By the time you read this, I’ll be in recovery.

That statement is of value to those who read my column last week about my having a bout with kidney stones. Surgery is today, marking the end of the physical discomfort and the start of some pain of the financial sort. Stay in school, kids, please. Land that good job no matter how long it takes. You don’t want to know what this stuff costs without health insurance.

I got a few links via email about herbal breakthroughs for kidney ailments. The guy didn’t bother with that disclaimer you read on the bottles, that the ingredients contain statements not endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration. For now, I’ll have to weigh carefully each piece of advice I get from people with a semi-informed opinion.

Disintegration of the stones depends on that laser I’ll have inserted into me with the immeasurable assist from anesthesia. Without the latter, I’d have to take the advice of Scotland-born comedian Billy Connolly when he explained the best advice if you come up on a shark while swimming in the ocean. “Put your head under the surface, and inhale deeply,” he said.

Dark humor aside, I plan to be back in this space a week from now with some sort of account of this latest episode with this particularly bothersome ailment. We’ll see if the juice regiment works this time.