Stoned

If you live long enough, you reach a stage where there are few blanks left to be filled in. Life becomes a multiple-choice questionnaire where a simple process of elimination results in a manageable burden of probabilities. Case in point, you can reasonably assume that visible blood in your urine is not an indication of multiple organ failure or an overlooked gunshot wound. Unfortunately, a simplified life does not amount to a worry free life. A fact of life emphasized with a gentle jostling at 2:30am. Jilly, in a tentative voice, informed me that her pee was red. I was instantly alert and on the job. The trusty multi-choice mechanism was primed and set to task. The usual suspects were lined up for identification. My considered response, rendered in utmost sincerity, was “What? Red? Are you talking Drank-Too-Much-Kool-Aid-Red or Took-a-Multi-Vitamin-Red? Precious seconds ticked by.

In the span of a few short minutes, an ambiguous pressure in Jilly’s lower back began to blossom with only a brief interval between “this is not good” and “RUN THE GODDAMN TRAFFIC LIGHTS!” A vigorous application of gas pedal followed by laborious debarking maneuvers preceded tense negotiations with the Emergency Room admittance-droid.

Jilly, now shaking uncontrollably and sweating profusely, was allowing herself a barely audible cry. This was a significant turn of events. She is known to shed a measured quantity of sad water at the odd wedding or funeral. I had never seen it happen in response to pain.

Unlike your typical food service establishment, ER personnel do not provide “wait times”. It took five minutes of hard bargaining to squeeze a time estimate from the droid, forty-five minutes to an hour before admittance and an additional wait for a doctor. A call to a more distant ER and another practiced application of blatant coercion yielded a more acceptable scenario, empty waiting room! The red traffic lights flew by. Jilly’s eyes were starting to glaze over. I pried her fingers from my leg and repositioned them to restore blood flow to my lower extremities.

Our grand entrance at the next ER would have made any B movie director proud. The drama, the suspense, the tenuous grasp on rational judgment, all joined in one brilliant display of urgency. To my surprise and relief, empathetic (and bored) health care professionals, who responded to my opening salvo by practically throwing narcotic loaded syringes at Jilly, proceeded before a single legal document was signed. The needles found their mark. Jilly’s convulsions began to ease and her white knuckled grip on my now useless left arm relaxed. Phase one complete. Next order of business: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?

I kept one ear trained on Jilly’s medicated mumblings while I flipped the pages of my mental rolodex. Blood in the urine and excruciating pain, what could it be? Had she somehow yanked a kidney loose from its moorings? Was it rabies? My multi-choice cheat sheet was failing me. Through the application of Computed Axial Tomography, the mystery was solved. In medical terms, the condition is known as “bladder rat.” These vermin nest in the kidneys and only cause trouble when they bolt for the bladder via the ureter. They scrape the soft lining of the ureter raw, cutting deep enough to sever thousands of tiny blood vessels. The body retaliates by initiating waves of agonizing contractions similar to childbirth. The rats, once safely inside the bladder, rest and gather their strength. The tender lining of the urethra is next to fall victim in the escape attempt. More shredded tissue and breached blood vessels, more mind-numbing contractions follow. Minutes turn to hours, hours to days and, in the worst cases, days to weeks as the process saps the victim of strength and will.

The enemy exposed, a pitched battle ensued. For two weeks, they were at each other’s throats. In Jilly’s corner was the full weight of the medical industrial complex. To be honest, not an encouraging thought considering the bladder rat had millions of years of natural selection as well as the element of surprise on its side. All of the early battles went to the bladder rat. Only after a stiff working-over by another high tech gadget, a sonic blaster of sorts, did evidence begin to show up in the collection device provided by the nurse. This “collection device” consisted of a thimble-sized funnel with a strainer fixed to one end. A miracle of modern engineering, this little wonder did an excellent job of distributing urine evenly throughout the bathroom and all over Jilly.

---------------Artist rendition of bladder rat---------------

After several days of passing small fragments and jagged shards, the big-daddy bladder rat telegraphed its eminent arrival. With a peristaltic heave of biblical might, the dirty bastard gouged its way through the last few inches of Jilly’s urethra and landed unceremoniously in the thimble.
Introductions are in order. Blog Reader, this is Bladder Rat. Bladder Rat, this is Blog Reader.

---------------Jilly's actual bladder rat (kidney stone)---------------

If not for doctor's orders to the contrary, a flick of the little chrome lever could easily have sent the little shit to a permanent home in the city’s wastewater treatment facilities. Cooler heads prevailed and the rat is now on display in the “Stone Room” from 8:00am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday.