Live Tweeting My Kidney Stone
I had a kidney stone last summer. I’m ok now! There are many possible causes of kidney stones, but I can already tell you what caused mine: the pandemic.
Seriously, I blame COVID. I used to drink off-brand La Croix from the grocery store called Soleil. Then the pandemic hit, and I refused to go to the grocery store like I used to (5-8 times per week because I never make lists and I like shopping on a whim). So, instead, I had to order fizzy water online to be delivered to my house. The alternative would have been drinking plain water from the tap, but I didn’t do that because I’m not a rustic farm-hand slurping from a bucket.
The only brand I could order for delivery was Perrier which has minerals in it. Apparently LOTS of minerals. Every day for the three months proceeding my stone’s formation, I was guzzling Perrier like a powdered-wig-wearing aristocrat. As a result? Got a kidney stone. I truly believe Soleil would have NEVER done me like that! #notsponsored #butitshouldbe
I do have to take some responsibility. I flew too close to the sun. I was trying to act like a mineral water girl when this body runs on diesel. As a kid, I used to drink straight from the garden hose. I’d just cram that old rusted metal end straight from the dirt into my face hole. That’s what my system is used to.
Rather than just tell you what happened, I structured this as a live-tweet so you can feel exactly like you’re on this journey with me. Well, not exactly. To feel like you were really there, I’d need to come to your house, kick you in your bikini-bottom-area and stab you with a rusty ice pick. There’s just not enough time for that, so instead, throw yourself down a flight of stairs and read this. Then you will have experienced my journey.
TWITTER FEED
logging off twitter so I can write! #amwriting #writerslife
3:08 PM · Jun 15
looks like my shoddy pill-taking habits have caught up to me. My period hath stricken me early. Gonna go lie down.
3:16 PM · Jun 15
WHAT IN HEAVEN’S GATE IS HAPPENING! My guts are being tossed around with the Little Mermaid’s busted ass dinglehopper.
3:22 PM · Jun. 15
A demon is going HAM on a cheesy gordita crunch with Taco Bell spork on the inside of my body. Thankfully Paris is here. I am sweating so much and pretty sure I’m about to puke. I am not stoked that he has to see me this way. To be fair, it’s only slightly sweatier and bitchier than I usually am.
3:31 PM · Jun. 15
Paris has to go in the other room log off work. Going to vomit alone in bed. I stumbled to the bathroom and got the trash can as an impromptu puke receptacle. Tried lying face down on bed to aim possible barf trajectory but everything hurts unless I’m on my back (this is nothing new)
3:33 PM · Jun. 15
I am drenched in sweat. I guess I got my workout in after all haha-ahhhgod it hurts to laugh. Or move. Do I need to pee? Is that a symptom? No, I always have to pee.
3:35 PM · Jun. 15
Been googling illnesses. This is either appendicitis, kidney stones, or my guts have ruptured. Prayin it’s not a ruptured gut. 🤞🤞 If it is appendicitis, I need to change panties because if I have to stay in the hospital and get surgery, I want to be wearing fresh drawers.
3:40 PM · Jun. 15
Paris has loaded me into the car. I am so sweaty I am slipping off the seat and have to brace myself on the door. He went back inside to get my work laptop. I insisted I take it with me because #lawyerlife
3:43 PM · Jun. 15
I’m in the back seat screaming “WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?” Not sure why. That question hasn’t been answered for 33 years, no chance for it to be answered now.
3:47 PM · Jun 15
I am supposed to be on a conference call at 4pm. I emailed the team, “Going to the ER. Can’t make the call, sorry!” Brevity is the soul of cancelling conference calls.
3:50 PM · Jun 15
Paris has asked where we are going. I just screamed “take me to the ER behind the Starbucks” because America!
3:56 PM · Jun 15
The ER receptionist has asked for my insurance card. ✅ saved in my phone. Also asked for my ID. I rifled through my purse for my wallet but nada. Why isn’t my wallet in my purse?
4:02 PM · Jun 15
Just remembered I have a photo of my passport from when I went to Europe saved on my phone. Good for hackers AND good for me, a person who loses her wallet a lot.
4:03 PM Jun 15
You don’t get to choose your own voice when you’re in guttural pain. It just kinda comes out how it comes out. Mine sounds like a long-haired skateboarder from San Francisco looking for a recreational drug supplier. “Come on, man!” “Somebody help me, man!” Maybe it will work and they will give me some drugs.
4:07 PM · Jun 15
I have been sweating and screaming in this ER lobby for 100 years. This nice fellow named Jamie just came to get me. Jamie looks handsome like a vampire from a teen movie. TAKE ME AWAY, SEXY VAMPIRE!
4:10 PM · Jun 15
As we walked back to the room, he asked me how much I weigh. ASK ME SOMETHING I KNOW, EDWARD CULLEN!
