Cowboy Poetry: Chris Mortensen

jagged kidney stone

cowboy poetry

by Chris Mortensen

It hit me after I got home, I’d just walked through the door When suddenly, I found myself all writhing on the floor The pain down in my abdomen was just unbearable

The next few hours of my life were indeed terrible

“What could it be?” I asked myself, as sweat poured from my brow I told my wife, “Call 911, Tell them to come right now”

She made the call, her eyes told me she thought that I might die

I hated to admit it, but by this time, so did I

The medics soon arrived and did their best to find the cause Determined what it wasn’t, had no clue to what it was

Ruled out appendicitis, my heart was deemed OK

But could it be a ruptured bowel that made my face turn gray? I mulled the possibilities between the moans and gasps

Just get me to the hospital, and get me there real fast

About an hour later, there finally was relief

The gasping and the moaning and the sweating slowly ceased

The Toridol worked wonders, there was hope that I might live Now needle pokes and IV’s and a sample asked to give

That sample, it was dark, and not from dehydration

They now suspected kidney stones had caused my consternation

The Doc said that the stone was two by seven millimeters

But it felt like a rhinoceros inside of my ureter

He said it was unlikely I would pass it on my own Since it was a pernicious and a jagged little stone

So he put in a stent between the kidney and the bladder The pathway was a private one, by now it didn’t matter Now doing number one became an arduous ordeal

The color from the Uricalm was orange and unreal

It hit the screen and splattered, couldn’t keep a narrow stream It burned like fire where it came out, it seemed like a bad dream In ten days Doc went in again, removed the wicked stone

The catheter remained five more to make me squirm and moan

They finally got the stent out, and that too was an ordeal No anesthesia was used, and so I got to feel

Another twenty minutes of sheer torture and abuse

The Doc was quite determined. so detached and so obtuse In the midst of all my suffering, came an epiphany

A great idea, a foolproof plan to boost security

If a terrorist is captured, and he won’t agree to talk

If intimidation and confinement only make him balk Forget the waterboarding, tell him he’s on his own

Then surgically inject in him a jagged kidney stone