Well! let’s be very honest! my kidney stone surgery’s post op pain was… PURE HELL!

Bonjour my dear Friends ❤

I thought of sharing with you today a little update on my most recent surgery, from 2 days ago, at UNC… for surgical removal of kidney stones blocking my left ureter/kidney! ( this surgery being now my 6th consecutive surgery 🙁in a row in the past 10 months!).

Knowing me and my very enthusiastic grateful spirit, you probably are thinking ” Oh! he is going to start his update with something super positive and happy!…” and, trust me, I SOOOO wish that I had more enthusiastic news to share with you about that surgery, whose goal was to remove a 10mm large stone stuck in my left ureter, between my kidney and my bladder… but the reality of my update is is that the post surgery pain and experience of that particular surgery was nothing short of… PURE HELL!!! 😳😰😳
Oh MY GOD!!!  “OMG” is all that comes to my mind as I am trying to describe it!!!

And trust me, I REALLY so wish that I had a kinder way to describe it all but… anything else would be a major understatement… so let’s call it what it is… a HELL of excruciating PAIN!😳

So here is how it all unfolded…

Initially, everything started super great… getting to UNC mid day with my AMAZING little sunshine Stephanie💗💗💗 who was going to care for me through that surgery… just as she did SOOOOO AMAZINGLY 💗 through all my previous ones (Jeremy is currently in Paris so he could not be here with us).

So I arrived to the hospital in a great spirit… ready to embrace yet one more surgery filled with enthusiasm and gratefulness for all, especially for all the medical staff who I am always SO deeply grateful to for all doing their very best to keep me alive (and it REALLY and truly “takes a village” 😉 to keep little me alive these days! 🙁 ) … so, initially, everything started on a great note…

Actually as soon as Stephanie and I arrived inside pre op, I was greeted by an amazing member of their medical team who ran straight towards me with a huge smile and a huge hug and explained ” Pascal!!! you probably do not remember me… but we met once years ago at Jordan Lake where you were shooting a drone Film and I was fishing and we chatted some… and I have been following your photography since… and I was so happy to see your name on the schedule today!…”.
He was just SO wonderfully enthusiastic and warm hearted! ❤ just such a great man with a great soul and radiant spirit!… so little me was filled with even more love and gratefulness to be welcomed this way by such a caring person, our new now great friend, Scotty!
Everyone else on the staff also offered great kindness and caring welcoming… and little me, as you can see on the photos, being in my normal goofy/excited/high on life spirit… cracking many jokes to amuse everyone… (my thinking here is always the same… IF I am going to get pain anyways in the next couple of hours… why would I ever let that ALSO make me miss this present moment and this opportunity to laugh with and exchange kind and fun words with everyone… because, guess what!?… whether it is right before a surgery… or at ANY given time, no matter what comes AFTER this moment, I will NEVER EVER get to live this same moment TWICE… so NOP!  Even right before a surgery I am just NOT going to miss all these opportunities to connect to others and share love and smiles with them all…. for every single moment we live, short of horrific pain, is ALWAYS a most wonderful opportunity to connect with all those around me❤😍😊

I also got the wonderful very sweet surprise of my very caring friend Elisabeth, who sneaked into the pre op floor just to bring me a caring loving hug pre surgery… such a happy surprise for her so kind heart to come over <3

As you will also notice here under, everything really started in a “very happy and very optimistic” spirit that this surgery would be, while of course expected to be painful and unpleasant (what surgery is not right!? ),  but yet would be manageable… and I would have NEVER EVER foreseen that it would actually… turn into a nightmare of pain 😭

So as I first started to wake up from anesthesia with HUGE SHAKING ☹😢😳 all over my body and tremendous cramps all over my legs… feeling like I was literally falling and dying all at the same time… which all made it be the very worse, by far, “emerging back from anesthesia” that I ever experienced ☹… and sadly I have experienced quite many already.  And I have absolutely no clue why all went that way???… but it was horribly distressing and scary all at once. I literally felt for the longest time like I had seizures and was dying all at once… almost like if having another heart attack… which I still have PTSD from my massive heart attack a few months ago… so this is was all really bad to start with right after surgery 🙁

