How Not to Vacation

When I move next spring, I'm considering selling my 80 year old dining room set. Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful and since the day I found it at an estate sale, I've babied the thing. It's a bit old fashioned, and I know, I know, that's its charm. Truth be told, I don't mind dated and old fashioned. The issue is it's heavy. Solid. And on Saturday, wanting to finish my holiday decorating, I shoved some dish cloths under the legs of the buffet and slid it from one room to another across the hard wood floors. Duh. Sometimes I just have to have immediate gratification. Who cares about lumbar disc herniation? I was unwilling to wait for the men folk to get home from work to help me with the heavy stuff.

I'm a little sore today.


But wait. I'm not done highlighting my growing list of vacation medical maladies. When I woke up yesterday morning, it was with an acute awareness that all was not well with my bladder. It's been so long since I've had a urinary tract infection that I'd forgotten what they felt like. My bladder is, as long as it's not acting up, something I tend to take for granted. I bet you do, too. Well, by mid-afternoon, I was convinced that the urgency, frequency, burning and spasms were an issue of mind over matter and the first thing I should do is drown the little germs and get on with my vacation by making a great meal (I finally saw Julie & Julia). Let's just say that grocery shopping + excessive hydration + a UTI make food gathering a complicated expedition. I made two pit stops to the restroom while at the store. Lines were long at the market and it seemed to take forever to find the fixings for beef stew, but I finally made it home, made the stew and continued denying what was happening in my nether-regions.

By evening, I began to get chills. Now it could have been the damp weather, but with my oven on, this wasn't possible. My house felt like a junkie's--hot, hot, hot. It was me. It was my body telling me to get my ass, or more specifically, my bladder to an urgent care center. Being a bit dramatic (yes, I am), I had visions of sepsis setting in, complicated by complete overreaction of my immune system and the triggering of the cascade of events that lead to shock and multi-organ failure. By 8 PM, I was convinced if I didn't get help, I'd be on life support by midnight (it appears that I'm also prone to exaggeration).

I pulled the not quite done stew from the oven and drove the 10 miles to the clinic where the clerk commented how much she liked my perfume and then wanted to discuss the merits of about 10 different brands of perfume all with fresh, crisp notes (I couldn't make that up if I tried). All the while my bladder, irritated and near to bursting was getting annoyed. I finally told her, "look, if I don't get to a bathroom soon, this visit is going to get very messy and no amount of perfume will cover that up." It was discovered, no surprise, that I did indeed have something other than urine in my specimen cup. After the quickest ever after hours clinic visit (I was their only patient), I made it to the 24 hour drug store where I found salvation in the form of antibiotic and antispasmodic pills.

My pee may be bright orange and glow in the dark, but I feel much better today.