As If I Needed an Extra Dose of Humility!

I've been dealing with kidney stones and infections (everything from my kidneys, south) since the first weekend of Spring Semester. Two weeks after finishing my latest antibiotic, I'm still experiencing a great deal of discomfort and pain, as well as having difficulties peeing to put it indelicately. I called my Dr.'s office yesterday in an attempt to receive sympathy and validation  from an actual medical professional, so today they called me back to let me know they ordered another urinalisis for me at the lab. I went by the lab this afternoon.

I had myself a nice, large iced tea from Carles Jr. before I went over. "That'll do it," I said to myself! When they called me back they gave me my special wipe and clean catch specimine container, and of course they reminded me to follow the directions posted on the back of the bathroom door. I've done this a million times, but I carefully reviewed the directions again, being the conscientious invalid that I am. Step #3 goes something like this: begin urinating in the toilet to clear the urethra of contaminates, then collect the sample in your special cup during midstream. Yeah, that's a paraphrasing, but you get the idea. I did as told, only I could only make a little trickle. By the time I got that little cup in place to catch my sample midstream, it had stopped. My bladder felt full, but it just wasn't happening. I relaxed and waited in vain for that "here it comes" sensatoin to return. Remembering I had a bottle of cranberry juice in my purse, I got up, washed up, and chugged it down, then paced back and forth for awhile (it was a big bathroom). Finally I turned the water faucet on to a nice steady trickle and settled back in to wait. As I listened to the water I closed my eyes and imagined that cranberry juice trickling steadily down through my kidneys, through my ureturs, and filling my bladder with unbearable heaviness. I remained in meditation for about a half hour.

Finally, I put my empty sample container in the special window, washed up, and found the technitian, telling her, "I had difficulty collecting my sample and may I please hang out in the waiting room for awhile and see what happens?" "I'll just leave your cup and a new wipe here, so you can come back when you're ready," she said. I returned to the waiting area where I dug back into my reading for tomorrow's class and four 8-oz disposable cups of water from the conveniently located dispenser. I'd been texting back and forth with Mike on and off all afternoon, and found myself sending a text that read, "I'm at Dr. Nobuhara's office and for like maybe the 2nd time in my adult life I can't pee to save my life!" A few minutes later I received a reply from my boss, the Reverend Dr. Michael Minch (whose name appears in my phone list very near my former husband Michael's) saying, "I'm sorry about your pee problems. I'll be seeing you around."