Kidney Stones

I am feeling much better these days. I have a freshly brewed cup of coffee from my new french press sitting in front of me, Starbucks House Blend with a little sugar and a little milk and I am now ready, poised at the computer, ready to go into detail about my excursion into yet another Chinese hospital.
First off, I know that most of you have never had the problem of having a kidney stone. I encourage you to take a moment and google it-- so that you can see that what I am about to tell you in not a lie or exaggeration of any sort.
I felt as though I was going to die in a Chinese hospital last Wednesday afternoon. The pain began Tuesday night as we left Lucy's, an English style pub with Western Food in one of the nicest districts in the Canton. It is a french like compound with blocks of nice buildings--very cool place to just walk around in and take in the sights and scenery. By the time that we arrived at this place, both Fiona and I were really hungry and tired--we had forgotten to eat any food throughout the day because we were too busy taking in the sights. By the time we had arrived at Lucy's I was feeling almost weak from not eating. When I looked at the menu, nothing really stood out on the menu-- even through there were potato skins, steaks, pasta--the whole gamut of food that I normally would salivate over.
I pondered going somewhere else, but Fiona protested--she wanted to dine here because we were so hungry, so I ordered two beers-- corona, which they were out of, so I went with the Carling on draft, which they proceeded to bring two big pint glasses at 40rmb a piece (5.00usd) and I ordered a steak and chicken enchiladas for Fiona. The steak was as good as it gets in China, a little thicker than usual, a little fat on the edges with a mushroom glaze--delightful. Served with Ketchup (a big deal here) and gasp! A-1!! I should have been in heaven, but I didn't feel like it. I blamed it on the overall tiredness I felt from such a busy day--meanwhile Fiona was going strong with her Chicken enchiladas-- the first time she ever had Mexican food and she liked it--although it wasn't what I was thinking when I ordered it-- I had dreamed that it would be the Neil Smith family recipe, but alas, it wasn't.
We soon finished up and decided to take a little walk around the center of the district, taking in the evening air and watching all the people stroll by. I started to feel a little under the weather and opted to get a cab back to the hotel--it was getting close to 1am by this time and we both seemed tired.
As we arrived back at the hotel, I began to feel this warm feeling in the right side of my back. It was a strange feeling, not painful, but alarming as I had never felt such an odd sensation before. Fiona could see that I was thinking about something--perhaps I had that look when a small child has to crap in his diaper and doesn't really know what to do about it--it was the same feeling....
She asked me if something was the matter and I didn't want to tell her anything because these people worry about me too much as it is-- with all the sickness that I have had, they are always on the watch to see if I am okay. I tell her that I just feel a little strange, but it should be okay in a moment or two. She accepts this explanation and goes back to watching tele. I continue to think what the hell this could be and find myself getting a little shorter and shorter of breath--and now I am getting a little more worried but try to keep my cool so as not to alarm Ms. Fiona.
I begin to experiment with sitting in different positions to see if it helps and I finally find that laying on my tummy helps out quite a bit. After 20 minutes or so, the pain seems to go away and I feel better. I soon drift off to sleep with no problems at all.
The next morning I wake up and I remember not remembering the pain at all. We are a little rushed because we have both slept in, so I quickly hop into the shower room and take a quick shower--when the wired sensation returns once again. Shocked, I stand in the warm water, knowing that if this is back, I probably need to have it looked at. Over the course of several minutes, the pain begins to worsen, becoming more of a dull thud. Fiona, now out of the shower, sees that I am again looking like I am making doody in my diaper and asks me what the problem is. I explain calmly to her that I am not sure what it is, but it is a little more painful than it was last night and that maybe we need to see if there is a clinic nearby--because I need one. As predicted, the word clinic produces panic and she begins to fire off an arsenal of questions in broken english. I answer a few and then direct her to go ask someone if there is something close by--I assure her its nothing to be worried about, but we need to go have a look because I am not going to be able to function throughout the day like this.
She agrees.
Luckily, there is a hospital right across the street, so we quickly head over to the building and check in. By this time, the pain has begun to get worse and my mild concern has no turned into alarm. I can begin to feel a little faint and because of the lack of air-conditioning, I begin to sweat profusely. My body's nervous system is kicking in. We go into visit the admitting doctor, who has a nice disposition. He speaks a little english and asks me what kind of pains are going on in my body. As the descriptions require more and more translations, Fiona begins to ask me the questions-- How do you pee? What color is it?
He then wants a urine sample and I can almost immediately tell that I am not going to be able to pee in the cup. I can't feel the normal twitch if you can take a pee and I know something is wrong. We are told to go to the second floor, where there is a WC (wash chamber) and for the next 30 minutes, I try to pee, but no dice. I go back downstairs to tell the doctor that he needs to do something else -- I can't pee and the pain, the pain is getting to be so bad at this point--sweat covering my body in a thick coat, my mind drifting off into the abstract....
