Urinary tract infection.
Oh, dear Lord. Just shoot me. Please.
As a retired registered nurse, (one of the worst sorts of patients second only to physicians), I started noticing symptoms of the dreaded UTI about 4/17, surein the knowledge that tomorrow the symptoms would be gone.
They weren’t. They really didn’t get any worse as I was drinking the obligatory cranberry juice, and ≈ a gallon of spring water every day. No medical help required.
Yet.
Well, by the end of the following week, my back started gettting so uncomfortable that even 800mg Ibuprofen didn’t take it completely away.
Hmmmm. I wonder if
Well, of course it had moved up into my right kidney, and let me tell you what. It hurt. My abdomen was bloated to the size of quadruplets, it was painful to breathe, painful to cough, (which I didn’t do very much, thank you Jesus), painful to do just about anything. I thought maybe a urinalysis would get the ball rolling, so I texted Jesús to see if he could take me round to the laboratory to do the very thing. (Had we gone, the UA would have been $3.75 US, plus $0.50 US for the sterile container for my urine.)
Lucky for me we saved all that money, as he took me directly to a wonderful female surgeon not far from the apartment. She talked so loud, (probably thinking I would understand her better, sort of the English in reverse phenomenon), I almost laughed out loud. She did a quick exam, thumped on the right side of my lower back, just above my waistline, and when I almost fainted, she, too, diagnosed me with a UTI, with kidney involvement. (I could have told her that. I’m a very good diagnostician. Just ask me.)
She prescribed 3 different meds: a Fluoroquinolone, (antibiotic), similar to Cipro in the US, which was combined with a pyridium type medication in one tablet to stop the bladder spasms, a Maalox type tablet in case of stomach pain, and an anti-inflammatory that knocked me on my proverbial ass. For days.
Let me say here, and now, I WILL NEVER WAIT SO LONG TO GO TO A PHYSICIAN AGAIN. There, you read it here.
The severe brain fog I was in for more than a week was terrifying in the extreme. I had thoughts that the fog must be what Alzheimer’s feels like in the beginning. For days after beginning treatment I couldn’t hold a thought longer than a snap of my fingers. I couldn’t move around the apartment very easily, holding on to objects nearby so I wouldn’t fall. It took an entire week before the fever, chills, abdominal spasms, brain fog, etc., all started to disappear. Truly, a horrifying experience.
I’ve learned a very valuable lesson, that, now it’s over, has had a very profound effect on my mental health. I thank God every morning, and every evening, as well as dozens of times during the day, that he found it in him to cure me of my egotistic, righteous attitude, as well as my infections.
I am fine now, on the 8th of May, and am trying to get back to walking short distances outside, but have not started exercising again. Not just yet. I’m thinking to do that this coming Monday. We’ll see.
Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.
Post script: a very happy birthday to my brother Eric. I hope you enjoy many healthy birthdays in the future.