Manny Chiquita will never forget the first time he experienced the symptoms of kidney stones. It happened in the early 1990s while Chiquita was enjoying a round of golf in Tsawwassen, B.C. “I peed blood and ignored it,” he recalls. “I told myself that, if it happened again, I would see a doctor.”
Two months later, the symptom recurred. The father of two then young children visited his family doctor for a checkup, fearing the worst.
Following a battery of tests, including a computed tomography scan that imaged his internal organs, Chiquita was diagnosed with a 17-millimetre-sized kidney stone that was lodged in his urinary tract, irritating the lining of the ureter tube to the point of drawing blood. Due to its size and location, the stone had to be surgically extracted.
