Triumph Through the Storm: My Battle with a Kidney Stone and the USMLE

The air in my hostel room felt heavy, almost alive with anticipation, the kind that clings to your skin and makes every breath feel like work. For over a year, I had poured myself into preparing for the USMLE Step 2 exam, the exam I believed would open the door to my future in medicine. My weeks were laid out like a blueprint, every day carefully planned, every hour a deliberate move toward my dream. I lived in a hostel near Lady Reading Hospital in Pakistan, a place where the hum of ambition never stopped and the weight of expectations pressed down just as constantly as the sweltering summer heat. My roommate slept peacefully at night, unaware of the storms inside me, while I sat at my desk, a fortress made of textbooks, notes, and highlighters, burning the midnight oil.

Then, four nights before the exam, a sharp pain ripped through my left flank and jolted me awake like a cruel alarm. It wasn’t the kind of pain that allowed negotiation. It was relentless, searing, radiating from my back and digging deep into my gut. I lay there in the dark, my heart hammering, telling myself it was nothing. Maybe a muscle strain. Maybe stress. I tried to believe that lie, but deep down I knew. I had read about it countless times in my studies. Kidney stone. That tiny jagged piece of rock capable of bringing even the strongest person to their knees. I drank glass after glass of water, desperate to wash the pain away. After three torturous hours, it finally dulled, leaving me exhausted. I collapsed back into bed without waking my roommate, carrying the pain in silence like it was a private badge of stubbornness.

The next morning, I dragged myself to the library, trying to keep the rhythm of my routine alive. But my body had already betrayed me. The sleepless night had left my mind foggy and my concentration fractured. Each line I read felt like dragging my feet through mud. That night, the pain returned with full force. It was no longer a whisper. It was a roaring beast tearing through my left side, leaving me curled up and gasping for relief. Morning couldn’t come fast enough. At 7 a.m., when my roommate stirred, I finally broke my silence. “I think I need to go to the hospital,” I whispered, my voice trembling. I could have gone alone, but fear had me in its grip. The quiet terror of not being strong enough held me back, and I waited for someone to be with me.

At the emergency department, the doctor brushed my worries aside. “Just a back sprain,” he said with a clipped tone. “You’re stressed about your exam. That’s all.” His dismissal cut deep, but I trusted my body more than his words. I insisted on tests, even though exhaustion weighed on me like lead. The X-ray and ultrasound confirmed my worst suspicion: an eight-millimeter stone lodged in the middle of my ureter, blocking the peace I desperately needed. My exam was two days away. Panic rose like a wave in my chest.

I went straight to a urologist, hoping for some miracle. He prescribed NSAIDs and alpha-blockers, telling me there was a chance the stone would pass. Surgery was also an option, but the recovery was unpredictable, and rescheduling the exam was not something I could accept after a year of preparation. I chose the pills and prayed.

For two sleepless nights, I fought the pain in silence, each wave reminding me of how fragile all my plans were. The day before the exam, I felt a brief shift, a fleeting relief as the stone moved lower. A CT scan revealed it had reached the vesicoureteral junction. The consultant told me to wait it out, but I was running out of time. I even considered surgery, but his warning about recovery held me back. Out of desperation, I did something reckless. I inserted an IV cannula into my own arm so I could control the pain if it became unbearable. It wasn’t courage. It was desperation, a way to reclaim control over a body that was betraying me.

The two-hour drive to the test center was a blur of nausea and dread. I arrived the evening before the exam, my cannula still in place, a painful reminder of what I was enduring. But when I tried to inject medication, I realized the line had blocked. I had no one to help me. I removed it, wincing, and accepted that I was alone. By then, the NSAIDs had burned holes into my stomach, leaving me with raging gastritis and constant vomiting. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. The pain throbbed in my flank like a cruel metronome.

As if that wasn’t enough, an epidemic of conjunctivitis had spread across Pakistan. Somewhere on that public journey, I had caught it. On exam morning, I woke to find my left eye red, swollen, and dripping with discharge. My vision blurred. I stood in front of the mirror and stared at the stranger staring back at me—a man with a kidney stone tearing his body apart, an eye clouded by infection, a stomach torn by drugs, and a brain drowning in pain and sleeplessness. I was supposed to be a healer, trained to diagnose and treat, yet I couldn’t even save myself.

My brother, my anchor, stood by me. He urged me to eat something, anything, before I left. I tried a sip of tea, but it came straight back up. I told him I was ready to quit, ready to surrender the exam and all the months of work. He looked at me with quiet faith and said, “Go to the test center. You’ve come this far. It’s going to be okay.” His words became the rope that pulled me back from giving up.

At the test center, I met a junior. My pale face, my trembling hands, my swollen eye. He spoke gently, “You can sit for it another day if you want.” I shook my head and whispered, “I want to try.” I stumbled to the restroom, vomited, and walked into the exam room. My body screamed at me to stop, but my will refused. I began the test. Each question was a duel between my mind and my suffering. After every block, I left to vomit in the restroom while the invigilators watched me with pity. By the fourth block, I was broken. I wanted to end it, to submit the exam unfinished and retake it later.

During the break, I lay outside on the lawn, staring at the sky. It looked endless, vast, and in its silence, I felt something shift. My pain was temporary. My dream was eternal. That thought flickered like a spark inside me. I went back in, block after block, until I finally clicked submit with a trembling hand. I walked out, dazed and uncertain, ignoring the buzzing of my phone as friends tried to check in. I collapsed into sleep as soon as I reached home.

But the pain returned that very night, sharper than ever, as though my body had been waiting for the exam to end before it surrendered. At the hospital, the consultant said surgery was no longer an option—it was the only option. I agreed. The ureteroscopy removed the stone, but they placed a double-J stent to keep the ureter open. Soon after, complications set in. The stent became infected, and pyelonephritis took over. For twenty-five days, I lay in bed with fevers spiking to 104, drenched in sweat, my body burning and freezing all at once. Antibiotics dripped into my veins as I fought nausea, pain, and exhaustion. The spinal anesthesia left me with post-dural headaches, making even the smallest movement unbearable. I was vomiting and terrified that I might have meningitis. I felt like I was hanging between survival and collapse.

When results day came, I didn’t even want to check. I didn’t care. My friends kept buzzing with excitement, but I told them I would wait. That night, I climbed up to the hostel roof. The same sky stretched out above me, vast and endless. My heart pounded as I opened the page. There it was. 269. My vision blurred with tears, not from pain this time but from joy. Against all odds, I had made it.

The journey wasn’t over. My Step 1 exam loomed, originally planned for about a month after Step 2. But my illness stole those days, leaving me with just a few days to prepare. I skimmed UWorld, took seven NBME exams in seven days, and scored above 85% each time. I walked into Step 1 with newfound confidence and passed. The OET and Step 3 followed, and in four and a half months, I conquered all three USMLE exams.

This story isn’t just about kidney stones or exams. It’s about the human spirit, about staring into the abyss of pain and fear and choosing to keep going. If you’re reading this, battling your own storms, know this: your willpower is stronger than your obstacles. My journey was unique, but so is yours. And like me, you’ll find a way through, emerging victorious on the other side.