This is a funny story. At least I think so. I hope you find it funny too. Sorry it’s a bit on the long side, but it’s worth it, I promise. I guarantee it or your money back!

Kidney stones run in my husband’s family. His grandfather gets them. His dad gets them. His sister gets them. So it came as no surprise to me the day Mike started complaining of horrible flank pain. He acted like he was going to die. Being an ever-so-supportive wife, I reminded him that his kidney stone was probably 2 mm across and weighed next to nothing, and that I had birthed children who were 5385 times as big as that! Of course, being the ever-so-smart doctor, he reminded me that the birth canal is 5385 times larger than his ureter. Ok, he proved his point.

A few days passed. Finally, the intermittent colicky pain stopped. We both knew the stone had completed it’s journey from the kidney to the bladder. Now it was a waiting game for it to pass the rest of the way. Luckily, that passageway is much bigger than the first, so we weren’t expecting any more pain. The important thing was to catch the stone in order to have it analyzed. There are two major types of kidney stones and it’s helpful to know which type you produce in order to determine treatment the next time it happens.

Urologists will strain urine through a special urine filter. As we did not have one of those, we had to make do with a cone coffee filter. These do not drain as quickly as a urologist-issued strainer so it was definitely a two person job. Mike got the easy job of pouring in the urine he had collected. I got the riskier job of holding the coffee filter. If you’ve ever strained anything through a coffee filter you will know that the wetness creeps to the top of the filter because of capillary action. It was a race to filter all of the pee through before my fingers got wet!

Right there, holding a dripping wet coffee filter filled with pee, was when I had to keep reminding myself of the marriage vow I had taken some 14 years prior. “In sickness and in health.” Had the priest said something to the effect of “during filtering of urine through a coffee filter to find a kidney stone,” I may have walked! I do remember singing songs to try to keep my mind off of the quickly approaching wetness. I picked songs like “So this is Love” from Cinderella and “The Things We do for Love” by 10cc. I found this incredibly funny. Mike just rolled his eyes.

So several days of this did not reveal a stone. Mike decided it was time to give up and stop searching. Of course the next day Mike was doing his business and noticed something at the bottom of the toilet. It looked like a small rock. Since I was busy making myself scarce, he was the one who had to reach in and retrieve it. It was carefully put in a container for transport to the urologist’s office. When Mike dropped it off, they told him to call in a week for the results.

Ten days pass. Mike calls. No word on the results.

Seven more days pass. Mike calls. Still no results.

Seven more days pass. Mike calls.

The conversation goes something like this:

Mike: Hi, I’m calling to find out the results of my kidney stone analysis.
Receptionist: Yes, we have your results right here….uh….um….I’m not sure what these mean. Let me transfer you to the nurse.

The conversation continues:

Mike: Hi, I’m trying to find out the results of my kidney stone test.
Nurse: Yes, I have those here. It looks like….uh….um….I’m not sure what these results indicate. You’ll have to talk to the doctor. He is out of town this week, but I can have him call you next week.
Mike: I’m a physician. Can you please just fax the results to my office?
Nurse: (sounding very relieved) Yes, I can do that.

So the results come across the fax. It has been determined it is not a calcium carbonate stone. It is not a uric acid stone. Rather, the results are inconclusive. At the bottom is one line that indicates the sample analyzed was “composed of silica quartz.” Huh? Mike googled “silica quartz” and found it is one of the leading components of cat litter. In fact, it is the leading ingredient of the brand of cat litter we use. What we suspect happened was the cat had some grains of litter on his paws, and Mike picked him up. The litter clung to Mike’s sweatshirt and fell off right at the right moment. Or would that be the wrong moment?

Of course, his ever-so-supportive family laughed themselves silly over this one. We suggested he call Tidy Cat and consider a career change. After all, if he pees cat litter, think of how marketable he could be!

The urologist, on the other hand, did not find it funny and charged us $89 for the “kitty stone” analysis!

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