Annual Surgery in China – 2023 Edition

The year of the Tiger, 2022, came and went.

Cue the Year of the Rabbit – 2023.

This is my year, at least according the Chinese Zodiac thing. So that means 2023 was going to be great, right? It certainly started off that way, for sure! Covid-19 slowly began to not be a problem as China finally started opening back up to the world. We celebrated the start of his new year by taking a two-week family vacation to the absolutely amazing country of Thailand.

We split the time between Krabi and Phuket, doing really cool stuff like this:

Seriously, we had a blast after basically being stuck in China for vacations since 2019. Don’t get me wrong, our vacations in China kicked big ol’ booty, but we moved to this part of the world to also visit other amazing places like – Thailand. As you can see, we did everything. We hung out and relaxed at resorts, took longboat trips to tropical islands, swim with the fishies in crystal clear ocean water, ate scrumptious island food, got stung by jellyfish, watched a family do a fire show on the beach, visited Hard Rock Cafe, got our hair “did”, received 30 minute leg massages for 6 USD, spent time at an elephant sanctuary, saw a dude who was missing fingers kiss king cobras, visited the Big Buddha, hung out with monks, got sunburnt, went parasailing, not to mention of bunch of other things I’m already forgetting. It was exactly the type of trip we have dreamed about, and exactly what we needed in the moment. My better half is already wanting a return trip there and/or to just move to Thailand straight away.

We returned to China in mid-January totally relaxed. This winter was super mild. I’m a hairy beast, so I’m normally not cold, but even my family rarely even needed a light jacket to battle these “harsh” conditions. Before the kids headed back to school, we even spent another mini-vacation in Macau where we shopped and got fatter on American style food. My beautiful bride celebrated her birthday at a super cool French restaurant. The actual French chef came out from the back to wish her a happy birthday and treated us like VIPs. I even found a little barbershop in the historical Portuguese section of Macau where the owner gave me my first truly professional beard trim in four years.

Next up was Chinese New Year, the yearly celebration where China goes ALL OUT. It has been mostly subdued during the pandemic, but this year returned to all its previous glory. I kid you not, there were fireworks every night, hours long, for 3 weeks straight. And since we live right near the South China sea, these fireworks were as close to us as your standard July 4th celebration. We may have gotten a bit tired of them after, oh I dunno, day 2. After the annual festivities, the kids went back to school, and we went back to work. February came and went. That mild winter turned into an early spring. China officially cancelled all Covid policies in March, heralding in my wife immediate booking a trip back to the homeland this summer. They even told us to stop wearing masks (in most places). It was truly a excellent start to 2023.

Aaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnddd….. then it happened. Come on, we all knew it was too good to be true. Look, I’m generally a very positive person, but after 3 surgeries since coming to China, I’m always looking over my shoulder. Not the bad shoulder though. That’s the right one that I completely shattered in 2019. No no, I look over my left shoulder, cause I’m a Southpaw. Anyway, back to “it”. In the middle of March, I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen and then eventually that pain moved slowly around to the lower left side of my back. I immediately knew what it was, as way back in 1997, during my senior year of university, I had the exact same issue. A kidney stone. In 1997, I freaked out about it and spent the night in the hospital because I didn’t know what it was. This time period was where my phobia of hospitals comes from. I think I’ve mentioned that issue before, so here’s the background story. Back then, my parents drove up to hang out with me in the hospital. The next morning, they wheeled me down to radiology for an x-ray. While I was waiting, I was placed beside this elderly lady who was lying on a gurney. This lady proceeded to scream the entire time I was there, yelling literally right beside me how she was in so much pain and wanted nothing more to die. My Dad was with me, and felt so bad for me that he tried to stand in between me and the screaming woman. I “felt” her pain. There was no exaggeration in her voice. She was 100% real. It scarred me. Since that moment, I’ve always been super scared of hospitals. I HATE going to them. They make my blood pressure rise through the roof. Jumping out of airplanes, bungeying off towers, bugs, horror movies, American politics, none of that bothers me as much as a trip to the local hospital.

Let’s return to present day – March of 2023. So, I felt that same stabbing pain in my left kidney area. Now, I won’t be getting into a pissing match about whose pain is worst, which disease hurts more or any of that jazz. But for me, kidney stones are absolutely horrible. My Dad had at least 7 of them that I know of. My Dad is my hero. My Dad never showed pain. But I knew when he had the stones. I started feeling this pain and my first thought was to be a typical man. I’ll wait it out. I’ll pass it. Everything will be fine. So that’s what I did. I started feeling the pain on a Sunday, went to work all the next week, soldiered through like a real champ, not even telling a soul about the issue other than my rock, my wife. She’s the good type of rock, not like a kidney stone. But, by the end of the week, the pain was worse, much worse and I was having trouble doing the one thing you should do the most when you have a kidney stone – urinating. So, with the pain through the roof and my blood pressure looking like two numbers that were surface temperatures on the Sun, I headed up late one evening to Guangzhou, to the hospital that really caters to expats. They all know me and my family there. We have issues, okay? We go there. A LOT. By the time I got the hospital, I was in so much pain that I rushed out of the car and straight to the bathroom. I figured that they would need a urine sample, so I just did my business in a water bottle. The nurse told me later that I contaminated it and it couldn’t be used, but thankfully I had another gallon of urine in me to force out for her. They checked me into the ER at that time of night, stuffed an IV in me, ran some x-rays and a very nice doctor eventually told me the news. I had kidney stones. In fact, I had not 1 but 3 KIDNEY STONES. One was in my left ureter, one was in my left kidney, and one was in my right kidney.

