Childbirth, Kidney Stones and Amsterdam

by Bob Sparrow

photo (2)     Sometimes my travels take me to exotic places; sometimes my travels take me on introspective journeys, but last Friday morning at around 2:00 a.m. my travels took me to the emergency room at St. Joseph’s Hospital with the on-set of a kidney stone.  It was my third, so I’ve become quite knowledgeable about them and familiar with the associated pain, which has become the subject of some debate.

It has been said that the pain of a kidney stone is similar to the pain of childbirth.  Having never given birth, I wouldn’t know and my personal experience has told me that some stones are more painful than others.  Obviously women would be the only ones who would be able to give us an objective perspective on this subject, but do they?  Surely some do, but it’s easy to see how they might stretch the truth a bit when they’re in there pushing and breathing and sweating and yelling while the father-to-be is out in the waiting room waiting to hand out cigars.

So to settle the question once and for all of which is more painful child birth or kidney stones, an extensive survey of both men and women was conducted.  OK, it wasn’t really that ‘extensive’, it was really just a simple question to each gender.  Because many of the male survey participants had never had a kidney stone the survey equated the pain of a stone to the pain of being kicked in the river cruiseballs.  Survey participants were asked the following questions:

To the women: Knowing the pain of childbirth, would you have another child?  Only 3% answered ‘No’.

To the men: Knowing the pain of being kicked in the balls, would you like to be kicked in the balls again?  100% answered ‘No’.

There you have it – statistics don’t lie.

So how does this all tie into my up-coming river cruise down the Rhine?  It doesn’t, but hey cut me a little slack here; I’ve just been kicked in the balls.

van gogh     Prior to boarding the Viking Jarl, we’ll be spending three days in Amsterdam and I understand, according to our itinerary, we will be:

– Touring Ann’s House of Franks (I love hot dogs)

– Goghing in a van to see a starry night (I hope it has a moon roof)

– Drinking Heineken cheese beer (Leave it to the Dutch to combine beer and Cheetos)wind mills

I’m just excited to sees the famous Wind Tunnels and a field filled with Two Lips.

OK my medication is starting to wear off – I’ll be fine.

 

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