#13 The Kidneys Are All Right

In April of 2011, near the end of my senior year of high school, I was pretty stoned.

Hah, just kidding, I wasn't. My kidneys, on the other hand, totally were.

You guessed it: I passed kidney stones.

I know what you're probably thinking: "kidney stones are for old men! How did a sprightly, young 18 year old girl come down with them?" Truthfully, I don't know. Probably by the same pot of gold that graced me, that same year, with a nasty bacterial infection and left me hospitalized in an isolation room for upwards of 5 days. But that's a story for a different time. Here's the story for now:

It all started one morning at school. I was sitting in math class minding my own business, when suddenly I started feeling a sharp, sharp pain in my abdomen. I assumed it may have been my "time of the month" and that I was just experiencing bad cramps. I got through the day and made it home in time for a driving lesson I'd scheduled. I was on the road with my instructor, and I had already explicitly told him that I was on my period ('cause like, fuck boundaries) when, à la most first dates I've been on, I barfed. My instructor was horrified, though he did manage to make a clever, albeit inappropriate joke that went something along the lines of, "now I'm really hoping you were right about those cramps." That's right, he was making a joke about my being pregnant. So, okay, we went home.

Now, despite the fact that I was 18 and about to graduate high school and go to college, I was still a teenage girl, so when my mom wisely suggested I cancel the big sleepover I had planned for that night, I disagreed. I didn't have a fever, so I was pretty sure this wasn't appendicitis, and I promised that I'd go to the ER if things got really bad. If that's not music to a mother's ears, I don't know what is.

The sleepover began (it was at my dad's house) and it was okay, despite the fact that I was in excruciating pain. Eventually I wound up secluded in this tiny T.V. room, writhing in agony while my friends continued the sleepover. In my house. Without me. It was a weird moment on all of our parts and we haven't really spoken of it since. The next morning, I demanded my father take me to the hospital. In a particularly stellar parenting moment, he begrudgingly said he'd take me, but made sure I felt really guilty about it because, I was clearly on my period and going to spend 12 hours in the hospital only to be prescribed with aspirin, I was just whining and he'd hate to say he told me so.

After about 5 hours in the hospital, and about a million "are you sure you're not pregnant?" conversations (my driving instructor would've felt right at home), I learned I had kidney stones. My dad shut his mouth. I was told that I was currently passing one, and I had two or three more stored up in the 'ole kidneys, but there was no way they'd pass anytime soon. I was given a ton of pain meds, and the reassuring promise that, "it's exactly the same amount of pain as childbirth."

I went home, I was on my painkillers, and life was pretty easy. Eventually the stone passed, but that's a really graphic story. I'll only share that the entire process involved me sitting on the toilet for about 2 hours, drugged out of my mind, trying to chug a gallon of water. It ended with me victoriously raising my hands above my head (an empty jug of water in one hand and a tiny stone in the other), and quite literally weeping with joy.

So, it kind of was like childbirth. Touché, doctors.

But then, the unthinkable happened. I STARTED PASSING ANOTHER STONE. It was horrible, and way more painful because my delicate insides were already torn apart by the first one. They put me on even more pain meds, so I was even more drugged up. Also,  I had a big performance that night for a play I'd written and had been working on all year, which I was clearly unfit to perform in, but I decided that the show must go on, in spite of everything. You can imagine how that went.

And that was it. I passed the two stones (because I'm a superhuman and I can pee rocks), I and currently have two more stored up. No one knows when they'll decide to pass, but I anxiously await their arrival.

This is what a kidney stone looks like.

#12 My Very Own Vom-antic Comedy

     First dates are nerve-wracking, and we all know it. Whether you’ve been on one, or none, or a million of ‘em, we’ve all seen enough romantic comedies to know the textbook storyline: the girl’s nervous and thinks it’ll be a disaster, then she gets into a car with some wonderful boy and the date goes smoothly. Sure, there may have been a few goofy hiccups, but they were all quirky and cute and part of her charm, because, let's face it, she’s probably Zooey Deschanel. The happy couple stays together. The end.

     I resent this scenario, and I resent it not only in the, “it’s clichéd and heteronormative and predictable,” way, but also in the angst-ridden, “it in no way applies to my life” way. 

