I’d never thought of myself as someone who is shy, but then
again I had never had a ureter stent.
Oh, the unpleasant overtone of it all. I bounded through life until my
early thirties without a real care in the world. Until the day I had a ureter stent put
in. Rather, I should say the day the
ureter stent was removed is the day I was confident of my shyness. Well, removed makes it sound like a surgical
procedure that was done to remove this apparatus. A more accurate description of the event
would include the words yanked and pulled with great force to expel the contraption
from my nether region.
Apparently a ureter stent is all the rage for those who have
kidney stones blasted. Or, in my case,
one who had the stones blasted, but because of some bad karma from the first
thirty two years of my life the pulverized stones clogged the exit of my kidney
and thus created a firestorm of procedures which included the stent. Bad karma
is unpleasant.
I vaguely remember my urologist explaining that a stent
would be in place, but didn’t think too much about it because of the pain from
the kidney stone and my eye on the prize of getting that thing out. Nothing could compare to the back slicing
pain of a kidney stone. How bad could a
ureter stent be I thought to myself as I lay on the hospital bed looking over
at the odd looking bed pan that I was to be using to collect my urine? A mere 10 ccs had been expelled into the
contraption. I feel smart, as in doctor
smart when I can throw ccs into the conversation. There really is nothing like
having your own urine in a clear plastic bedpan like thing on your bedside
table in the hospital to humble a guy.
Well, it wasn’t so bad until day two of my hospital stay when I got a
roommate. I thought Blue Cross allowed
for single rooms, but apparently not.
It wasn’t immediately after awaking from surgery the second
time for kidney stones that week that I noticed my new friend the ureter stent.
You would have thought it would have been at the top of the list of things on
my mind, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t until
after I took off the gown that was too short and not wide enough around to
completely cover all of me and put on street clothes that I was met with the
realization that I had a new dangling friend down there. A long clear string was hanging out of my
ureter, the likes of which was fishing line.
I wondered if somehow something had been left inside of me after the
surgery. Would I be the next interview
on an upcoming episode of 20/20? “Patients Who Left the Hospital with an
Unintended Souvenir”. I pulled on it a
little just to see what it might be, though in the back of my mind all I could
envision was me without my good friend down there and didn’t want to pull too
hard. Was there money attached to the
other end? Would there be some kind of a
protocol for what to do with this string that hadn’t yet been shared with
me? Did I need to pull it two short tugs
and one long one before going pee? What
were the details surrounding this fishing line? I needed to know.
The horror of it all was explained to me upon asking one of
the post op nurses. Apparently the clear
string served one purpose. My urologist
would use it to expel the stint after seven days. This was not good news. Would he hook it up to some kind of
contraption that would pull it? Would he
use his own hand? Always one for needing
more details I pressed for further clarification. The red and pink in my face washed away as
the nurse explained that my doctor would pull swiftly on the string to remove
the ureter stint. There would be no
Novocain. There would be no
anesthesiologist present to put me under.
There would be no topical anesthetic.
She could have simply said it would be an experience in terror, because
that what it would be.
I had seven days to ponder and work myself into a full-fledged
panic about the stent removal. Each day
I wondered if there would be some other magical way to remove this thing
without any tugging and yanking. Alas, I
was resolved to swallow my pride and hope for the best. The big day arrived. There was no fanfare. There were no well wishes from friends. There wasn’t even a “good luck” from the receptionist
at the urologist’s office. I was simply
to go in and wait for the doctor to come in and yank this contraption out of
me. Those six minutes of waiting in the
little room under a paper gown are by far the worst six minutes in a man’s
life. I stood there waiting for what I
knew was going to be perhaps the most unpleasant experience of my life. It was one that may even scar me not only
mentally, but physically if the procedure was carried out incorrectly. I did a quick Hail Mary, even though I am not
Catholic. I had seen this act done in a
number of movies and though there was no need to leave anything to chance on
this particular day. I said a quick, “Please
forgive me, Jesus, for all of my sins to date” prayer. Then my heart skipped a few beats and soared
when the urologist walked in the door. It was as horrific as I had imagined. A tiny plastic blue tube attached to a
fishing line was yanked from my ureter followed by my audible sounds of pain.
I remember leaving his office a humbled and free man. Though the humility of it was extraordinary,
the freedom had me vowing never to do anything wrong for the rest of my living
days. Trust me; you don’t want a ureter
stent.
