lol a lot of us are definitely in a certain club for blokes of a certain age. getting old sucks dunnit fellers...
The geriatric adventures continue bud,
So, up at 05.30 today and off on the first train to Glasgow. Walked across the city centre to the old Royal Infirmary, and after what seemed like another mile of walking though the hospital found the Urology department with plenty of time to spare. Weirdly my appointment time was 08.30 but the notice on the door stated they didn’t open till 08.45 Eh?
So just after 08.30 I chapped the locked door, and yeah, somebody came and let me in.
Booked in, manage to produce a pee sample and saw the consultant for a chat.
Got changed and went for pre-prep. I tried my best to avoid the anti-inflammatory suppository, I reminded them that I’m mildly asthmatic, but nope I was told one way or another it’s going in. So, I bent over the table, lifted my gown and before I could say – right I’m ready – the nice female nurse had popped it in. A quick x-ray, two tramadol and an anti-biotic and I was good to go.
So, into theatre and up onto the lipotripsy machine. And basically, a nice young motorcyclist called Gary kicked me in my left kidney 3000 times in order to shatter one of my kidney stones.
Annoyingly Gary explained that the current generation of lipotripsy machine with it’s built in x-ray head can see pretty much most of what the big rig next door can. My stones are mostly really small and they have refused me lipotripsy for a number of years now. They have refused me because they told me the machine will not be able to see my stones. There’s also been a long term funding issue in Scotland for lipotripsy. God knows why, when it’s relatively low risk and effective. Kidney stones can cause a great deal of distress, cost the NHS a small fortune in emergency admissions to administer morphine and/or to clear blood clots. I had asked my consultant several times to refer me even just to let the machine operator to stick me on and have a look – it would take about 2 or 3 minutes to determine if they could be seen. And not only could Gary’s machine see my small stones but he was able to show me three tiny bits of the shattered stone on the screen which he said should now be small enough to slip out naturally into my bladder with the rest of the stone having been pulverised into grit.
Anyway 40 minutes and 3000 pings and I was done. Did have to stop for a minute’s rest now and again. Quite painful, and I even left a nice wee smear of blood on lipotripsy ping head. Drank a pint of water, did a very bloody pee and I was good to go. A good friend picked me up and got me back down the road.
Gary and the staff were excellent, first class, had a few good laughs with the staff as well as the next victim for treatment.
So gotta take it easy tomorrow, drink loads of water and take my tablets for a week. They told me one days rest and I can then do as I please.
So if I’m lucky we’ve just blasted the stone that my kidney keeps trying to reject. If not, there are two remaining stones in my left kidney, so theoretically another two sessions and I should be pain free for a good while.
There’s five stones in my right kidney but other than the odd twinge, or some dull pain for a few hours once in a blue moon, well so far (fingers crossed) my right kidney hasn’t had a proper go at rejecting them.
So here’s hoping.