[BobC]

Have had the usual falls, breaks, getting hit in the head with a baseball, getting kicked in the head by a mule as a young child, the unholy matrimony and resulting years of child support pain and suffering, removal of most all of my right lung at the age of two (thank God was too young to remember, but have an enormous scar to always remind me), and did the kidney stone thing. Kidney stones were too big to pass naturally, so underwent the procedure where they go to break them up, during which they inserted a stent similar to edtiques' in me, except I had it in for almost 4 months. Was supposed to protect the urinary duct from damage while passing the broken-up kidney stones. Nothing seemed to pass so they finally removed the stent (which that procedure alone should get a very high spot on this list). Turned out the broken-up kidney stone pieces were too big to fit through the stent, and it actually kept me from passing them. After removing the stent, the unbelievably large kidney stones finally, and naturally passed, including one maybe a little bigger than the quarter of the size of a penny. And before any one of you says, "Gee, that's not very big at all!", just remember where this kidney stone was travelling. Yet, none of this was my worst pain ever!

Senior in high school and got hit with "Hypercontractile Peristalsis", or as more commonly known, spasmodic or "jackhammer" esophagus. To explain in layman's terms, your throat has a series of muscles that contract and relax in a set and defined order so when you swallow it assists in pushing food and liquids down to your stomach. Now think of all the nerves and signals getting mixed up somehow so the esophageal muscles start randomly contracting and relaxing like a scene out of a Keystone Kops film, or one of those crazy Benny Hill chase scenes. The resulting pain can be excruciating, hence the common term "jackhammer". In my case, every time I swallowed it felt like someone had reached in and was literally pulling my heart, lungs, throat, and everything else, out through my chest. Lasted about 3 - 4 days, with the worst period being so bad that just breathing and only slightly moving/affecting the esophagus, triggered the heart ripping pain.

No known cause or cure. But, in my case they decided to try and mitigate pain from potential future attacks by performing a Cricopharyngeal Myotomy. Surgically going into my neck, and as the surgeon performing the operation explained it to me, cutting the nerves so if the spasms ever came back, I hopefully wouldn't feel them as much. The other proposed option was to prescribe nitro glycerin pills. Fortunately, almost 50 years later, I have never had such a violent and painful attack again. But compared to this, the kidney stones were a walk in the park.

I'm guessing Dr. Frank is having some interesting recollections.