The fight for diverse and conscious voices

As I mentioned in the last entry, one of the side effects of dusting the stone was that they didn't get enough for a lab sample. That means we don't really know what caused it, so there's no sensible medical intervention. Instead, we get a series of diet recommendations that are generally seen as effective against stones of all kinds. Herewith, in bullet-point form:

• Increase urine volume. A fancy form of "drink more water. No, really, more than that." Some of the associated literature gets very specific, including a suggestion that if you don't have to get up in the middle of the night to go pee you're not drinking enough. That's a hard no for me because although I can do it if need be I definitely get much worse sleep if I'm interrupted and sometimes I can't even get back to sleep at all. My sleep is already bad enough, let's not make it worse. They also suggest one 2-L bottle of water per workday, which is a lot more than I'm currently going through.
  
  Among the tips for increasing water intake are having a glass at "transitional times" like upon waking, before leaving the house, when arriving at work, after using the restroom. Add frozen bits of lemon, lime or orange in place of ice cubes both for flavor and to acidify urine. Choose moist foods over dried - cooked rice, for example, carries water about equal to its grain weight.
  
  Interesting side note - it's suggested to avoid grapefruit juice. Since other citrus is encouraged I'm not sure why this is. Have to look into that.


• Consume adequate calcium. Despite some stones being formed from calcium deposits, it's not advised to avoid or reduce calcium intake from food. Calcium supplements are disrecommended. Considering how many Tums I chew in a given week that's going to be a challenge. One source says if you're going to take them, take with food - the problem is that I take them to control reflux, which causes me not to eat.


• Decrease sodium. Generally good advice, but particularly here excess sodium tends to go out in your urine and it does so by binding to a lot of calcium. If you get calcium stones this is a primary formation pathway. As with other discussions of dietary sodium, it's the hidden sources that get you. Obvious things like salty snacks aren't as problematic as packaged foods, sports drinks, and the like that have tons of sodium we don't recognize.


• Decrease protein intake. I mentioned this early on. The most recent literature I was given differentiates meat protein (which should be limited) from dairy or vegetable protein, which are apparently not sources of stone formation. I don't understand why that is, but there you go.


• Watch out for oxalates. That's mostly spinach, rhubarb, almonds, and miso soup though there are oxalates in lots of things. Spinach is the biggest culprit, by a large margin, which is unfortunate since it's my main source of leafy greens. Bother.

On Tuesday I went in for the second try at the stone-removal operation. It was successful - the stone is dust. I have a much smaller piece of plastic in my body now and an appointment for next week to get it removed. After that, follow the diet and hope.
( Details, nothing particularly awful here but probably not widely interesting )
Now if I can just remember to stay properly hydrated.

tl;dr This is normal. Everything will be fine. We just have to do it All Over Again. I haz a new surgery date in mid-July.

( in case people don't want medical stuff )
With reasonable luck this'll be my last health update for about 7 weeks.

Next medical update. This one has some unpleasantness in it so we'll be cutting the whole thing.

tl;dr I'm home, stable, and not sure what my week is going to look like.
( so what, exactly, happened? )
So, anyone got a car and not busy on Tuesday? They won't let me drive myself home nor call a cab/Lyft - has to be a "responsible person".

No, seriously. This is an update on my undesired passenger so ...
( I'll cut this for the medically squeamish )

If this doesn't make you cringe and want to cross your legs then YKIOK but YKINMK.

For background see this entry: http://drwex.livejournal.com/611980.html

After two weeks of wearing the surgical "shoe" - basically a board strapped to my foot - and showering with said foot in a plastic bag I went for my follow-up. 48 hours ahead I got x-rays. I'm now back in normal shoes that have inserts and I need to buy new sneakers.

The most lasting effects were from not being able to walk normally for two weeks, which left my hips and back in pretty bad shape. I've been slowly getting back to walking - on Saturday I did an unintentionally intense hike uphill through dense underbrush for about 2 miles and survived that OK (though I needed a nap and most of Sunday off from walking). Monday I walked about another 3 miles around WPI campus, about which more in another entry.

The foot is occasionally sore particularly when the dog stomps on the less-protected toe, but it's getting better. I really need new walking shoes, though. Details and longer-term stuff behind the cut (nothing gross)...
( but what about that longer-term stuff )