Against doctor's orders

Justin Melton woke up urinating blood.

It was May 14, a Saturday. It was the second and final day of the 3A East Regional Track Meet. Melton was scheduled to compete in four different events. He won them all.

Tuesday is when the pain came. It was a sharp, stabbing pain that came out of his lower back and extended all across his midsection. It was the worst pain of his life for a kid whose suffered torn ligaments and broken bones on the football field.

Still in agony, Melton went to the emergency room on Wednesday morning.

After checking for a wide range of culprits like an appendicitis, the hospital took a CT scan and saw a kidney stone about the size of a pencil eraser. They gave him some pain pills to help while he was trying to pass it, but the pain made him so nauseous that he couldn’t keep them, or the food he was supposed to take them with, down. Doctors prescribed him a drug called Dilaudid to be given through IVs, which Melton said was several times stronger than morphine.

“I don’t know what happened, man,” Melton said. “Someone above was looking out for me because Thursday morning, I woke up and they were going to send me to Cheyenne for surgery to get the stone removed because it was blocking my urine from leaving my kidney and my kidney was swelling up.”

Before leaving to drive south on I-25 to Cheyenne, Melton called track coach Wes Gamble to let him know he wasn’t going to make it to the state meet in Casper. Gamble told Melton not to worry about it. His health comes first. On the side though, the two, along with the rest of the Bearcat squad, knew they couldn’t win a state championship without Melton.

“I hung up the phone with him and I could tell that he was about in tears, but I hung up the phone and sat there for a minute and beat the hell out of my bed in the hospital and got my knuckles all bloody,” Melton said. “I stood up, ripped the IVs out of my arm and said, ‘Mom, Dad, we are going to Casper.’”

Melton’s mom, Junan, took some convincing. She was concerned about him rupturing a kidney or worse during the state meet, where Melton was expected to compete in the long jump, 100-meter, 200-meter and 400-meter dashes over the next three days. His dad, Rusell, sided with his son. It was the last track meet of his high school career. If he could tolerate the pain, then go for it. Over the next 15 minutes, they talked mom into rolling the dice and drove west instead of south.

Junan texted Gamble’s wife right away, telling her to tell him not to scratch Melton from his races. If Gamble had already told the officials to replace Melton, there was no going back on it. She reached him as he was talking to the officials, but before he told them to scratch Melton.

“I’m just glad that didn’t happen. Someone was looking out for me,” Melton said.

The long jump was scheduled for 11 a.m. As Melton walked toward his teammates at Kelly Walsh High School, the wind was howling on the wrong side of freezing. Snow was falling. Melton’s face was almost as pale as the white flakes. His pupils were dilated. His head was loopy from all the painkillers still clinging to so many of his nerve endings.  

“What are you doing here?” A stunned Gamble asked.

“I’m long jumping, coach,” Melton answered.

“Alright. We’ll see how you feel when you’re running down the runway,” Gamble said.

Running in the 200-meter dash prelims wasn’t very painful, but the sudden stopping and the hard landings of the long jump hurt. His swollen kidneys throbbed with each heavy step.

“You know what it’s like jumping up and down on a full stomach? Imagine that times 20,” Melton said.

After the long jump and 200-meter dash, Melton went to see a specialist in Casper. The doctor told him the intense pain on Tuesday and Wednesday was when the kidney stone was passing through three small passages in the ureter, which connects the kidneys to the bladder. He most likely got the kidney stone in the first place from being dehydrated. It has always been a bad habit. He never takes drinks with him on the bus, forgets to drink water during meets, and the team doesn’t stop for dinner on the way home.

“‘I’ll probably never get dehydrated again,” Melton said.

Friday, he felt a little better and by Saturday he was feeling great for the finals. He won three out of four events and broke his own 3A state record in the 100-meter dash by .02 seconds. Douglas took second overall at the state meet, losing to Lander by 11 points.

“This year, I was a lot more excited for the team score (than individual medals). Gamble and I had done some serious number crunching to see what the team scores might end up like, and we were right there. I think me not winning hurt us a little bit and the incidents in the 300-meter hurdles was just bad luck,” Melton said, referencing Ty Etchemendy being disqualified for knocking a hurdle into another lane and Michael Addleman false starting. “What can I say about Ty Etchemendy. That kid is a freak. I can’t wait to come back and watch him over the next couple years. What happened to him was just bad luck.”

The weekend brought around another argument between Justin and his mom. He had prepaid $1,400 to go to Puerto Vallarta with about two dozen fellow seniors and chaperones. However, he still hadn’t passed the kidney stone. After much begging, Junan once again let Justin chase a once-in-a-lifetime experience at the risk of his health.

“I kind of got away with murder there,” Melton said.

Junan packed his bags with enough medication that he may now be on the DEA’s radar for suspicion of drug trafficking, but she let him get in the car and head off to the Denver airport.

At 3 a.m. at DIA, Melton gritted his teeth through 20 seconds of searing pain, which suddenly subsided when the kidney stone finally passed through the last of his system. Behind it was more than a week’s worth of urine.

“It took forever. I think I took the world record. It took at least three minutes,” Melton recalled.

When he was finally done, Melton greeted his friends, celebrating like he just scored a touchdown in the state championship. He also called his mom and left a voicemail with the good news. Now he could enjoy his vacation and she didn’t have to worry . . . as much.

“It timed up just perfect. Like I said. Someone has been looking out for me for awhile now.”