This is the story of a tiny 5mm stone that caused the greatest pain known to man. This man.
Last December I found myself crucified with throbbing in the lower back. Having health insurance I never use, and to avoid queues, I went to a nearby private clinic emergency department, was injected, scanned for the kidney stone and given a prescription.
That evening the pain was severe but the private clinic was closed, as there are never emergencies after 6pm.
I went to a local hospital. A man was outside its emergency department controlling who could join the queue inside. Seeing my state, he admitted me immediately. I was injected and sat while they organised a scan.
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Hours later, past midnight, they told me I could go home. They would contact me next day about the scan. A nurse gave me a suppository for pain overnight. I slept like a baby.
I was called back there the following afternoon for further tests and given files to take with me by taxi to a big hospital for the scan. I gave the files to a nurse and waited. The pain was intense. I asked the nurse for painkillers. She gave me two capsules, as useful as two Smarties.
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Hours later I was called for the scan and waited further hours for a result. The pain was unbearable, intolerable. I told the nurse I was going home (where I had painkillers from the private prescription). She was not pleased. I left.
About 15 minutes later I was phoned by a urologist who said the stone had moved and there was infection. I should go back, she said. Still furious, I resisted, before seeing sense.
I returned in agony. The nurse was clear. As I had left the hospital, I must go to reception and re-register. I was stunned, and hardly able to stand with pain. There was a queue of six before me. I shuffled to distract myself.
Eventually I met the urologist and was admitted to the hospital, where I fasted in preparation for surgery. But I was lucky, the stone passed naturally and I survived.
Still, I will never forget Nurse Ratched, for whom the system mattered so much more than someone in obvious pain.
Nurse Ratched, character from 1975 film One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