The ER doctor recommended I see the urologist first thing the next morning. So that’s what I did. And of course they ran some more scans of me. Through an MRI, or Cat Scan, CT Scan (I obviously have limited knowledge of medical terminology), it was determined that the stone in my ureter was 3mm and “may” pass on its own. But the two stones in my kidneys were 5mm each and would require immediate surgery to remove because they were basically blocking the flow of urine from my kidneys to my bladder. My urologist explained it like this: Robert… you have 3 stones. 1 small, 2 big. Robert, you are too fat to do laser surgery, so we’re gonna go up your hoo-ha, break the stones apart with magical soundwaves, pull those broken apart stones out your hoo-ha, then put 2 stents in your ureters for two weeks so that any parts of the stones left can better flow out of your body. Side note – I may have slightly exaggerated the way my urologist spoke to me, but most of it is true and he did say I was too fat.

After going back and forth with the hospital and my insurance company to make sure everything would be covered, I was scheduled for surgery two days later. The family came up to be with me then, as they love any excuse to stay in a hotel. Although, with as many times we’ve stayed in hotels for medical trips, they have started to tire of the experience. So, my surgery was scheduled for April Fools Day. Yes, yes, I know… very apropos isn’t it? I was prepped for surgery early that morning, then wheeled down to the surgical ward. Everything is always a little weird in China. They speak a lot of Chinese to each other, then a little bit of English to me now and then. They are really concerned about contamination, so of course they put a shower cap on my head, then they put not one but two surgical masks around my face, chin and neck to cover up my ginormous beard. My doctor was a little late to the surgery, so I was waiting there patiently on the operating table, IV in, anesthesia ready to go. Did I mention my doctor is about 4’11’, 95 lbs and has bright yellow/orange hair? He also looked like he was 14 years old. Anyway, he finally made his grandiose appearance, I feel asleep and surgery got underway.

The surgery was successful, I guess. At least that’s what the doctor said. He got most of the stone fragments out, and inserted two ureteral stents inside me that would remain in there for two weeks, at which time I would come back for another quick surgery to remove them.

Here are some lovely medical pictures of my stones and the stents. If you don’t like medical stuff, please skip ahead.

So, while the surgery was successful, my diminutive doctor friend told me the stents would have to stay in for two weeks, they might be quite painful, and I could expect to regularly urinate blood for a fortnight. Good times. I was discharged the next day and sent home to recover. The first few days went well. I had some pain medication, and that seemed to work for the time being. I did indeed pee a lot of blood though. Then day three came and the pain returned, tenfold. I suffered through as best I could, but by the fifth day, the second in a row that I hadn’t gotten sleep, we were starting to get worried. I was in a ton of pain. I had a fever. I was nauseous. The left side of my chest was tight and hurting. My blood pressure was through the roof again. I was finding it hard to get a full breath. I know what you’re thinking. We were thinking the same thing. My better half rushed me back to the hospital, first up to see the urologist. Once my wife basically verbally assaulted them (in a nice way) because I wouldn’t advocate for myself, they immediately transferred me over to the ER just in case my heart was going to give out. I had a different ER doctor this time, but even better than the first. He ran me through all the battery of tests, and then asked a question we hadn’t even considered – “have you been coughing this week? Do you feel sick?” Why yes, I had been coughing at the beginning of the week, and I did feel like I had a cold. But I figured that was just me feeling icky after surgery. This good doctor then rammed a tester thingy up my nose and I’m pretty sure touched my brain. Sometime later, he comes back to inform me that I had H1N1 Flu. That explained all the sick symptoms and the tightness in my chest. All the cardio results were normal. As was a test for pneumonia. But, on top of the flu, I also had a kidney infection from the surgery. The stents themselves were fine, but as my urologist explained a little later when he dropped by, “Robert… you are too fat. The surgery was difficult. It probably caused the infection.” Thanks, you tiny person. They pumped my arm full of painkillers, which thankfully helped. We begged them to take the stents out, but they insisted that they needed to remain in for one more week. So once again, we headed back home, this time with antibiotics, Tamiflu and super duper strong pain pills.

The next week was rough. I’m not one to take pain medication, but I needed it about every 8 hours just to make it through each day. By the end of that second week though, I was ready to get those stents the heck out of dodge. Dodge, being my ureters of course. Thankfully, they put me back asleep again, as I did not want to be awake for anything hoo-ha related. When I woke up, once again I was told everything went well. I even got to go home a couple hours later. I was told to take it easy for four weeks. Not to do any lifting, exercise, drive a car, even go to work. That was on Sunday. Last Monday, I drove to work. And then I did it again on Wednesday. I avoided the 5 flights of stairs though and settled for the elevator. Thankfully I haven’t gotten any worse this past week. I still feel lousy though. And just plain tired. Like I need a nap after putting a bag of groceries away tired. As I’m writing this on Sunday night, April 23rd, I’m just starting to feel a little better, minus what feels like a UTI and still dog tired. But hey, I think I got my annual surgery out of the way! In 62 days, we’ll be in the good old US of A for summer vacation, a 30 year high school reunion, and much needed time with both sides of the family and dear friends. We’ll then be coming back to China for at least one more year.

Why?

Tiny doctors.

Here’s to the Year of the Rabbit.