As I write this I am contemplating ways to improve my overall health.  I see no irony in the fact that I am contemplating while eating a bag of peanut m&m’s.

The reason that health is on my mind is that this week I passed an important milestone.  In the form of a kidney stone.  Well, I’m pretty sure I passed a kidney stone.  You kidney stone veterans out there are no doubt yelling at your computer screen, “If you passed one you’d surely know about it!”

I’ve come to realize that kidney stone veterans are generally not shy about sharing their experiences.  Or in one extreme case the actual stones.

In the interest of personal modesty and general decorum, let’s not review any details.  Suffice to say that I was blessed with an extremely mild (and small) kidney stone, or am setting myself up for bitter disappointment when the stone, having now successfully faked me out, begins to move unexpectedly and renders me a quivering heap.

So today I celebrate.  I feel like an oyster that has completed a pearl.  Although considering oysters are supposed to produce pearls, maybe I’m celebrating like some other sea creature that has unnaturally delivered a pearl.  Maybe I’m celebrating like a clam.

And this is probably as good a time as any to mention that I think “Kidney Stone” sounds like a mysterious, wealthy, British heiress in a soap opera.

So here’s hoping that was the end of that and we will never speak of it again.  I should give thanks that besides the pain, I also avoided a second fear with this stone.  I recently mentioned the half-marathon that I ran in Louisville.  I feared that the stone would shake loose somewhere so close to the end that I’d feel compelled to try and finish anyway.  I imagined the crowd as I struggled toward the finish line:

“Mommy, why does that man sound like a can of spray paint?”