It was a night of awards, emceed by Jim Zabel, one of the main voice of Iowa Hawkeyes basketball and football games on WHO radio in Des Moines, Iowa. The event was full of insanely loyal alumni -- fans of the athletic teams however -- not of the estimable Writers Workshop or James Van Allen (of Van Allen belts fame) or the University of Iowa Medical Center*, or any other truly good reasons to admire the U of I. These were the season-ticket holding, black-and-gold-wearing, fraternity/sorority rah rah types that people on the coasts love to make fun of. Fans not of a cool school's teams, nor of a real powerhouse school's teams (like Florida or Ohio State or Michigan), but of the University of Iowa. It was a seminal moment in my life. I realized I was not one of them -- I would grow up to become basically an anti-jock, not into the college athletics thing. I do love baseball, however.
What does this have to do with kidney stones? My dad had one, right in the middle of the evening's festivities. I assumed at the time that his appendix were going to burst and he would be dead, right there in front of me. We rushed to the University of Iowa Medical Center, where Dad checked in and the cause of his excruciating pain was diagnosed.
I was slightly disappointed. I was 14 at the time, and I was secretly imagining as the events unfolded that I would have to take the wheel of the car for the first time ever and drive us to the hospital, and would be the hero that saved the day. It never happened. Dad got us there and checked in, and I would have to wait two more years to drive for the first time. No big deal. I dealt with it, and never really gave a shit about learning to drive anyway.
The kidney stone gave us an excuse to ditch the silly U of I fan club dinner. Rah rah. Go Hawkeyes.
I've never had a kidney stone, but have dislocated both shoulders, both of which were painful beyond belief. From my dad's expression at the time, I can imagine the what the pain must be like. Tom's description of "being stabbed from the inside out" says exactly what I imagine.
