Steve at Little Tiny Lies has a kidney stone. My Grandmother in her lifetime had a couple of those and she says it's very comparable to being in labor.

I'm sure that will give Steve something to ponder as he prepares to deliver. I hope it passes quickly and he's back to his blogging. Although the opiates are a good plus....you don't get that in labor.

My ex-husband had a couple of bouts with kidney stones. The very first was a night I will never forget.

We had been dating about a month and he invited me over to cook for him. Well my cooking skills pretty much consisted of scrambling eggs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but I'm a woman, I figured I could do this.

So the menu was meatloaf, macaroni and cheese and some vegetable which now slips my mind. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, I only had to call my Grandma twice during preparation.

It actually didn't come out too bad. Edible, coulda been better but what the hell. So after we cleaned up the kitchen, grabbed a couple of beers and went to watch some TV. Should of been a clue of the next twenty years of my life...but I was young and dumb.

After about 30 minutes he gets up without saying anything and heads into the bathroom. In about 5 minutes I hear this loud retching starting...and it just keeps on going. Oh shit. I am actually at this time thinking somehow I food poisoned him. The retching continues until I hear a loud thud in the bathroom and then a huge groan.

I actually ran to the bathroom and there he was laying on the floor doubled up holding his stomach. This is not a good thing. Now that I think of it, maybe it should of been his clue for what was in store for the next 20 years...but I digress.

I ask him if he wants me to call an ambulance but since we are 30 minutes from the nearest town, I am thinking he could be dead by then. The man was green.
He moans "no, give me a minute". Uh huh.

I go call Grandma and ask what should I do for food poisoning. She asks me if I'm sick and I assure her I feel fine. So she assures me it probably wasn't my food. So I head back to the bathroom deciding maybe I could figure this out since I'm in my first year of nurse's training.

Now he says "get me to a hospital". Ok, so much for nursing skills but I can drive a car. As you can imagine the drive was horrible...way too much moaning and retching.

Within an hour of arriving at the ER he was diagnosed with renal calculi aka kidney stones. ER's are much different in Iowa, you actually get seen the same day.

Twenty years later I wish it had been food poisoning. Again...I'm digressing.