For those of you who have been following the blog you will know that a couple of weeks ago I had a surgical procedure to remove a kidney stone that had become lodged in my right ureter and that after the stone had been blasted with a laser and hauled out by a sort of mini grappling hook the surgeon left a thing called a stent in place to keep the passage open and promote healing. This thing did its job but it also would give me the feeling of "gotta go, gotta go gotta go right now!" pretty much constantly and a persistent ache with every visit to the head; so you can imagine that I was looking forward to getting this thing removed. The only thing is I was also anticipating a pretty involved procedure only this time without the general anaesthetic that put me out for the first one. I was told that a local anaesthetic would be used so, of course, I envisioned the urologist launching an anaesthetic harpoon directly into Mr Happy while I writhed and screamed on the table to the amusement of the assembled multitudes. Needless to say (but I will say it) this isn't what happened. Firstly, the doctor was the epitome of calming confidence and reason; secondly a topical cream was used as the anaesthetic and other than the odd feeling of this cold liquid sliding down the hatch (and I am not referring to oral application) it wasn't too bad at all. Now that the 12 inches of macaroni has been removed I can get on with things as per normal and look forward to the process of getting the litho to pound out the other two stones that are squatting in the kidneys themselves.

It's kind of interesting how much more there is to each speciality of medicine. When I had my melanoma removed I had thought hat Plastic Surgeons were mostly butts, bellies and boobs but then I found out that not only do they do melanoma removal, but also most surgery on your extremities from the elbows and knees outwards. The urologists not only remove kidney stones, but they are also the folks that operate to reduce the size of your prostate or indeed remove cancerous ones should it come to that. Much of this surgery is done through the urethra in the same manner as my kidney stone was removed. They do this to try to avoid damaging the nerves in the lower abdomen that govern sexual impotence and bladder control. All in all pretty important stuff to me as I get older. Pretty neat too, eh?