Kid stone: a tale of valour and writhing agony

As a first-year doctor working in a hospital, I have been chastised many times by grimacing patients in pyjamas about how I “don’t know how it feels” or that I’m “just doing this to torture them”. The second accusation is close to the truth for patients who abuse the public hospital system to get free drugs, hot showers, clean sheets and nurses to harass. The first accusation, however, has recently been laid to rest. I now patrol the wards and intervene with impunity. I have been dealt the great trump card of suffering and have been blessed, you might say, with the get-out-of-jail-free card of sympathy. I have done what very few men have ever done. I have given birth! — albeit to a 4.0 × 2.5 mm piece of calcium salt.