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In Which My Kidney Stone Ordeal Ends
Eight days ago I passed a large bit of kidney stone that I hoped was the last. Pain has been mostly gone since then. In fact, pain has been generally decreasing since that nasty night after the lithotripsy procedure, three weeks and change gone now.
So, I was very hopeful that the kidney stone was gone.
Friday morning I was having some intermittent pain in my side. But by this point I no longer know if it's actually renal pain or just pain because I have a stitch in my side from sleeping badly or something. But after seven weeks of kidney stone, I'm certainly inclined to think the former.
Fortunately, I'm about to get an answer, as I'm going in to Kaiser for another mini-marathon. Turn in kidney stone bits; give what turned out to be a lot of blood for some research I agreed to help with; and take an x-ray. The x-ray is the big deal, because they look at my abdomen and see if there's any kidney stone left that they can see.
Sunday night, just before midnight, I finally get my answer in the the form a message from my urologist, who seems to keep very late hours.
The kidney stone is gone.
Whew. Thank goodness.
Which means I'm now off by grog-inducing alpha blockers and hopefully life returns to normal.
Seven weeks of anxiety, pain, fatigue, and grogginess are done.
Actually there's one bit of pain left. My health insurance has been getting worse and worse over the years due to the rapidly spiraling costs. So also on Friday I get a bill for $18,223.95 most of which is largely classified as "operating room services, general". Insurance pays most of that, but in addition to the $400 from the day of the procedure I owe another $2,200.
Sigh. Affordable. And not dying (or losing a kidney) is always good. But I also hate to see money going out of the moving-to-Kauai fund. Especially when Trump has been destroying our investments in the stock market all year long.
(Worst president ever.)
On the bright side, I discover that the Republicans relented at the last moment in destroying the medical tax deduction, as they'd originally intended in their middle-class-screwing tax bill of last year. In fact, they dropped it from a 10% minimum to 7.5% for two years. (This was the most annoying and transparently manipulative element of the Republican tax fraud: giving the plebeians minor benefits for a few years, before yanking them away, under some theory that they'll get the benefit for the tax benefits and then the Democrats will be penalized for letting it fade, which I don't think is going to work out like they think it will.)
We've only deducted medical costs a few times in the last several years, for bad years when I wasn't making any extra money and when medical costs did bump up over 10% of our income by a non-negligible amount. But, after maybe $3,000 total spent for x-rays and procedures, and K. just bought a new assistive scooter for her broken foot, atop regular medical costs, we'll easily top it this year. So the scumbag Republicans in congress did us a favor with that temporary reduction. But I will certainly still see it as the manipulative BS it is.
I also note that $3,000 puts me exactly halfway to the $6,000 yearly max out-of-pocket for my health insurance.
And that's why we have the insurance: to make sure that a really bad year doesn't ruin us.
It also means that if you buy two lithotripsies, the third one is free.
In other health news, I am increasingly hopeful that Callisto is limping less. I was ready to take her back to the vet last week, but now I'm leaning away from that.
Hopefully that means we're well on the way to K. being the only wounded animal in the house, as opposed to Lucy being the only healthy one, as was the case until recently, with Callisto limping and me stoned.
So, I was very hopeful that the kidney stone was gone.
Friday morning I was having some intermittent pain in my side. But by this point I no longer know if it's actually renal pain or just pain because I have a stitch in my side from sleeping badly or something. But after seven weeks of kidney stone, I'm certainly inclined to think the former.
Fortunately, I'm about to get an answer, as I'm going in to Kaiser for another mini-marathon. Turn in kidney stone bits; give what turned out to be a lot of blood for some research I agreed to help with; and take an x-ray. The x-ray is the big deal, because they look at my abdomen and see if there's any kidney stone left that they can see.
Sunday night, just before midnight, I finally get my answer in the the form a message from my urologist, who seems to keep very late hours.
The kidney stone is gone.
Whew. Thank goodness.
Which means I'm now off by grog-inducing alpha blockers and hopefully life returns to normal.
Seven weeks of anxiety, pain, fatigue, and grogginess are done.
Actually there's one bit of pain left. My health insurance has been getting worse and worse over the years due to the rapidly spiraling costs. So also on Friday I get a bill for $18,223.95 most of which is largely classified as "operating room services, general". Insurance pays most of that, but in addition to the $400 from the day of the procedure I owe another $2,200.
Sigh. Affordable. And not dying (or losing a kidney) is always good. But I also hate to see money going out of the moving-to-Kauai fund. Especially when Trump has been destroying our investments in the stock market all year long.
(Worst president ever.)
On the bright side, I discover that the Republicans relented at the last moment in destroying the medical tax deduction, as they'd originally intended in their middle-class-screwing tax bill of last year. In fact, they dropped it from a 10% minimum to 7.5% for two years. (This was the most annoying and transparently manipulative element of the Republican tax fraud: giving the plebeians minor benefits for a few years, before yanking them away, under some theory that they'll get the benefit for the tax benefits and then the Democrats will be penalized for letting it fade, which I don't think is going to work out like they think it will.)
We've only deducted medical costs a few times in the last several years, for bad years when I wasn't making any extra money and when medical costs did bump up over 10% of our income by a non-negligible amount. But, after maybe $3,000 total spent for x-rays and procedures, and K. just bought a new assistive scooter for her broken foot, atop regular medical costs, we'll easily top it this year. So the scumbag Republicans in congress did us a favor with that temporary reduction. But I will certainly still see it as the manipulative BS it is.
I also note that $3,000 puts me exactly halfway to the $6,000 yearly max out-of-pocket for my health insurance.
And that's why we have the insurance: to make sure that a really bad year doesn't ruin us.
It also means that if you buy two lithotripsies, the third one is free.
In other health news, I am increasingly hopeful that Callisto is limping less. I was ready to take her back to the vet last week, but now I'm leaning away from that.
Hopefully that means we're well on the way to K. being the only wounded animal in the house, as opposed to Lucy being the only healthy one, as was the case until recently, with Callisto limping and me stoned.