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Chang? Chang, what the hell happened? I heard the mission got scrubbed
because of an injury…
Uh… kind of.
Where’s Duo? What happened? You never got off the landing pad, how could anybody have gotten hurt?
Calm down, Yuy. Duo is in with Sally…
Duo is the one who got hurt? How? And why the hell are you grinning about it?
He’s not exactly ‘hurt’, per say. It’s more of a… condition.
Will you tell me what the hell is going on already?
The mission was scrubbed because a man cannot pilot while doubled over begging to be put out of his misery.
Ok, this is not fucking funny anymore… what’s wrong with Duo? Don’t make me go through you to…
A kidney stone!
…. What?
Sally is pretty sure Duo has a kidney stone.
And you find this… funny?
I find it hysterical.
You would, Chang.
Sally! What’s going on! Is Duo all right?
He’ll be fine. I don’t think anybody has died from a kidney stone in the last decade or two.
But… doubled over?
Oh, I’m told it’s worse than childbirth.
So Maxwell is about to give birth to a bouncing baby… stone?
Shut up, Chang. He’s really in that much pain?
Let’s put it this way… try to imagine taking a golf ball, covered with spikes, and passing it through a garden hose.
… Spikes?
It’s more of a crystal than a stone.
Can you do something for him?
He’s down getting a cat scan right now, but I’m sure that’s what’s going on. Once we see how big the stone is, I’ll know if we just need to fill him full of liquids until he passes it, or we have to go in after it.
… Go in?
It’s called Ureteroscopic stone removal. We go in through the urethra and bladder and use a tiny laser…
Can we stop talking about this now?
What’s the matter, Chang? Not so amusing anymore?
It stopped being amusing right around the golf ball remark…
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Ok, now that the drugs have kicked in, I’m starting to feel a little
dumb for begging Chang to shoot me.
Please… don’t say things like that to Chang, Duo. You never really know with him…
Heero, he’s my partner, he wouldn’t really shoot me. I… don’t think.
Just laugh at your pain.
That’s what partner’s do, man. Where is he, anyway?
He went home. He lost the humor after getting some descriptions from Sally. Couldn’t seem to get his legs to want to uncross. And kept muttering about spikes.
Good. To be honest, he was getting on my nerves with the offers to call Roto-Rooter.
You really feeling better?
Yeah… they gave me some kind of anti-inflammatory something or other, and it stopped feeling like rabid rats were trying to chew their way out of my stomach after about twenty minutes. In fact… I’m kind of starting to feel stupid…
Stupid?
I was just convinced I had to have something terminal. I can’t believe it’s something so… mundane.
It is weird that something so small can hurt so much…
I know! I mean, I’ve been shot and stabbed and beat to a pulp, but this had me rolling around on the flight deck whining like a three year old!
That’s what Chang said…
Bastard. I hope he gets to experience the joy first hand some day.
Uh… I’m not sure I could wish a spiked golf ball on anybody, no matter how much of a jerk they were being.
… Spiked what?
Never mind. Hey Sally, what did the cat scan show?
You can forget flushing this puppy out… he’s got a 7 millimeter stone lodged half way between hither and yon.
Hither and… where?
Kidney and bladder. But not to worry; the urologist on-call is on his way in. He’ll go in and get it broken up, and we’ll get you all taken care of this afternoon.
Wow. That’s uh… fast. Shouldn’t I think about it first? Or… something?
What’s to think about? You can suffer in agony every time the thing shifts at all, or we can go in and laser it to bits and have you on your way home yet today.
Well, when you put it that way…
Smart lad. Now I just have a few forms for you to sign. Try not to read them too close, they’ll just freak you out.
Sally, I’m losing my warm/fuzzy here…
That’s ok; we have meds for that.
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No… seriously this time; just fucking shoot me, Heero.
Now, Duo… don’t be like that.
I want my damn kidney stone back, ok?
It can’t be that bad…
I have a stent, Heero. Nobody mentioned the stent to me. Or the string. There is a string hanging out of… out of a place no string should be hanging.
Well, that’s how the stent will come out again, Duo…
I know that. I know that now. Do you have any idea how unattractive that idea is? That somebody is going to pull that string in five to seven days and… ugh. I don’t even want to be awake for that.
Sally said it wasn’t that bad.
But Sally can not be trusted, now can she? Sally did not tell me about the string. Sally did not warn me about what the pain meds were going to do either.
Well, she did tell you to drink lots of water…
But she did not tell me why. If I had known that not drinking gallons of water was going to result in the brick in my colon, I would have been more diligent.
Well… uh… at least you don’t have that problem anymore.
Oh no… now I have screaming diarrhea from the antibiotics that were due to the flaming infection that effing urologist gave me. That’s just so much better!
Well… uh… at least you’re not a girl. Noin got a yeast infection from the antibiotics on top of everything else.
How… do you even know that? Why would Noin even be talking to you about something like that?
Sally told me when I called her to find out what to do about your… uh… dysentery. So at least there’s one thing you can’t have happen… right?
Will you stop looking for the bright side and allow me my whining? Please? I think, after this last week, I’m allowed a little whine. Hey… wine. Wine’s a fluid… right?
Somehow, I don’t think that’s quite what the doctor meant….