As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today
What has been the worst physical pain you experienced?
I’m very fortunate in that I’ve never been in a serious car accident or anything that would put me in a hospital for any extended period of time. In fact, the only bone I’ve ever broken was my thumb (and probably a couple of my toes).
But the worst physical pain I’ve ever felt happened at one of the lowest points of my life. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise…
Don’t worry. It will make sense
This happened a little over 10 years ago. X2 and I were still together at this time. The Old Man went home after being in the hospital for almost 4 months.
I had had some very intense pains in my abdomen. Thanks to my extensive medical acumen – all acquired by the internet, I came to the conclusion that I was trying to pass a kidney stone.
I remember telling Mother about it. I remember telling her “if something happens, and I have to go to the hospital, I want you to know what’s going on”. As Mother had experience with kidney stones herself, she was very understanding and sympathetic, She even tried to offer me a few pointers of her own.
I woke up about 4 AM on Monday to an intense pain. It went on for so long that it got to a point where I could fuel the pain moving through my urinary track, or whatever you call it. So this is what passing a stone feels like…
I decided to go to the hospital and asked if X2 she could drive me. She agreed as we are getting ready to go, I decided to try to use the bathroom one more time before leaving the house. That’s what I saw a missed call from Mothet, and a voicemail from roughy 330 that morning.
Weird, I thought to myself. Mom never calls in the middle like that. Unless something’s wrong
“Hey Rob, it’s Mom. Call me when you get this” her recorded voicemail said. There was no sense of urgency in her message. No extemporaneous detail.
“Hey,” I called to X2 “I think my dad died”
A few minutes later, I got the confirmation when I called Mother. I felt horrible, but at the same time I was getting ready go to the hospital. What do you saying that situation? “I’m sorry, Mom, but I’m on my way to the hospital right now. I think I’m passing a kidney stone.“ Was all I could say. She understood, as we had just had a conversation a couple days prior about the situation. Besides, in immediate aftermath, there really wasn’t anything left for me to do, family-wise. I was living about an hour and a half away from my parents at this point. Mother and Fred were there. Even Guillaume was closer by than I was – as it all pertains to making funeral arrangements and informing relatives and what not. It’s not like they were going to bury him in the afternoon.
The funny thing about typing that last sentence is that it is something that The Old Man would have said. I consider him to be the god of practicality and rational thought. He had a way of looking at things and just stripping it down to the very basics: what’s going on. What needs to be done. What can we do.
X2 took me to the hospital, she drove, as I laid across the backseat of the car. I remember feeling like I had to keep my legs perfectly straight, trying to alleviate as much pain as I possibly could. Obviously it didn’t help.
I’ve heard people say that passing a kidney stone is the closest pain that a man can feel to experiencing childbirth. All I know is a baby is a hell of a lot larger than a kidney stone.
We went into the ER and as soon as we got called to the back, I remember walking the hallway to go into the little curtain room where they were going to check me out – I guess this was a triage area or something. I was about halfway across the hall when I just started unbuttoning my pants. I think I walked the remainder of the hall with my pants around my ankles. I didn’t care. I was in so much pain. Besides, these are all medical professionals. They weren’t gonna see anything on me that they hadn’t already seen before.
I don’t remember a whole lot from getting checked out. But I do remember them saying they were going to get an x-ray of me. I remember climbing up onto the table to get my x-ray taken. At this point, the pain I had been on was already starting subside a little bit. And then it hit me: my dad is dead, and I’m in the hospital right now because of a kidney stone.
I said earlier that getting a kidney stone on this particular morning may have been a blessing in disguise. I still think it was. It allowed me to compartmentalize the loss of my father, at least for a little while. I was in too much pain to even think about it. Yes, it was there, I was fully consciously aware of what had happened with The Old Man, but I was in too much physical pain to really process it; let alone experience a gamut of emotions that usually comes with the death of a loved one. I knew that would come later though. And it did.
The doctors weren’t able to see anything on the x-ray. But they certainly didn’t doubt what I was feeling. Everything I described to sounded exactly like I was passing a kidney stone. The fact that I can actually feel the pain almost moving into different parts of my body certainly correlated with someone passing a stone. If I passed it, I never saw it. Maybe I did pass it, flushed it down the toilet and never even realized it had happened. As a precaution, they did give me some meds and recommended I see a urologist, which I did promptly a few days later.
Of course, then I had to back home and deal with reality. I knew even as we were driving home I was going to have to start processing the fact that my dad died. Fortunately, for me, I was exhausted at this point. After all, I had woken up in the middle of the night, and I was in a great deal of pain. And anybody who’s ever been in any amount of physical pain knows that once it goes away, your body begins to relax. Once you begin to relax, you can finally get some rest. I would start processing losing my dad’s death, after I was able to get a few hours of sleep.
The son becomes the father and the father becomes the son 
As I finish this entry this morning, I’m at a hotel room in Rolla, Missouri. I’m visiting here because kid 1 has been offered scholarship to Missouri Tech. He toured the campus yesterday and we’re going to an orientation today. I’m sitting here in the hotel room right now, walking up early, getting in the shower, getting breakfast, making sure that he’s up and ready to go, just as The Old Man would’ve done for me.
Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts
- Starting a Revolution 
- The Last Quarter
- The Ending to The Natural Still Sucks
- Rob Reviews: The Odyssey 
- Three Dreams Deep: Navigating Life’s Shifting Horizons
The article “a passing parent and a passing stone” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob
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