Stay Hydrated

The choices are:

1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Take an ambulance to the emergency room and learn first hand how painful a kidney stone can be.

I chose poorly. May you learn from my mistake.

The good news is that the 4.5mm kidney stone that was causing me so much pain passed within 10 hours of the first symptoms, the pain medication given in the ER was quite effective, and the stone was smooth so once it exited my kidney, the pain was gone. No jagged spikes, thankfully. Not everyone is so fortunate.

The bad news is that the other kidney has 3 similar ticking time bombs and one of them is 6mm. Yikes!

Why an ambulance you might ask? Seemed warranted given the extreme pain and the fact that I was throwing up like a machine gun. 2 bursts of 4! And with such force that my ribs hurt when laughing or coughing for 4 full days thereafter.