4:11 PM · Jun 15
A meaty male nurse named Chris just came in to ask me questions. When was my last period? Who knows that answer ever? I just made up a day. Let’s hope that’s not integral to my medical treatment. Also, if it’s not, why are they asking?
4:12 PM · Jun 15
They just asked me to pee in a cup. I deserve an Olympic medal for being able to stand, walk to the bathroom, pee in a cup, and walk back without fainting. An Olympic medal or a big ass dose of pain medicine. There’s my skater voice again, “COME ON, MAN!” They probably think I’m about to bust out a hacky sack.
4:13 PM · Jun 15
My stomach muscles now hurt. Jamie told me, “It’s just like ab day at the gym.” ok first of all I don’t go to the gym and second of all when I did, I just listlessly struggle-jogged on the treadmill while watching ESPN and judging people SO YOUR REFERENCE IS LOST ON ME, HOT PERSON.
4:13PM · Jun 15
Nurse Chris has started an IV. He gave me anti-throw-up medicine and some Morphine, telling me “You’ll feel like you’re floating on a cloud.” You have over-promised and underdelivered, sir. I feel like I am on a hospital bed being kicked in the bones.
4:15 PM · Jun 15
Jamie is taking me back for a CAT Scan. Morphine is not working. Skateboarder voice is back: “Somebody’s gotta help me, man!” Jamie is trying to talk me down. JUST BITE MY NECK AND END MY SUFFERING! Though if I were him, I wouldn’t want to spend eternity with me either, so I get it.
4:18 PM · Jun 15
Jamie just asked if I can get up off the bed. LOL JAMIE WHY DO YOU BELIEVE IN ME!?
4:20 PM · Jun 15
Jamie had to call in Nurse Chris for an assist. They have hoisted me from the hospital bed to the cat scan machine and honestly I was impressed by the muscular strength. It’s like lifting a full slab of beef with a beach towel. Nice work, gents.
4:22 PM · Jun 15
Jamie has asked me to hold my breath a few times while I am in the CAT scan machine. I am blind from pain. Not sure how I am going to do that. I keep asking everyone if I need to take off my watch. (They keep telling me I don’t, but for some reason I am skeptical.)
4:27 PM · Jun 15
CAT SCAN FINISHED. Nurse Chris came back with another syringe full of Morphine because he is an angel from heaven. And we’re doing the beef slab/beach towel bit again.
4:31 PM · Jun 15
Back in the room. Feels good. Feeling like I can relax. Feeling like my chest is caving in. Feeling like someone is sitting on my chest. Am I having a heart attack? Oh god. I just meekly started saying, “Somebody? Hello? Somebody?”
4:33 PM · Jun 15
The ER is dark and empty. Maybe it’s not a real ER after all. Have I been taken into a storage unit to be killed? Where are all the other patients?? Is this a murder dungeon built out to look like a real, working ER?
4:34 PM · Jun 15
Nope, Nurse Chris is back. Hello angel! I told him “I think I am having a heart attack, and I cannot breathe.” He said that’s a side effect of the morphine. Awesome drug! Takes away your pain and replaces it with the feeling of being suffocated. Maybe give a girl a heads up about that next time!
4:36 PM · Jun 15
Nurse Chris has hooked electrodes to my chest as a precaution to check my heart rate and stuff. “You have a low resting heart rate,” he said. “Isn’t that good?” I asked. “It would be if you were an athlete.” Hurtful but fair.
4:39 PM · Jun 15
My work email is going off. It’s a client. I call my coworker. “Do not be alarmed, but I am in the ER.” Doesn’t matter if you say, “Do not be alarmed,” people ALWAYS get alarmed when you say you’re in the ER! She was cool af and took a project off my plate since I’m pretty sure it’s malpractice to get a double dose of morphine and start sending emails. It would be a lot more fun than sending emails sober though.
4:40 PM · Jun 15
Everyone has left the room so I can rest. Instead, I am taking a selfie. Heyyyyy! Ok I sent it to Paris so he knows I am alive. On the flip side he knows I have gone full hobgoblin so let’s hope I didn’t scare him off and he’ll still take me home.
4:43 PM · Jun 15
Dr. Fitzgerald came in with Nurse Chris and Jamie. She told me that I have a 5.5 millimeter kidney stone. The way they’re talking that seems big. Damn, I am such a stupid competitive overachiever. I can’t make just a regular kidney stone. Gotta go above and beyond.
4:45 PM · Jun 15
I asked Dr. F how to get rid of it. She said “Liquids, liquids, liquids; just drink anything.” OH REALLY? ANYTHING? What about apple juice? “Yes.” Pedialyte? “Yes.” THE BLOOD OF MY ENEMIES? “May give you a stomach ache, but yes.” Jamie high-fived me.
