Yesterday, I asked a nurse if she had something I could throw up in. And that was the least of my worries. Finding a barf container was low on my list, me, the barf-phobic person.
If you're thinking, "You know what I've never done? Is have a kidney stone. Maybe I should look into one," I am here to tell you to rethink your plan. Although really, so far it hasn't been THAT bad. I have not screamed. I mean, I set the bar high. Have you literally screamed in pain? Okay, then. Calm down.
The day started yesterday at 5:51. When your day starts at 5:51, nothing good can come of it unless you're the person who gets up to deliver milk, in which case, you woke up in the future, Bub, and you're out of a job. But 5:51 is when I woke up thinking, Man, I have to pee like a mug, which makes no sense but my cousin Brigid used to say she had to do things "like a mug" so I stole it from her in about 1976 and have said it ever since.
So I did pee, and welcome to my bathroom blog (it just occurred to me that my Aunt Kathy should totally do a what-came-out-of-me-today blog. That way she could tell people without actually telling all of us. But then she'd be all, "Did you read my blog today, about the size of my poop?" and there goes that idea.), but as soon as I was done I felt like I had to pee all over again. I was practically buying my pee a diamond eternity ring.
I totally wanted Marvin to buy me a diamond eternity ring for our 10th anniversary, to show me he'd marry me all over again, and nothing is more hated by men than the advertising staff that works on DeBeers' stuff, and anyway he didn't because clearly he would NOT marry me all over again.
But back to my pee.
So as soon as I felt like I still had to go, right then I knew I had a urinary tract infection, which I get all the time, and I was all son of a--OW!
OW!
Ohmygod--OWW! Because all of a sudden my lower back, just on the right side, was hurting like a mug. I mean, it was no twinge. It came from nowhere and it was kind of scary. I tried to lie down, and stand, and bend over, and hey, guess what? Pain still here! How YOU doin'?
And lemme tell you something. Ned is perfect in these situations. He's accommodating, he's calm, he tries to make you laugh. He's exactly who you want in these emergencies, of which I have about 20 a month, so maybe he's just learned.
I knew my doctor's office opened at 8:00, and I say this like I have their schedule taped to my refridge, but I knew because I called right away. Is there anything I hate more than that patronizing, "If this is a medical emergency, please hang up and dial 911" bullshit on the doctor's office answering machine? Oh, fuck you. I know that, asshole.
Actually, yes. There is something I hate more. People who make their hands form a heart shape. That I hate more.
Hang up and dial 911, you heart-shaped ass fuck.
Am cranky today.
The point is, Ned and I drove over there before 8:00 and waited for them to open. He called his office on the way. "Hey, it's Ned. I'm carrying June over to her doctor; she's not feeling well."
The receptionist at Ned's work is from the East Coast.
"No, not literally," I heard Ned say. "To carry someone must be a Southern colloquialism. It means to drive someone."
If I hadn't literally been writhing in pain, unable to get comfortable even remotely, I would have found that conversation hilarious. She thought Ned had me thrown over his shoulder, carrying me to a physician. We'd be like that annoying Footprints in the Sand plaque. God was carrying you to the doctor the whole time!
We got to the doctor, and it wasn't just the pain, it was feeling like I'd had a whole six-pack of Natural Light, which in a million years I never would but you know what I mean, and that I had to pee like a mug but absolutely could not. I mean, nothing came out. That was the worst part, and that god-do-I-have-to-pee feeling is still there.
Can I interject right now to say I REALLY look forward to the medical advice? And the "Did your doctor...?" and the "Why didn't she...?" I'm gonna get today?
Anyway.
While I waited for the doctor to come, I was really almost in a panic. I could NOT get comfortable, and I was starting to feel some nausea and asked for something to barf in (I didn't. Would have lead with it if I had), and I felt bad for Ned, who was worried and who was missing work, and through our whole day of running to this doctor and that, his phone kept buzzing. "Ned Nickerson," he'd say, in his work voice. Then he'd say work things for awhile and be all worky, and hang up. Twelve seconds later, his phone would buzz. "Ned Nickerson."
He sounds more Southern when he's on work calls. He gets all Southern charm on their asses. It's cute.
ANYWAY MY PEE.
So, the doctor determined that I don't just have a UTI, it's a HUGE RAGING ANGRY UTI. A UTI that needs its own URL so it can write about how angry it is IRT, KWIM? She also suspected a kidney stone. She prescribed me an antibiotic, so Ned drove to get that, and I drove myself to the CT scan place, and man did I feel fantastic. Ready to take on the world, is how I felt. Oh my god I was so miserable.
Ned showed up with the drugs while I was still writhing and waiting to be seen, and I was so unhappy that I went into the onsite pharmacy at the CT place and stole a bottle of water. There was no one around and I could not wait another fucking second to take this pill in the hopes it'd make me feel better. It was 10:30 at this point, and I had not peed since 5:51.
And you know what yesterday consisted of? A whole lotta middle-aged black women who were completely over me. Every doctor's place we went, the person working at the desk turned out to be a middle-aged black woman, and for all I know it was the same person just racing across town to greet me over and over, so oblivious was I, but they were all kind of like, "Yes, honey, I know it hurts. You just hang on and someone will be with you shortly."
Define "shortly."
See, this is why I need my own full-time doctor at my house. Because it was barbaric, having to go to the doctor, then to the CT scan, then BACK to the pharmacy, then BACK to my doctor's office, then DOWN to the urgent care because HELLO IT'S AFTERNOON STILL HAVEN'T PEED.
But as Ned and I waited at urgent care, where they were going to catheterize me, and no human has ever looked forward to a tube jabbed up her parts than I was at that point, it was like, click.
"Oh," I said to Ned, who was texting worky things to work people about work. "I feel better."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Ima go pee."
I have set a record for number of times someone has gone to the bathroom yesterday, but when I went to what I'm sure is not a horrifyingly germ-filled bathroom at urgent care, I was finally able to go. Not a ton, but enough.
"Give me my 30 dollars back! I peed!" I yelled exuberantly to the middle-aged black lady who was over me at the front desk.
I won't even go INTO the obnoxious girl who had a cold who was also waiting at urgent care. She came in with a MASK, and talked about her COLD at the top of her LUNGS to everyone who would listen, and even people who didn't want to. Every time I looked at her, she had another beleaguered soul on the hook. "And THEN I coughed up..."
Like everyone else in there wasn't there because they were sick. We were all just there hangin' out on a Friday afternoon, because urgent care is relaxing. At least I can be assured the middle-aged black lady at THAT front desk was more over White Cold Girl than she was over me.
The point is, the CT scan, which by the way was kind of fun cause it was ride-y, did show a kidney stone, and they also saw some kind of cyst up in there, so I probably have those damn fibroids again, which yay. I don't have the terrible pain or nausea anymore, but I still feel like I have to pee all the time, so I have no idea if I've passed it or not. I'm taking all these goddamn drugs and I go to the urologist like I have a dick next week, and they'll see if it went away.
So basically I'm getting stoned all weekend. When it finally comes out my urethra, if it hasn't yet, Ima name it Franklin. Urethra Franklin.
Here I am. Rock you like a hurricane.
June
