To Pee or Not to Pee (Part 2)

Hello Friends and Family,

This is the conclusion of “To Pee or Not to Pee”. If you missed “To Pee or Not to Pee Part 1” you will want to read it first.

When we left off last week all of my symptoms had resolved after discontinuing my ADHD medication and while I was sad to have lost that tool, it felt like a good trade.

Life was back!

Courtney and I got to see one of my favorite bluegrass bands.

I attended my first meeting and graduation as a member of the Mars Hill University Board of Trustees.

As soon as graduation was over I hightailed it back to Atlanta for a Kentucky Derby Party and a private concert our friend hosted on some land his family owns here in the city.

Another work trip to Raleigh, NC where I got to visit the old Raleigh Coffee Company location one last time before their big move was announced to the rest of the world.

I had my annual physical on May 11th and immediately left for a work trip to Knoxville.

Microscopic Hematuria

I got a call from my doctor over the weekend letting me know that even though I couldn’t see it, I still had blood in my urine. This condition is called “Microscopic Hematuria” as opposed to “Gross Hematuria” which is what I had back in April.

We talked about the possibility that I had a kidney stone, but I had none of the normal symptoms. He recommended that I visit a urologist after Mills was born to get to the bottom of it.

Other than kidney stones, the list of things that cause my symptoms is short and scary. Top of that list was bladder and/or kidney cancer. The odds were extremely low given my age and health profile, but anytime someone mentions cancer as a possibility things get tense.

Final Diagnosis

I visited the urologist back in July before phase one of my paternity leave was completed and I was to go in for an outpatient procedure on August 10th, 2023 for him to see if perhaps I had a kidney stone that had passed or if there were tumors or other cancerous looking anomalies.

My first stop was the ultrasound room where the tech took what seemed like 1,000 images of my kidney and bladder. She kept asking, “Does that hurt?” And after 2-3 times of telling her no I responded, “Should it hurt?”

She didn’t answer.

I went down to the operating room to change and get prepped for surgery. My doctor came in to talk about my ultrasound results.

After all of that, I had a kidney stone after all. It had made its way all the way down my ureter to the top of my bladder on my left side.

Everyone in the room looked relieved at the result.

The kidney stone was busted up with a laser and he took a look around in my kidneys and bladder and found no evidence of any tumors, so I do not and did not have any cancer.

I went back this week to have the ureter stent removed without incident. This November I will go back to the urologist for another ultrasound to make sure another stone has not grown as well as to learn how to prevent future stones from developing.

(Special thanks to James Herrin and Conor Sen for your willingness to help shuttle me around after anesthesia. Hope I didn’t say anything too crazy.)

What Happened?

In the end there were so many things that happened to disguise the underlying issue:

1. I never felt any kidney pain before the gross hematuria in the airport.

2. The only symptom I had was gross hematuria.

3. The gross hematuria resolved immediately after stopping my medication.

4. The only kidney pain I felt was the night after Mills was born. It was not nearly as bad as I was led to believe a kidney stone would be.

To my knowledge no one in my family has ever had a kidney stone, so I’m betting there is some food or supplement related cause for this kidney stone that will be easily remedied going forward.

The craziest part of this experience is that recovering from the surgery was the only time I really felt any pain during the whole ordeal. Go figure.

The only remaining pain is the $3,500 hole in my wallet that will take some time to refill. I can only imagine how much this would have cost without insurance, even insurance like mine that doesn’t pay for anything until you are almost dead.

Next up…Road Trip!

We are heading to Asheville, NC this weekend for our first family trip. I am sure no one is surprised that this is our first road trip with Mills.

But first, we take our happy and healthy baby to get his first vaccines this week. So on Tuesday morning he will be even more healthy, but quite a bit less happy.

Until our next Adventure,

Austin, Courtney, Mills, and Willow

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