4:45 PM · Jun 15
ER check out. Nurse Chris has given me a funnel to pee in with a mesh catcher at the bottom for at-home use. I am supposed to pee into until I pass the stone then turn the stone over to my doctor for testing. “You’ll just be peeing and hear a CLINK sound. That’s the stone,” Nurse Chris told me. Hopefully that sound is the stone and not some relic that got crammed up there.
5:50 PM · Jun 15
Paris steadies me and walks me to the car. I am high on a double dose of morphine. I just told him to stop at the Tom Thumb next door and buy me a big ole jug of Martinelli’s apple juice right nowwwwww because I like to get high and drink juice!
5:58 PM · Jun 15
Home now after a stop at the drive through pharmacy to fill my pain pill prescription. I am going to lie down in bed and pray for death’s sweet embrace.
6:15 PM · Jun 15
Paris just brought back some pasta and cheese bread from an Italian place up the street. I think this will be fine, not too heavy on my stomach.
6:58 PM · Jun 15
The last time I puked this hard was after I did a bunch of Jell-O shots then took a VODKA shot with a PICKLE BACK and chased that mix with Dorito’s Locos Tacos because sometimes we don’t choose our bad decisions, they choose us.
7:20 PM · Jun 15
Fuck this. I’m taking my pills and passing out.
7:48 PM · Jun 15
I have just come-to from the medicine. I see that I have texted all my recent phone contacts and said god knows what to them.
10:32 PM · Jun 15
I just found selfie videos on my phone with a bunny face filter that I took but never posted.
10:50 PM · Jun 15
Time to turn off the TV and get some rest.
11:17 PM · Jun 15
Slept like a rock except for when I zombie-walked myself into the bathroom to barf again. I apparently also cleaned the toilet afterward judging by the cleaning supplies on the floor and the sparkling clean toilet. Thank you, Pain Pill Heather. You are very thoughtful.
7:40 AM · Jun 16
Checking the ol’ work email. Got one from my boss asking how I am. And another email from a different boss. And a third. That is very nice of everyone, but that is way more people thinking about and discussing my urethra than I expected for a week day.
7:42 AM · Jun 16
Taking a sick day. Going back to sleep. When I wake up, I bet I’ll pass this thing. Let #ROCKWATCH2K20 commence!
9:07 AM · Jun 16
Went to the bathroom. Nothing.
10:29 AM · Jun 16
Still nothing.
12:15 PM · Jun 16
Received several nice messages. Even more people thinking about my urethra. THANKS Y’ALL! Still nothing. #ROCKWATCH2K20 continues.
1:30 PM · Jun 16
just remembered Dr. F told me “liquids liquids liquids” so I’m gonna shotgun this entire jug of Martinelli’s AJ 🍎 #bottomsup
2:48 PM · Jun 16
The fiber in the juice is moving through me with the force and indifference of a runaway airport tram.
3:15:30 PM · Jun 16
Figured out how to solve problem #2 while holding in #1. Time to unleash the kraken into this peepee funnel.
3:16:01 PM · Jun 16
Niagara falls. But wait. What was that sound?
3:16:32 PM · Jun 16
Baby’s first photo shoot! Set my rock on a piece of toilet paper with a dime beside it for reference. It looks like piece of Nerds candy.
3:18 PM · Jun 16
You know it’s funny because at first I thought it looked like Paris because it was shapely and beautiful, but then remembering about how much a nightmare it was, it is definitely more like me.
3:20 PM · Jun 16
Right at 24 hours later, the nightmare is over. Moms out there - I know having kids was probably super hard, but the internet said this was just as painful as childbirth so I just want you to know, based on that, I totally know what you went through! #solidarity
3:24 PM · Jun 16
***
This piece first appeared in Sunday Morning Hot Tea. Subscribe so you don’t miss another piece.
Someday Today
(TW: Eating disorders)
“Don’t go in there!” I hollered after my fiancé, Paris, as he headed into our bedroom. He didn’t listen, charging in to see four piles of clothes on our bed at least as high as his head.
“Making progress?” he asked.
“I have a system,” I said as he walked through the room and into the bathroom to find yet another pile.
Yes, I do have a system. But I also have a problem. A clothes problem. The fact is I just have too many of them because I never get rid of any.
We recently got a brand-new bed and mattress, which required me to clean out the under-bed drawers from our old bed. With those drawers now gone, and a closet already bursting with both Paris’s newly added clothes he brought in the move and my existing archive of every item I’ve owned since the year 2000, something had to be done.
One day after work, I stopped thinking about it and just started doing it. There are a lot of organization methods out there, currently the most trendy being KonMari/Marie Kondo and The Home Edit. In response to these powerhouses of getting your life in order, I have developed a few methods of my own that you are free to use. The first is the Stop Waiting to Fit into Clothes and Just Buy New Clothes That Fit You method. The next is the You’ve Held Onto That So Long That the Designer has Gone Out of Business and Had Enough Time to Later Reopen method. Finally I present to you the That Outfit is From the George W. Bush Administration, So You Have to Donate It Now method.
