Fresh out of stones

24 January 2006

I know you’re all dying to know how the x-ray went yesterday. All 4 of you.

Well, as with many of my hospital visits (except the one where I was carted off to London in an ambulance and they used all the different sirens they had) it involved a fair amount of hanging about in waiting rooms with slightly strange people. First of all there was the waiting in Out-Patients, before I was eventually sent off with a bit of paper to get an x-ray.

In the x-ray department I had to give my date of birth and the spelling of my first name (w-o-n-d-e-r-b-a-b-e) to the receptionist as the doc’s handwriting was utterly illegible. Then there was some more waiting to do. Behind me sat two women I would have gladly bound in duck tape. They did not stop talking ever and the tone of their voices just hit the annoying frequency in my head. Utter busybodies who really needed to just ssshhh.

I was summoned for my x-ray by a slightly crazy woman, whom I had a hard time understanding. She took me to some cubicles and told me that I needed to strip off and put a gown on. “You need put it on backwards,” she said, “The ties are on the back.” Causing me to wonder if she meant I thus had to put it on with the ties at the front. No, I decided, that would be ridiculous and with the size of the marquee I was to be slipping into, the ridiculous factor needed no help.

Once within my tent, Mr Nurse came to find me. He and Mrs Nurse couldn’t decide quite where to take me and when mrs nurse asked me what x-ray I was having done, I replied cleverly, “P.U.B.” I’d read my letter, I knew stuff. “K.U.B.?” she said. “Err, yeah.” I knew that, I was just testing. “Oh, you didn’t need to get into a gown, we could have undressed you on the bed.” Sounds good. Anyway, I was already gowned, so we went back to deciding which x-ray room to use. One was apparently lower than the other, but the one we were right next to had a step stool, so I assured them that this was fine.

I hopped (read: clambered inelegantly) up onto the bed and lay down beneath the enormous throbbing mound of radiation that hung from the ceiling. “Sorry to ask you this,” said Mr Nurse, “But is there any chance you could be pregnant?” “No,” I replied. “Well, you’ll still have to sign this,” he said and proffered a sheet of paper. I couldn’t help but notice the slight disbelief in his voice though, as if he’d heard some unsavoury rumour about me.

I signed my life away and Mr Nurse set about positioning everything so that there would be a picture of my K, my U and my B, rather than my S, my A and my H (some kind of prize may be awarded to the person who can correctly guess which body parts I randomly chose here). I breathed in, breathed out, held it and the room glowed neon green as the x-ray was taken. Mr Nurse wandered off (read: walked purposefully away) to check the result and then I went back out to get changed and wait for the film to be developed.

After a while, Mr Nurse returned with my x-ray and I took it back to Out-Patients. On the way I took the film out of the envelope and showed Dad (for he was there too, you see). There was no stone in sight and you could see my shunt pipe curling through my abdomen like some kind of magnificent tapeworm and down towards the bottom of the picture there was the little bright white v-shaped image of the stent.

Having handed the x-ray in at Out-Patients, I didn’t have to wait too much longer before I was summoned before the consultant. However I did get to see a mad woman called Mrs McSomething fly out of her chair at speed when the nurse called one guy in to see his consultant. Their names were in no way similar, but it was only when she saw the real Mr NotMcAnything getting out of his chair that she sat down again. But I saw her. And then wrote about her. Be ye shamed, strange lady.

Anyway, Mr Kidney Man asked how the stent was treating me (not too badly, but the romance died long ago) and said that the x-rays showed no more stones, so it was effectively job done. In a week or two, the stent will be removed under local anaesthetic. The last time I had people messing about down there while I was only under local was not immensely fun, but this only takes a couple of minutes, so maybe it won’t be quite so bad. Apparently it’s simply a case of going up (great…), grabbing hold of the stent and pulling. Back to peeing cherryade again for a while methinks.

In a month or so Mr Kidney Man will examine my wee to see if there’s anything I should or should not be doing. Like, not eating rocks, I guess. Well, as long as “surfing the internet” doesn’t appear on the “should not” list, we’ll be fine.

Posted in: encounters, health

Comments

5 Responses to “Fresh out of stones”

Elaine
24th January 2006 @ 4:57 pm

Well done, I say! Glad you got your rocks off… ;)

[Reply]
Lauren
24th January 2006 @ 6:22 pm

stomach, arse and hip?

[Reply]
sarah
24th January 2006 @ 7:07 pm

*bows to Elaine* and Lauren, 1 out of 3 ain’t bad. Hip is right and the first two letters of arse are right. And the s is a bit obscure, so, err, good luck with that one ;-) If this was that Mastermind game, I’d be sticking black and white pegs in holes. But it isn’t, so I’m not.

[Reply]
mum
24th January 2006 @ 9:24 pm

artery and spleen?

[Reply]
sarah
24th January 2006 @ 9:55 pm

nope to the artery, although congratulations on getting the two first letters right – I can’t be sure I would have. Spleen is correct! (You got that from Holby City, didn’t you?)

[Reply]