Now, to top it all, very sadly, all was compounded by a really “not so nice nurse” (and God knows how much I loveeee Nurses ❤ in general and have the deepest gratefulness for all the nurses of our world as I truly think that they are such the true unsung amazing heroes ❤ of the medical world for, when their heart and soul are in the right place of course… for amazing remarkable nurses bring SO MUCH caring and support and love to us when we are hurting the most and at our weakest… (actually several of my favorite ex girlfriends are nurses ❤… just truly AMAZING human beings and individuals!!…) but, sadly on that day, the one assigned to little me was …. well… not too kind 🙁

Needless to say my endless gratefulness and admiration also goes to all the Doctors and Surgeons without which, many of us would not be alive anymore… definitely not little me… their expertise and dedication does save and heal lives every day and for such are also of course heroes to my heart ❤… just as EMS’s ❤ amazing people and everyone and anyone involved in caring for others… let’s try to always remind ourselves that we are truly nothing without each other😍😍😍… nor would survive either without each other’s emotional or medical healing and supportive skills… it makes a heart so much more grateful and loving when we remind ourselves that we are all there for each other… and all need each other… at least I humbly think so…

Then, after that quite horrible “re-emerging” to life from the surgery… the actual true HELL all got started!… as with the very first drop of urine that I felt going through my penis… I literally had tears instantly running down my cheeks… as I experienced the most horrible pain I ever felt in my life! 🙁
The best way I can think of to describe it would be that you feel a mix of ACID and NEEDLES running through your bladder and penis… that’s how horrible it felt… and you of course can not stop it… for I was way to weak to interrupt any of my urine flow…
On top of it all and as I was regaining consciousness, I literally felt like my bladder wanted to explode, and 2 new nurses helped me walk to the bathroom, as I was way to weak to do it on my own, and there… I then experienced literally again the MOST AMOUNT of PAIN of my entire life, all while trying desperately to pee…
I honestly really thought that I had been through a LOT of pain when I went through my ICD surgery a few months ago  and where the surgeon did cut deep down my pecs’ muscles (the surgeon himself described the recovery from that surgery as “extremely painful” and it brought me close to tears daily for a bout 2 weeks…) but I guess I have now learned that when it comes to IMMENSE PAIN, one can always top that!… and on that day, in that bathroom, it did…

Oh my God!  that pain really got me instantly to tears and screaming… as it truly literally felt like that worst mix ever of acid and incredibly sharp needles were running through my bladder and penis… it was nothing short of horrible. And I was SO NOT prepared for it… !!!
Sure the doctors had mentioned “you might be uncomfortable…”… but NOTHING like the reality of it… Ouaouaou!!! what a nightmare!!!  And I really thought that I had milder kinder words for it all… but they would all be a lie and such an understatement!!!

And also little did I know that this hell was going to actually last for the coming 48 hours… every 1/2 hour… peeing huge amounts of blood… even peeing pieces of flesh/tissue… which of course hurt like hell even more as they run through my urethra and penis…

And to top of it all… every single time that I peed… I also experienced horrible pain in the left flank … all triggered by the … guess what!?…. 12 inch long STENT (aka piece of plastic) that they inserted inside me😳😰between the kidney and the bladder and that I have to keep for a week !

 So here is for you to get a visual on it for those of you who like “medical stuff”, an example of one of one of my first peeing in the hospital and so that you can assess the extend of how horribly painful (and scary) peeing so much blood and flesh truly is… and yes I spilled all over the place as you are simply SHAKING SO MUCH and moaning from the pain that it is impossible to control anything… (needless to say I cleaned all for the next poor soul coming in that bathroom after banged up little me).

And here to share also with you … a “headshot” 😉 lol … of all those little hard sharp pointy suckersssss that my amazing surgeon Dr. Viprakasit removed from my kidney and ureter… they literally look like little rocks you would find on the street.. except that these were… inside my “internal street”!

Oh and yes so I forgot to share more with you about one of the worst “extra bad news” of all that surgery process!!! … So, guess what!? when you go through that surgery… the surgeon leaves that 12 inch long piece of plastic inside you to drain the kidney.. and you have to keep it for 1 to 2 weeks and… amazing extra bonus (NOT!), on top of the pain of it, that stent makes you… instantaneously incontinent!… and no one told me anything about that in advance… so the first few times that I suddenly felt like peeing when I got back home with Stephanie… I started to rushing to the bathroom and guess what?… while in excruciating pain I also, despite my hand going by reflex to my crotch to kind of hold it together and delay my peeing, ended up uncontrollably peeing blood and urine ALL OVER THE FLOOR!!!😭… only to end up almost almost passing out from pain on the toilet!!!

