Urological. -No, I'm quite logical, thank you, I just have kidney issues.

How often have you woke up and glorified in these facts:

Yay, I get to wear underwear today!
Yay, I get to wash myself today!
Yay, I get to pee today! I get to pee in a toilet today!
Yay, I get to walk around, unencumbered!
Yay, I get to use my body how it's supposed to be used!

These proclamations, and millions more, I fear, do not get glorified enough.

I'm healthy and I'm young. A person can get used to that. Get used to the freedoms that health gives you. Come to expect stability from your body, no matter what happens. This can lead to underappreciating your body, or pushing your body too far, or being lax on upkeep of it.

At the very least, it can lead to impatience when something does go awry. And alarm and fear at this new development. A sensation of betrayal of yourself by your body.

This is how I've felt with these kidney stones, at least. It started as abdomen pain I couldn't really pinpoint. It went away, only with time, on it's own schedule. When it left, I forgot it, until it happened again. A few sleepless nights over a month or so, while I tried to change my diet a bit, maybe it was intestinal. It happened during the day once, and I had to go home from work I was so sick. I cried at this confusing, painful thing happening to my body.

It made me feel like I didn't want to move, like I wanted to arch my back to relieve the pressure within my abdomen, an ache that went from my lower back down to the soles of my feet. It hurt to breathe deep, it felt like muscles were tensing and never relaxing, like someone was jabbing me slowly and thoroughly with a butter knife in my sides. It didn't matter what kind of food I ate, how/where it was cooked, or if I drank alcohol. I couldn't figure it out.

The ER in KC found a slight kidney infection and gave me antibiotics. Was I being a wimp with the pain? Because it didn't feel like a slight anything, and certainly not for a problem so ongoing. I couldn't properly describe what my body was doing to me, and the problem did not get solved. After returning to my site, the pain came back, less intense, but more frequent. I ignored it until I had to take strong pain killers to feel ok. I knew I couldn't ignore this any longer. I'd have to interrupt my life, put all my attention on my body, to figure this out.

After a day of travelling to GT to get to the PC doctors and the worst pain I'd experienced yet, I finally got an ultrasound that finally found something tangible and foreign in me that was causing the pain.

And that's how I found myself in a hospital bed in Panama City, hooked up to two different catheters, an IV, a sore throat from intibation and those circulation stocking things.

Undiagnosed physical pain is one sort of corporal trumping and impatience; being a hospital patient is a whole other story...