Discovery

In December of 1989 I woke up to severe pain in my right side. It felt like kink and I could stretch in just the right way it would clear up and I could take the boys to school and go to work like a normal day. Instead it just got worse and Susan insisted on calling the doctor who said to just go straight to the emergency room. It seemed silly to me, but the pain was getting worse. After dies and scans I was diagnosed with a kidney stones and after many IV bags and a many clicks of the morphine button, I gave birth to a pair of spiny stones.

But the weird thing I noticed through the haze of the painkillers was the procession of specialists coming in to see the condition revealed by the scanner photos with their paragraphs and  arrows on each one telling all about them. And I remember Dr. Rinner sitting on the window sill telling me that I had an incurable disease that would likely cause no more difficulty than possibly difficulty obtaining insurance. And that was my introduction to Polycystic Kidney Disease.

I did a modicum of research and the odds were slightly in my favor of it never causing problem. It was genetic, but there was no history in the family of kidney disease. It was Christmas. When I was released I helped distribute my company's Christmas cakes and went to Christmas Eve dinner at my sister's house. Like nothing had happened.

And life went back to normal. Except I sure was pissed at how much those specialists charged to come in and see my X-rays. It seemed like I should be charging them!