Stone on CT/X-ray, not found in lithotripsy yoday

ChildOfMostHigh

Hello all, this is my first time here. I'm wondering if anyone else has had a similar situation.

For the past two years I have had a fairly unchanged 2-3 mm stone in my left kidney. It is not moving around, so my urologist said it was probably still attached and he wasn't sure it was the cause of any pain I'm having. But I'm pretty sure it has been causing me pain off and on all this time. Really classic presentation in terms of location and type of pain (sometimes shooting into probes and down leg, etc.), when I don't drink enough water it gets worse, etc.

I've also had three CT scans of the last two years, and nothing else is showing up as a cause for concern at all.

So my urologist agreed that he sometimes sees patients whose stones don't appear to have "broken off" yet, but still report pain, and for whom removing them improves the pain.
So I scheduled a procedure today. The one where they go all the way up the urethra through the bladder into your kidney with the laser to break it up and basket it out.

Aaaaannnnddd, he couldn't see a stone. So I did all of the surgery, have a stent in place, all the recovery required, and no stone removal.
He confirmed that it's visible on the CT's, and on the x-ray his office did three weeks ago at my appointment after which we scheduled surgery. I was still having pain this morning before the surgery, so I'm pretty sure it's still there.

He said that the stones develop internal to the kidneys, and as they grow break through the surface, and eventually fall off and float around. His explanation was that the live x-ray technology that they use to target the stone during surgery just isn't quite as sensitive as actual x-ray machines like you and get a doctor's office. Since the stone is small, he said they just couldn't visualize it with that machine. And that it must still all be internal to the kidney tissue, not poking through, so he wasn't able to see it with the camera either.

So basically I went through all of that for nothing, and can just expect my pain to continue, and to live with the fact that there is still a stone in there.

Has anyone heard of this, or been through this?

Thank you for any info you can for provide. Waffling between annoyance, despair, anger, and happiness that at least I'm still here after surgery, since there are of course inherent risks in any procedure.