Stoned!

The longest day in my life so far:  17 August 2012.  It started at around 2am.  A pain deep in my abdomen just left of my spine.  It was The Pain That Dare Not Speak Its Name.  It was excruciating, agonizing, stabbing, throbbing, piercing, radiating, aching, dull, and severe all at the same time.  And it was relentless.  I could not stop moving as I desperately searched for some body position that would just give me a nanosecond of relief.  I never found one.  There is no reason for anything to hurt this much.  I would have taken it seriously even if it was only half as intense.  If intense pain were not enough, intense pain induces vomiting. 

This might be a good time to skip ahead to the best new experience of 17 August 2012: suppositories.  After getting the pain under control, I was discharged to await further testing.  Skipping ahead a bit more to the saintly black cab driver that brought me to my outpatient appointment (remember what pain induces?) and an angelic triage nurse that brought me straight to A&E (ER) from the outpatient unit.  She made sure that a doctor came to me immediately.  The scan showed a kidney stone obstructing my ureter, and I was admitted to a surgical ward with amazing staff.  Upon further review, the urology consultant recommended a muscle relaxer as the stone was nearly at the end of its journey.  Once it drops into the bladder, it is no longer a problem because the urethra is much larger in diameter than the ureter.  We got home at 9 pm.  The stone passed sometime in the night as I woke up completely normal… well… normal for me anyway.  I have only three things to say about passing a kidney stone: ouch, i hope it never happens again, and my wife is amazing.  

Photo Credit: Radiological Workstation UX

P.S. I forgot to mention that the urology consultant told me I have to pee into all of my wife's tea strainers.  Believe me, I don't want to... but it's doctors orders

Taekwondo

I usually do not pay much attention to the Olympics, but this year it descended upon London and I thought I had better take advantage.  We went to Taekwondo at the ExCel Centre.  It was very entertaining.  We saw the repechage for the Bronze medals as well as the Gold Medal match for the flyweight women and men.  As a warm up to the repechage and the gold medal matches the World Taekwondo Federation demonstration team did some pretty amazing feats.  

Going to the Olympics for me is likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime event but I think what I will remember most about these Olympics is the fantastic television coverage.  The BBC put all of their feeds onto 24 channels accessible by the red button.  It's just amazing.  I can watch any sport… and the added bonus of it being a feed was that it is often without commentary and it stays on the event even in between the action.  So we get to watch the crack team changing the jumping course in equestrian or deploying the hurdles onto the track.  It's like watching pit crews.  And we also get to watch the athletes preparing and interacting with each other.  It gives you this feeling of being there that the typical segmented coverage does not...  really, really nice.  The other thing I love about watching the Olympics here is that the commentators get just as excited when a British athlete does well but doesn't medal as they do when one does medal.  It is delightfully refreshing.  

Cycling Road Race

Last weekend was the Olympic cycling road race, which came pretty close to our flat.  The men's race was on Saturday.  The race took more than 5 hours, so we watched a good bit of it on television before we walked 45 minutes over to Thames Ditton.  On the television coverage, it was very easy to find riders from the different teams.

The walk was pleasant and a local was kind enough to tell us about a spot to watch that was not too crowded.  While waiting the 20 minutes for the race to arrive, we chatted with some very friendly people and were even offered canapes.  And then in a flash of about two or three seconds, the lead group appeared and disappeared.  I only saw a Spanish rider near the front because the uniform was so distinctive.  Then a few minutes later in a much longer flash of maybe five seconds the peloton flashed past. I managed to see three Team GB riders because they were together and that was about it.  I didn't manage to spot any of the Portuguese or American riders.  It just went by too fast.  After that, we stopped at the George and Dragon on the way back to watch the end of the race.

I am glad I had the experience of seeing an Olympic event… especially for free.  (As you know, I am a lover of all things free.)  And I would never had experienced the hospitality of Thames Ditton if we hadn't gone.  But if the aim is to see anything in a cycling road race, TV coverage is probably the way to go.