Something So Small...

The resolution is kinda crappy, but that's because my camera doesn't have a macro function that I can figure out how to use. That little spec next to the nickel is a kidney stone that my body decided to pass this morning. As if getting to bed at 2:30 am isn't bad enough, at 5 am I was woken up by an intense ache/pain in my lower left back that wouldn't go away. It would increase and decrease slightly in intensity, but nothing would make it go away. I tried a hot bath, drinking water, but to no avail. Having had gall stones before, I knew this felt pretty familiar and was prepared for some sort of news about kidney disfunction. At about 7am I walked over to the registration table to register for my sessions, hoping I could just muscle through the pain until it passed (and thanks, Suzanne for the advil!), but at about 7:30 I knew I just wasn't going to be able to make it.

I walked back over to the reg table and said in a calm voice:

"Excuse me, I don't want to panic you, but I think I might need medical attention."

LOL -- what a freakin' nerd. In any case, the security guard on duty gave me a lift over to the hospital where I checked myself in to emergency. It pretty much sucks to have to go to the hospital in a strange town with no one there with you to comfort you or to take care of the details of checking in, etc., but there I was. The nursing staff were totally awesome, and I felt much better just being in their hands. I got a CAT scan today (enter the doughnut, my son!) which was a trippy experience, but I didn't actually get to see the results of the scan (darn!). All they could really do for me in the end is a) tell me it's a kidney stone (which helps a lot, when you are worried you might ahve something seriously wrong with you), b) give me pain meds (I refused the morphine in favor of ibuprofen -- what was I thinking? But it still helped a lot), and c) let me lay down in a safe place while my body went to work. At around 10 am or so, I passed the stone. What you can't see due to lack of detail is that the little bugger has sharp crystal points on it. I'll see if I can track down a macro from someone or a magnifying glass at the very least to show you later. I felt remarkably better after that, and was discharged at around 10:30 am or so. I walked back to the convention center and managed to get into my session around 11:30 am for the last thirty minutes.

I attended the afternoon session, but to be perfectly honest, I was running (and am running) on 2 1/2 hours of sleep, and I wasn't at my best. I'm gonna crash out now I think and get an early start of it tomorrow morning.

I'm telling you, the only good thing about having a kidney stone attack on the morning of the first day of the conference is that things can only get better from here. :)