Last month I found out I had a kidney stone. After a week of feeling very crampy, the cramps turned into an intense and constant pain in my lower right back side. The pain increased and decreased in intensity, but it was always there. After a night of agony I went to the emergency room, where they found out I had a 8 mm stone blocking my urether. The urine couldn’t get through and thus my kidney was swollen. Some morphine followed by percocet helped me get through the next couple of days (vicodin didn’t help at all), until the urologist put a stent that pushed the stone back into the kidney and allowed for the free flow of urine back into the bladder. A week later, they blasted the stone with shock waves and I’ve been passing it ever since. Finally this week they removed the stent.
I’m blogging about this because my doctor wasn’t very clear in describing how painful and uncomfortable having a stent would be and none of the information I found on the internet was very illuminating. So I figure I’d warn others in similar situations.
For the six weeks I had the stent on, urinating was extremely painful. As the stent was constantly touching the walls of the bladder, I felt like I had to urinate all the time – specially when I was walking or excersising. When I did urinate, it was extremely painful, it was like an intense burning sensation in my urinary track followed by a crinching pain in my kidney. I didn’t know if all this pain came from the stent, the stones I was passing or if I had a UTI (the pain was very similar to that of a UTI) – and I was worried. Alas, now that it’s over I know it was the stent – thanks god it’s out!
Author: marga (Page 132 of 158)
Spam Kings is yet another book I wasn’t able to finish. It’s somewhat well written in that the writer is able to create suspense and keep you turning pages – but eventually you realize that it’s all for naught. The stories themselves are pedestrian an uninteresting, more suited for an article than a whole book. The spammers and anti-spammers are boring people with petty personal problems that seem completely besides the point. And nothing really much happens in the book. After reading half of it I was just too bored and I’m returning it to the library.
I haven’t seen information about mysterious disease that’s killing displaced Bushmen in Botswana in the mass media. This article comes from Survival International (http://www.survival-international.org/), an organization that works with indigenous peoples all over the world. The mysterious disease comes in the text of the San Bushmen being expelled by the Botswanan government from their ancestral lands at the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The government claims it’s for their own good and to protect the natural resources at the Game Reserve, but they have awarded diamond mining concessions in the reserve to large diamond companies, including De Beers.
BOTSWANA: Mystery disease killing evicted Bushmen 22 Mar 2006
At least fifteen Bushmen have died suddenly of unknown causes this year in New Xade resettlement camp and three remain in a critical condition. The deaths come as British Baroness Jenny Tonge and other peers insist in the House of Lords that the evictions have benefitted the Bushmen.
Gaseitsiwe Gaorapelwe died very suddenly after spots appeared all over his body. After being tortured by wildlife guards in 2000 for hunting, he said to a Survival researcher,
I just got an e-mail from United at an e-mail address I haven’t used for at least 5 years telling me they’re going to start sending me their spams. I don’t know where they got the e-mail address, though I guess I may have given it to them many, many years ago, but I do know I have never actually subscribed to their bulletins with that or any other address. Note that they’re not asking for permission to start spamming, but just announcing they’ve found this address and they’ll start doing it. What’s specially infurating about it is that they don’t let you unsubscribe easily. The unsubscribe link takes you to a page where you have to enter your milage plus number to do anything. But who knows what milage plus number I had a decade ago when I may have given them that address?
In any case, I was able to get out of the spam list by calling them at 1-800-589-5582 – but that meant I had to find the number and then spend time talking to someone.
As I see it, their spamming practices are yet another reason to avoid United.
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