COMMENT | One of my basketball friends recently just got out of surgery to remove kidney stones. When he finally joined us for our weekly session, three weeks after his recovery, he told us about his experience.

“It is the most excruciating pain I have felt in my life!” he said.

“But wouldn’t you have been unconscious from the anaesthetic?” I asked.

“Of course. That wasn’t painful. It was the peeing for the next three or four days that was torture.”

Then, another one of my friends who had kidney stones several years ago butted in and reaffirmed that it really is painful.

“It was so painful for me. It’s like childbirth,” he exclaimed.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never given birth before.”...