Well, it's the day after and here I am, more or less intact, one kidney stone down, two to go, and a whole new respect for a certain portion of the Turney carcass that I used to take for granted. I had the head of the urology department as the guy who actually did the procedure and considering that the stone was significantly impacted in the tube from the kidney to the bladder and he had to work at getting it loose using grappling hooks and lasers, although I have no way of knowing I suspect there might have been an audience watching him do it. They had to leave a stint in place to allow healing which means that I'll have the pleasure of another trip to their OR to have it removed, plus two more trips to have the ultrasound hammer break up the other two stones which are happily bobbing about in my kidneys. Although the healing process does involve some residual pain, the backache that I have had in my back for the last 12-18 months is finally gone. Poor old kidney gets to have a break.

There are 10 urologists working in the day surgery at the hospital here and they are very busy from about 0700-1700. They sort of tag team each other and when one is done his appointments for the day they start on the waitlist on a first come first served basis. That's probably really how I happened to get the head of the department, although please allow me my small conceits that I was in some way special.

For my American friends who might be wondering about the wisdom of socialized medicine and who have heard the rubbish from the lobby groups representing the status quo, and who say that Canadians are not happy with universal medical care that we have here, I went from visit to the GP, through the specialist and to the OR in less than 30 days and the only cost to me was $3.10 for the antibiotics which was my share of the pharmacy bill. This system works very well, thank you very much, and this isn't the first time that I have had cause to be grateful for it.