Moments later, I am on a table pulling my pants down and the nurse gives me a shot in the ass-- this should make me urinate within 5 minutes, which at this point seems like a lifetime. I head up to the WC to await the moment, but instead I throw up--mainly just water, but it is a painful convulsion, one that knocks out my front tooth implant--right into the WC and down the drain. There I am, missing a tooth, puking water. It can not get much worse than this...
It does.
Eventually, I am able to piss into the cup--no more than an once of the yellowest urine my body has ever produced--cloudy, thick and smelly, I hand the cup over to the waiting nurse who looks at the urine and asks me to sit and wait for the results--but I head back down to the doctor--sure at this point that I am going to die in a Chinese hospital with no way to say goodbye to my family and friends....
The doctor tells me to lay in his office-- I groan with pain as my kidneys, liver or whatever it might be pulsates what I think must be its final moments as a living, function in my body. I begin to think about wanting there to be a god, moaning and moaning like the sick--and the whole time the doctor is seeing other patients who look over at me--the big westerner moaning like an old dying man in a corner, but I don't care.
Finally the nurse comes down with the results and the doctor removes everyone from the room and asks me to turn over and gives me another shot in the ass--with Fiona watching--this is more than she needs to see--we are just co-workers--she doesn't need to see my ass!
They begin speaking in Chinese to each other--I wait patiently to ask her what they are speaking about and they continue as I lay there, clueless into what they could be talking about--but the conversation is long.
"What is he saying?" I finally burst out. I do not want to die here because they were having a nice chat about what we have gone to see thus far in our visit to Guangzhou.
Fiona ignores my request for a moment and then turns to me, not smiling, and says that there is either something wrong with either my liver or my kidneys. I stare at her in amazement.
"It's nice that they have narrowed it down--could you ask him when I am going to die? I need to call people. I have things to do before I die. Do I have enough time?" I say this to make her smile--it will reassure me, but she doesn't smile.
"They are not sure just yet." THIS IS THE WRONG RESPONSE. This happens a lot in Chinese--because although they can speak the language, often they don't know what exactly the meaning is. Her meaning of 'they are not sure yet' simply meant that they don't know how long it will take for me to feel better-- but used in this context meant that they did not know how long I was going to live--which I didn't like.
I decided that just sitting and moaning felt much better--and they continued their discussion.
Eventually, I was transferred into a proper Chinese hospital room, where there were five other people ranging from the temporarily sick and ill to the soon to be departed from this world death bed sick. I felt better that I was placed with some of the sick for just a little while crowd, but I still didn't know what was wrong and when I was going to die. The pain at this point had become almost laborious and I thought that perhaps I was about to deliver a child into the world when they finally hooked me into a drip IV of what appeared to be saline--which didn't help and I told them in as many different ways that it was not helping, but there was no response except for the nervous smile and a nod.
When the saline packet was about half empty, the nurse came back into the room with a large bottle of light green syrup and hooked that into the IV. I thought it must be formaldehyde--they knew the end was near, so why not speed the process along! Fiona had a look of suspicion that matched how I felt. I told her to go and get the doctor and ask him what the hell he thought this thing was. She did with no hesitation.
He came into the room and looked at the odd looking bottle of sauce and nodded. Fiona seemed to ask him what was going on and as he explained it, she began to nod and smile.
"He says that you have a kidney stone. This will tell your kidney to function the right way and it will more than likely pass the stone into your bladder where it might dissolve. He said that you should feel better in half an hour--if you don't than they are going to need to run further tests.

Further tests? I wondered if my body could actually accept such a thing. I began to feel drowsy from all the work my body was doing and drifted off. I awoke several minutes later and felt that the pain had given way a little and I felt relief for the first time in several hours. I nodded to Fiona, who was wide awake, staring at me.
Within half an hour from that point, I was able to leave the hospital--the total bill was about 120rmb ($15) and I was given medication to take to aid in the possibility that the stone passes.
Here is what I have deduced what happened to cause the kidney stone...
There are several factors that cause kidney stones to happen--most importantly, they are usually not really stones, but mores pieces of crystal that form when your body does not have enough fluids available to process what it needs to formulate into urine from the blood. This can be due to several factors: hot, humid climate--which southeast Asia has--a recent bout of food poisoning, where the toxins that are from the bacteria come into the system and the kidneys flush them out--which happened--and dehydration--which happened because of all of the walking and traveling we had been doing--and finally--weight loss--your body is losing so much matter and most of it travels through the kidneys and it processes the excess into urine and sweat-- which has also happened....
So, just about every cause of the kidney stones, I have had something to do with... So, its no wonder why I got them. Now I just have to hope that my bladder breaks them up so that I don't have to pass it through my-- well you know....