This Too Shall Pass

Today I celebrated the nominal anniversary of the last time I had a sick day. Three years ago, on the Thursday after Thanksgiving, I passed a kidney stone. To celebrate this blessed event, I took a day off. That and because I couldn't escape the horrible burning pain that roared through my lower abdomen.
Let me back up and begin again. Three years ago, after I had done my annual ten kilometer run on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I neglected to hydrate myself properly. This combined with the excessive amount of Coca-Cola that I had to drink in the week preceding the event and the calcium supplements that I had been taking to help me sleep left me with an excessive amount of calcium in my system. Excessive to the point of ridiculous. When it all got dried out and run through my kidneys, there were some nasty large bits referred to politely as "stones" that would not go lightly into the good night. Or into anything. They were stuck there. Waiting for their chance to spring on their unsuspecting victim.
That victim would be me. The Thursday after we returned from Thanksgiving, I woke up feeling like I might be "coming down with something." I did my cautionary vitamin C, and took an extra few deep breaths before I climbed on my bike to pedal to school. Before morning recess, I had begun to sweat, and nausea was making me feel foolish for not calling for a substitute before I left the house. Still, I'm a good soldier, and I figured I could tough it out a few more hours and then go home and collapse.
That's when the cramps started. I consider my threshold for pain to be fairly high, but these pains were all but folding me in half. I excused myself and made it across the hall to the Teacher's Lounge (toilet). I tried in vain to imagine what alien creature might be trying to gnaw its way through me from the inside, recalling wistfully my previous experience with food poisoning. Did that hurt this much?
I pulled myself together enough to waddle back across the hall and send my kids out to recess, then headed back to the Lounge to try and turn inside out. The only solace I found was the cool tile floor, and I began to wonder if I might die there, and how long it would take for the paramedics to find me, since the downstairs Teacher's Lounge (toilet) was so rarely used. By this time, the pains had become most pronounced and specific in their aim and direction. I thought about how I had, in my youth, torn a number of Gumby dolls apart by pulling their legs apart.
Another pause allowed me to hobble up the stairs to the office to ask if someone could take my class until I came back from the brink of death. The looks on the faces of the office staff confirmed my suspicions. I had already died and hadn't taken the body's subtle hints. I was sweating profusely and could no longer feel my finger tips or my lips. Someone suggested that I sit down and wait, but I knew that recess had just ended and my class needed to be picked up off the yard. Another trip to the playground and back down the stairs to my classroom, and I vaguely remember pleading with my students for their sympathy. When at last my relief arrived, I headed back up the stairs to the office, where I was given a ride to the emergency room.
What I remember the most about that trip was how I left a sobbing message for my wife because I felt certain that I would never see her again. I also remember the story I heard about the guy who was driving me, and how his appendix ruptured because of George Bush I's motorcade. He was sure that I had a ruptured appendix. I had no reason to doubt him. Of course, if you had told me at that point that I was about to have kittens, I would have believed it.
There are those who will tell you that passing a kidney stone is a painful as childbirth. If that's true, then I must say that passing a kidney stone has to be worse. Giving birth has a wonderful side effect. When you pass a kidney stone, the doctor shows you a little grain of sand, "There it is." That's it? "That's what was causing all the trouble." For this I went into shock and was nearly sawed in half and got to jump to the front of the line in the emergency line and got a big old shot of morphine?
For the next few weeks there was a lot of interest by doctors and my wife about what went into and out of me. Samples were collected and disseminated. Every trip to the bathroom was an adventure and a possible collapse. I took a long weekend to recover. Since then, I have been healthy enough to make it to school every day. Head colds or a little cough just mean I move a little slower. After all, I lived through a kidney stone. When I give birth in my classroom, I'll take off another day.