Some of you (I hope at least a few of you) noticed that I've been away from this column for a few weeks. Unfortunately, it was because I became a patient.

I woke up at 4 a.m. a couple of weeks ago with excruciating lower back pain. I tried to push through it -- tried getting dressed for work -- but eventually it became really quite unbearable.

By the time I decided to head over to the emergency room, I started to realize what people mean when they say they have "10 out of 10" pain. This was something I couldn't ignore. My eyes were swimming; I was diaphoretic, tachycardic, pale, and retching from the pain.

At first I thought I had a kidney stone, since I've had these in the past, but with my kidney stones, I always tried to move around to find a comfortable position. In this case, howev

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