She lay on the Naugahyde table. Blood oozed from her arm, as maroon as reduction of grape.

My young bride has an old man's disease: Alfred Lord Tennyson had it, as did Henry the Eighth. This is not consoling when your toe is on fire. Having the gout is the pits.

She turns to me when she hurts. It happened with her stone, the one before we made the diagnosis, the one that doubled her over. First were the frantic fits and convulsions and the skips to the loo by my darling. Then there was pain sufficient to knock down a rhino.

The initial treatment for a stone of the kind that she had is hydration: Lots of it. Sometimes, when the patient lacks grace and she continues to vomit, oral hydration is useless. That's when we use intravenous. For some people, intravenous means a trip to the ER. Some people aren't married to surgeons.

I had to be in Kingston. Ya, mon! My flight was leaving that day!

Before heaving the anchors aweigh, on the way to MIA I placed a ladder in the bedroom. To the little shelf at the top, the one nobody's supposed to step foot on, I connected the soft, plastic bag: Drip ... drip ... drip, the saline went down to my sweetheart.

Two days later, in the Bergmanesque bedroom, shutters shutting and ceiling fan beating, I found her. Tethered to the ladder, she was supine and high on narcotics. Now that the journey was over, we proceeded with a different solution: A blast from the laser and my baby was healthy again. The ladder went back to the shed.

In the months that followed, we tested medications aimed at prevention. Often it worked, but not always. Once, in the Australian bush, it didn't. Eventually she connected with her doctor at home. Later, engulfed by Japanese tourists on their way to the barrier reef, the Motrin gave her relief. She's good now, but we still check samples of blood.

Since the saga of the stone and the Kingston, we have had a binding agreement: I will never again fly away if she is passing a stone. In return, she would stay married to me. I threw in a bonus: Nobody else would ever draw her blood again. Her veins are lousy and I draw blood with the finest.

In the tube, the blood flow filled up the vacuum. Motion would ruin the placement and dislodge the needle from vein. She looked at my face as I watched it and she knew just what I was thinking.