Among the many items sorted for donation, I found a brand new, never worn pair of jeans that I bought in the year god-knows-when. I would guess it was probably around 2004 when these jeans were in vogue. Not the magazine. These jeans were more likely to be seen in Us Weekly and People than Vogue. They’re Kitson brand, the favored label of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears when they weren’t sipping Starbucks in their Juicy Couture velour track suits.
I think I got them at Nordstrom Rack, just as the trend was on its downward swing. I didn’t fit into them at the time, but I had a lot of faith in myself. Someday I would fit into them, I vowed. Sure, they were about three sizes too small. Sure, I had no firm plans to exercise or eat fewer calories. Nevertheless, the jeans were a symbol of what I would be someday. Thinner, and by thinner, better.
They hung, unworn, on a hanger, first in my closet in Dallas, then in Chicago, then back in Dallas. They went with me between apartments and eventually to my house, hanging stalwart, tag still on, ever ready. They hung around longer than any romantic relationship, a reliable reminder as the years passed that my someday would come.
I kept a few other items, too. But unlike the Kitson jeans, these were items I had previously worn. Most treasured were my white shorts. In my family, we’d call them “coochie cutters”, but those in polite society may refer to them as short-shorts. They were Arizona brand, no doubt purchased from JC Penney, in juniors size nine. In my glory days (aka the lowest weight I have ever been except when I was born), I wore them proudly with fun t-shirts from Urban Outfitters, like one that read “Pirates Arrrrgh Awesome.” What can I say? I was nineteen.
Honestly, though, I looked hot in those shorts. As my mom says when she sees pictures of herself in the 1970s – I was young and firm. You know what else I was? Miserable. I was eating 1000 calories or less per day. I was running myself sick and doing 100 crunches a night. I was crying myself to sleep with an empty stomach suffering from undiagnosed depression.
Even so, my ass looked great in those shorts.
Over the past 15 years, I told myself someday I’d go back to that. Someday I could fit back into those white shorts. I kept them in my dresser drawer, like a surprise guest in the wings, waiting to spring on stage when they heard their cue. That cue? Me losing the equivalent weight of an entire fourth grader. The only issue was the cue never came. I stayed roughly the same size, yet I just couldn’t bring myself to give up on the promise of those white shorts.
For over a decade, they stood as a symbol of something I foolishly thought I could get back – my youth. I wanted it back so bad because I had squandered it away when I had it, wallowing in misery and self-harm. I spent years convinced I was inadequate. As I grew older, wiser, and relatively happier, I yearned to go back to that time with the wisdom I had gained. I wanted a do-over. A takesies-backsies.
But that’s simply not possible. I kept learning and kept growing. Now I’ve accepted that there is no going back. Cleaning out my closet, as I held the white shorts in front of myself, I accepted that they will never have the pleasure of gracing this ass again.
Even if I could go back, I wouldn’t. There’s too much good around me now. I am confident enough to wear shorts in my size that adequately cover my bathing suit area. I was forced to clean out my closet for the very good reason of making room for my fiancé and his clothes. I got to empty the drawers under our bed because we upgraded to a new grown-up-looking king size bed. I feel grateful that my life has become bigger than those shorts.
During those in-between years, I had left behind the painful days of my early 20s but hadn’t yet found the everyday joy that feeling comfortable with yourself brings. Don’t get me wrong – I still have hard days. Some days that decades-old voice come back and tries to tell me I need to lose weight. It tells me I need to “get back” to that size. It tells me that I’m not worthy until I do.
It has taken me many years and lots of therapy to realize I am worthy just by virtue of my existing. What I have to contribute isn’t made more or less by what my body looks like. What is important is taking care of my body, enjoying life, and being kind – both to other people and to myself. It also helps to be with someone who, when faced with complaints from me about how my body looks, responds with, “I would marry you today, right now, this minute, because I love you just the way you are.” Yeah, like I said last week, there’s no way he’s real.
So into the donation bag both the jeans and the shorts went. I hope the new home they find is a happy one. I hope the cheeks they eventually hug feel beautiful and worthy and look as good as mine did (or would have, if I’d ever put those Kitson jeans on).
Just before slipping them into the donation bag when I held those white shorts for the last time, I brought them up to myself in the mirror. I had to laugh. Even if I were thin enough to fit into them, they are absurdly short. My laugh turned to a smile, grateful that I don’t need to hold out hope that someday will come. Someday has already arrived. It’s here, better than I ever imagined. And I don’t need to squeeze into a pair of coochie cutters to enjoy it.
***
This piece first appeared in Sunday Morning Hot Tea. Subscribe so you don’t miss another piece.