     But, why? Well, there’s no way to put this delicately, so I'll just say it. I’m now 19 years old, and have technically been going on first dates since I was 14. Here’s the kicker: on every single one of them, I’ve thrown up. Vomited. On the date. Yeah. So, here we go:

Number 1
Age: 14
This date, being the first one I’d ever been on, had a number of hiccups, all of which were my fault. The first is that I wore a retainer that required weekly adjustments, which took place on Fridays after school. I decided to save time and bring the boy to the dentist with me, so he had the pleasure of watching as I drooled, and said “Ahh,” and lisped sweet nothings to the dental team. I had started us off in a good place. Flash forward to the movie. We were sitting in the theater, watching previews and enjoying some popcorn. I chose to keep my retainer in my mouth as I ate, which didn’t turn out so well, as I then started choking on kernels and proceeded to cough my retainer into the popcorn. It was the tween equivalent to producing a hair ball. To hide all traces of my spitty faux pas, I hoarded the popcorn and ate the rest of it in about 3 seconds. As you might expect, inhaling so much popcorn so rapidly wasn’t great for my stomach, and I vomited all of it right back into the popcorn bag. Judging by the boy's reaction, at the ripe age of 14, I had just gotten my first lesson in how not to set the mood (hint: vomiting does not equal foreplay.)

Number 2
Age: 15
This was the summer after 8th grade, with a boy who I was really trying to impress. We sat in an Applebee’s, sipping on sodas as I tried to show off my non-existent cleavage, and hide the sweat stains that were seeping through my too-tight Abercrombie shirt. Needless to say, we were hitting it off; the date was going fine. Then, my burger came, and I took one bite only to run to the bathroom and immediately regurgitate it. Now, I’d like to think that this boy doesn’t necessarily know that I sprinted to the lady’s room in order to puke my guts out… I did, after all, cover it up with the fool-proof excuse of, “I had to sneeze!” But, you know, I’m 19 and he hasn’t called me back yet, so I’m guessing he didn’t buy it.

Number 3
Age: 16
This was a big one. This date actually took place with someone that I'd been in a relationship with for a few months, but he lived far away so my parents granted me permission to fly out and spend a week at his house (they all but neutered me, but that’s beside the point.) The stakes were high here – I was nervous for the first real date I’d have with this guy after months of not seeing each other, and I figured that if I messed things up, I was stuck in his house. When we decided on the low key and delicious (not to mention classy) destination of Chik Fil A, I was relieved. We sat down and ate, right smack in the middle of a mall food court, and I kept all of my meal down. And, yeah, I was feeling pretty damn good about myself. Then, we headed out to the parking lot, and suddenly, I started projectile vomiting. Everywhere. This kid wins a lot of brownie points for sticking around and helping me out, bearing in mind that he had every right to drive off and leave me stranded. He was nice enough to help me get cleaned up, though, and then he drove us home with the windows in his car rolled down. The rest of the week was a lot of fun, and mostly vomit free, but I don't think my relationship with Chik Fil A will ever be the same, and that's just something I'll have to cope with on my own time.

Number 4
Age: 17
Granted, this wasn’t a first date, but it was definitely within the first 3 dates. I knew myself by this point. I knew that I was prone to vomiting, and I knew that it came out of nowhere. I suggested that my then boyfriend and I just hang out in his apartment with a few friends. Maybe that would calm my nerves. Still, like clockwork, as soon as I had one bite of whatever we were all sharing, I not-so-subtly ran to the bathroom and started projectile vomiting. He was very sweet about it, as was his sister, who couldn't help but notice her brother's new girlfriend puking her guts out and sounding like, what I assume an angry velociraptor sounds like. This happened again a week later, as we were sitting on his couch eating pizza. I’m not sure that he actually knows about this one, though. Especially since, when he asked me why I had sprinted to the bathroom, I used my tried and true excuse of, “I had to sneeze!” which, as we all know, works like a charm.

There you have it. These are my top 4 hits, but there have been a few other dates, or dinner outings, or performances I’ve been part of, in which my nervous vomiting has reared its ugly head.

But, hey, there's something to take away from these stories: if you’re ever nervous for a date, or nervous for anything, really, you can think back to these and know that even if everything goes horribly, horribly awry – you can trust that it’s not the end of the world. At the very least, you’ll get a good story (or four) out of it... not to mention, who needs E-Harmony when you've got a story like this on the world wide web, am I right?! Get in line, boys.