Friday, December 1, 2017

605,212...but who's counting?

Thursday, November 30, 2017
“So…let’s pull that tube out of you,” my urologist said as he entered the operating arena.

I was sitting on a table, pants around my ankles and covered with a cloth of some kind with the body part he wanted to operate on exposed to God and country.  The nurse had given me three commands to make the whole process less painful and I was going over them in my head.  ‘Breathe deeply, wiggle your toes because that relaxes your bladder muscles, and pee on the doctor slowly.  You’ll feel like clamping shut when in puts in the probe, but you don’t want to do that because it will make it more painful, so just open up.  The tube will catch everything,’ she had instructed.

But there was no ‘tube’ to take out.  I’d had a stent in the last time I’d seen him, one that had been in for ten days as part of the kidney stone removal, and when he’d taken it out, I remembered thinking it hurt worse than the kidney stone…which seemed impossible before it happened.

“Hold it doc!  There’s no tube in my!  Maybe you’re mixing me up with the guy in the next room?” I said in a panic.

He smiled.  Big joker.  Then, without as much as a ‘get ready I’m going to hurt the hell out of you’, he shoved a tube the size of a fire engine hose where no guy wants a fire engine hose all while directing my attention to the monitor at the side of my head.

“See?  There’s your bladder and it’s looking clean!”

I was busy looking for the knife I was going to plunge into his neck, but must have left it in the car with my Glock.  I looked over and watched what the camera saw as he moved it around looking for the cause of my bleeding.

“Yup.  Looking good.  Nothing here to cause that blood in your urine,” he announced as he pulled the fire hose out with a jerk.

I winced, but never made a sound.  I wanted to show him how tough I was though that may encourage him to try harder the next time.

He told me he’d seen a cyst in my kidney when he’d reviewed the CAT scan, but it was nothing to worry about.

“You have a kidney stone up there, too, but it’s a small one,” he said.

“Doc…they’re all small.  The last one you took out could have fit on the head of a pin.  They still hurt like hell!  And where was the blood coming from I’d seen in my urine?” I asked.

“As well as I can figure, you passed one of the two kidney stones you had left over from our last visit up there and it caused the bleeding.  I surprised you didn’t have any pain,” he said.

“Well…I did today thanks to you,” I said.

He smiled again and told me he wanted to see me in three months.  He scheduled an ultrasound of my kidneys, ordered a blood test and told me I’d be doing a 24-hour urine analysis which would be done on what I’d collect in a ‘jug’ for that 24-hour period.  Yup…his words…a jug.  He wants to get to the bottom of the reason I have the stones and why I was bleeding, but has ruled out polyps for now and I’m happy about that.

I achieved my steps goal for the month with a little to spare.  I was shooting to average 20,000 a day which would mean 600,000 for the month and I ended with 605,212.  After getting only 42,000 for the four days I spent traveling to Georgia and spending time with Jack, I figured it was beyond me, but I managed to make up the lost 40,000 steps over the last three weeks by going over 25,000 on five occasions.

All the walking was eye-opening.  I did none of it with a pack on my back and since I take around 1,700 steps to the mile, I was averaging close to 12 miles a day, which is far short of the twenty or so I would have to average for a 5-month period to complete the Pacific Crest Trail in one season!  I have read by many thru-hikers that one walks their way into shape over the first few weeks on the trail and that the miles will start to come easier, but this is hard to imagine after the month I just completed.  Still...I proved to myself once again that I’m good at accomplishing tough goals once I’ve set and announced them.  I need a target.  December’s will be announced soon.
Hike: Two hours.
Training Heart Rate:  75 bpm.
Calories burned: 700.
Bonus: 21,000 steps.

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