(photo note: ready to be sent home and trying desperately to put pressure on my crotch, hoping it would reduce the pain and burning, which OF COURSE it will NOT… but such a very interesting primal reflex isn’t it?… I used to do the same when I went through a really bad and really painful vasectomy).

You are probably now starting to realize why I decided to describe this is as literally… a true HELL right!?…
Holy cow this whole nightmare went for literally 48 hours non stop!…. repeating that whole cycle every 1/2 hour or so with my bladder suddenly releasing without me having any control over it… and all that blood and urine flowing out of me all over the floor in excruciating pain…

Now my truly AMAZING Stephanie ❤❤❤(I simply could not have made it through that first 48 hours of hell without her and her AMAZING caring and love and support) also had the brilliant idea, while she went on that first night post surgery to get my meds at 1am at WallGreens, to get me… guess what!?… DIAPERS!!!😵😦 … when she saw how much of a hell it was to be suddenly incontinent and not being able to make it to any bathroom without literally liquefying myself within 2 seconds of the first sign that you want to pee… that was such a BRILLIANT idea of hers!!!… (and you would think that maybe, just maybe, the hospital would have suggested that so helpful and practical solution… but sadly no one did 🙁 ).

Maybe I should have started the title of this post with something in the spirit of ” You know that this is NOT going to happy night when your daughter has to rush to the pharmacy in the middle of the night to buy … DIAPERS for you!!!… for the 1st time (probably not the last! 🙁 lol ) in your life… ”  but despite the depressing spirit of that reality, Stephanie’s idea was of course brilliant!… and so that I would stop leaking and spilling blood and pee all over the floor of our home… never making it in time to any of the bathrooms (and you are talking about what? like 15 seconds that it takes to walk from the couch where I was to the nearest bathroom… but guess what!? at +2 or 3, that would be it!!!! total instant incontinence… all followed by the same insane pain urinating… ouaoua! what a fun night right!?  NOT!!!! 😵😱😳😰

Now on the positive side, not only my little sunshine had this great idea but also she happened to buy diapers for me who were incredibly “non totally ugly”! lol 😊😋😊 … all confirmed by the assessment of my amazing and so beautiful ex girlfriend Leah who so sweetly came to visit me (and I was of course… dressed with nothing but a shirt and… my diaper!… you know … ex girlfriend and all, allowing me to be undressed as needed 😉 ) and she said right away that she was amazed at how so very decent those diapers looked!… almost like some Targggget underwear… (not Dolce Gabbana material yet ! lol ) but… not pure “ugly” either!
So my modest suggestion to you is that IF you are going to welcome a beautiful ex companion into your home while being half naked then… of course do it as much as you can in style 😉 and follow Stephanie’s great lead of buying stylish diapers! lol

And now a couple of final random extra sharings…

I also woke up by the way with… huge blisters on my tongue… probably from the tools they used to intubate me… and of course to no fault of theirs…. I am sure that they were doing their best to keep me alive <3 and guess what!? I will take big painful blisters on my tongue from general anesthesia’s “casualties” 😉 ANY DAY over… a broken tooth or worse, as can always happen…
So YAYYYY to being grateful for blistered tongue! <3  I just won’t French kiss anyone for a few days (which in itself… might actually very well kill me more than my 6 surgeries! 😉 – but also a blessing for, as you will easily imagine, for maybe the first time in his life… my littl’ buddy is SOOOO out of commission for a few days! lol

Oh and did I forget to mention in the “really bad news” category! … I also have a 3″ STRINGGGGG 😱😳😵hanging from …INSIDE my penis! 😱😳😵
All because… Guess what!? It is with that string… that they are going to PULL OUT in a week the whole 12 inch long stent from deep inside my kidney and bladder… Yap!  You heard right!!!  No only Pascal is walking around these days in … ADULT DIAPERS… and PEEING BLOOD at all times… but he ALSO… has a STRING IN HIS PENIS!!!… (and it is NOT because I am just kinky like that! lol definitely NOT! )  and … a nurse is going to be pulling on it… a week from now… and worse of all.. it will be done WITHOUT ANY ANESTHESIA!!!  Oh well… maybe I will get lucky and my heart will fail again and I will die before this has to happen!? 😉  kind of wishful thinking here as I am literally SOOO SCARED of that next procedure! 😱😳
And I warned the nurse that on that day my littl’ friend (aka… my penis 😉 ) is going to be the SMALLEST and the SHIEST he has ever been in his entire life!!!!!

