Hey, I'm back. We went to Tennessee for a family get-together, and I ended up calling 911 and riding in an ambulance with flashing lights to a nearby hospital, where tests indicated surgery.

When we left, the doctor kept saying: now, tomorrow, call a Urologist and arrange for surgery to remove the stent. I reminded the doctor that we would not get home before about 2 in the morning, so calling the Urologist would have to wait a bit!

Now comes the only good news in this post! We went to see the Roanoke urulogist who grinned: let's do the surgery right now! HUH? Then, instead of 'surgery' he placed some thin covered wires and demolished the stent and anything else there! No pain, no anesthesia, amazing.

Basically, a huge kidney stone had been removed during the surgery, so I'd expected yet another operation. Since men typically suffer from kidney stones, I saw the waiting room crowded with men, so they must also benefit from those tiny covered wires. What a neat technique.