We got a package in the mail yesterday. Now, we have been getting packages pretty regularly thanks to my severe Etsy addiction, lots of gifts from our gift registries, and my adorable fiance's somewhat mysterious addiction to personal scents. But this one is different. This one is from a medical lab with two containers I am supposed to use to collect my urine. For two days. In a row.
Let's back up a bit. You remember my brief, but oh so passionate relationship with Mr. Morphine, right? Well, despite my insistence that going to a kidney stone specialist at the University of Minnesota was "stupid and a waste of time and money," I was outvoted and convinced that I should get up at an ungodly hour of the morning last week to get a CT scan and go "visit" the doctor.
I don't know if you guys know about CT scans. It's this crazy three-dimension picture in which they can basically scroll through your body with the click of a mouse. And they took this scan of me (!) and compared it to the scan from the ER from back in March. What they saw was not promising, as it appears there are two brief shadows in my right kidney that might be stones, not to mention a really screwed up ureter that looks like it has seen a stone or two or two dozen in its day. I am scared. I don't ever want to be laying down, incapacitated, on the bathroom floor, ever again. And I sure as hell don't want it to happen in 10 days when, in case I haven't mentioned it, I AM GETTING MARRIED.
Lots of details about kidney stone prevention - diet, drinking lots of fluid, blah, blah, blah - were shared with me at this appointment. But the most disturbing aspect was that they wanted to do a urine analysis. Oh, my God. Let me do this and never speak of it again. Please.
It is quite possible I have had other kidney stones in the past, but never noticed. These are called "silent stones." And it is possible that these two shadows in my CT scan may very well be silent stones. So the results of the test are not dire, but did I mention the collecting the pee for two days in a row? I am very disturbed by this.
So, this weekend. Every single time you pee, I want you to think that I am collecting my pee all weekend long. Every single time.
so so so sorry ... grrrr poor you. not fair. i will think of you in the w.c.
ReplyDeleteI can 100% empathize. I had to do the exact same thing when I was getting tested for kidney donation. I had to keep it in the fridge at work, which disgusted me more than I can say. Good luck lugging that thing around!
ReplyDeleteOh, man. I totally had to do that this weekend, and it is not my favorite thing in the world. Mostly because I think that the only thing worse than collecting your own urine is talking about collecting your own urine, something that becomes an absolute necessity in the instance where it actually happens. Arrgh.
ReplyDeleteYou guys don't know how bad your comments made me feel about whining. One of you DONATED AN ORGAN and the other BIRTHED A BABY and I'm whining about my kidney stones. I'm sorry! No whining anymore!!
ReplyDeleteIf this post does attract some really creepy comments, then I don't know what will.
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