Oh and guess what… another “super not cool not fun fact:.. during the first night (which will remain to my memory as “my night in hell” – why not be very objectively descriptive in our memories right? J ) one of the time where I was trying to run to the bathroom as I knew within 10 seconds I was going to pee all over myself that hellish mix of pee and blood and flesh… in my hurrying to bring my underwear down… guess what I did? My fingers clipped without knowing it the incredibly thin and incredibly… black! (why don’t they make it WHITE… so you see it better right? <3 you know kind of like… WHITE string for woman’s tampons… why does my “tampon” has a black invisible string???? No clue what the engineers were thinking there? ) so… as I clipped by mistake that string all while I was grabbing the top of my underwear to slide it all down in a hurry… I indeed PULLED down on that string and pulled it out a good couple of inches… OUT from my penis! … and guess what!?  As I did I ALSO of course pulled and moved everything inside me at the same time… pulling out from INSIDE MY BLADDER… and INSIDE MY URETER… and down from my kidney… all sliding in the process… and yes… you guessed right…I screamed once again in pain… all while failing to make it to the toilet and peeing blood and pee all over the floor…

Oh and guess what!? Other really “bad news” for little me… the surgeon only operated on… 1 SIDE/1 KIDNEY and since I am sooo lucky (as in NOT!!! 🙁  ) as to ALSO have 4 more kidney stones in my OTHER kidney!… I will one day need to go through that entire hell a second time… needless to say, I hope I get hit by a bus before that (filled of course with beautiful stylish Women? 😉 since, if you are going to die in a car crash… my personal approach is to of course do it in style and in gorgeous company 😉  ) … and that way I will never have to go through that hell of pain again ! <3  yayyy to wishful thinking! 😉

Anyways… there you go for a few sharing about my 6^th surgery which, as much as I was so sure that it was going to be very manageable compared to my 5 previous ones… ended up, very unexpectedly, being the most pain I ever endured post surgery… Oh well…

And what could ever be the HUGE SILVER LINING ❤ in all of that you might ask???… as you might wonder what in the heck could I find positive in that whole hell experience?… well, simply and so magically and so gratefully… that I truly have the MOST AMAZING DAUGHTER of ALL in the entire world!!!!❤❤❤ …as Stephanie indeed brought SOOOO MUCH HELP and SUPPORT and CARING and LOVE and PRACTICAL HELP non stop to that surgery and to that “night in hell” and post surgery hell (and all while juggling a paper for UNC that she had due by midnight!) …. and just as she did so amazingly for all my previous 5 surgeries!!! (and as my amazing son Jeremy also did whenever he was in the USA for any of my previous surgeries).

There is something simply nothing short of INCREDIBLY MAGICAL the day where you realize that the circle of life has gone indeed … “full circle” and as much as not a single instant while raising my babies, who I love more than anything and anyone in the world, for 21 and 25 years now… I ever thought ” Oh… one day they will help me when I won’t be able to do something myself… “ since, as we all are as parents, we only think in what I like to call “one way love” 💗💗💗 which is that we endlessly and unconditionally “give” to, and help, our children and love them and support them, without ever expecting anything back… which is such a great gift for our own journey to learn how to offer that endless and unconditional love…  but here now, through all my medical hell of this past year and my 6 successive surgeries and my massive heart attack, I now have had my heart and soul filled with more love that I could have ever been surprised with from both my babies stepping up in such AMAZING ways and literally caring for me in ways I never ever thought would happen… or that I would never ever need… and it makes my heart and whole life’s journey so “complete”. What an ultimate gift to ever experience and receive from your children…

The sentence ” I need you… I am so down, and hopeless, and weak… that in this moment I really need your love and help to not drown even deeper… “ that came to my soul and mind for the first time right after my massive heart attack SO took me by surprise… and I will never voice enough how deeply and endlessly GRATEFUL I am to both of my children💗, especially to Stephanie 💗 who, from living here, has been with me every single minute of the way of all those horrible pain and tears…

My most sincere wish for YOU and your own journey will be for your children to bring that most amazing and magical emotion of all to your own life and heart one day…
Should we all wish and dream of having children as amazing as my daughter💗 and my son💗…  I could not be more proud of them and more grateful for them… and I definitely I could not have gone through that night 2 days ago without Stephanie 💓💓💓

With much much love to YOU!!!❤❤❤

pascal