opinion

My pet rock
by David Madinger

At the age of 13, I had something not many people will have their entire lives: a kidney stone. That was, without a doubt, the most excruciating experience I’ve ever had to endure. Having a kidney stone feels like there’s someone trying to carve out a chunk of your back with a spoon.

I got the kidney stone over summer, while visiting my grandmother in Dallas, Texas. I was at a Double A minor league baseball game with my family when I felt the beginnings of the pain. At first, I thought I’d hurt my back exercising, but the ache slowly grew stronger. I took some Advil, but half an hour later, the ache got worse. To top it all off, I was becoming very nauseous. I got up to walk to the bathroom, but the pain was so terrible, my dad had to help me. The second I got into that bathroom, I threw up. Several times.

Hoping that I would soon start feeling better, I slowly left the restroom. The agony, however, grew worse than ever. Finally, when the pain was at its peak and I could endure no longer, I asked my parents if we could leave. They agreed and we left, even though the game was not yet halfway through.

In the car ride back to the house, the pain persisted and I got a fever. When we arrived to my grandmother’s house, the nausea returned. That night I threw up more times than all the previous times in my life combined. But the next day, the pain was gone, it had vanished overnight. I returned to Panama to begin school, thinking the horrible pain was gone forever.

I was wrong.

Three weeks later, I woke up with a similar pain to, but not as strong as, the one I felt at the baseball game. I woke my mother up and she drove me to the hospital at Punta Paitilla, where I was admitted to the ER. No one knew what I had; kidney stones are extremely rare in teenagers. To my relief, I was instantly put on painkillers, and doctors started to run tests to see if they could find out what was ailing me. The next day, they informed me I had a kidney stone, and I was told I could do only one thing: pass it. And I did, a day later. Let me tell you, that was not a pleasant experience.

I didn’t get to keep the stone, as they had to analyze it in order to discover the cause. That was fine by me, though --- I was getting too old for a pet rock anyway. 

David Madinger is a junior at Balboa Academy