A Little Tale About a Catheter

At the request of Bethy, I am putting this on the blog.

This one day I woke up and I was SO cold. Like I was shaking cold. In August in Texas. Is that insane or what? So, even though I felt like shit, I got dressed to go to class in jeans, an undershirt, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. I was seriously getting into the layers. And to top it all off, my Chinese class is in the coldest building on campus. Nice, right?

Then, in the middle of class, I got amazingly hot. I started sweating. I took my jacket off. I rolled my sleeves up. Still sweating. Still so hot I couldn't focus. So I rolled up my jeans, there in the middle of class. I was getting the weirdest looks, but I swear it was necessary.

After class, I went to Health Services, and they recommended I go to this AM/PM clinic thing off campus. So then I finally got to the clinic, and they wanted an urine sample. Well, the problem with that was I have a hard time giving urine on command ANYWAY, plus I had just gone to the bathroom right before.

So I'm sitting in this tiny bathroom in the clinic, and I'm running the faucet water, reading the pamphlets, doing everything I can think of to try to pee. And I can't go, right? Not for my life. After about thirty minutes they knocked on the door and said that if I couldn't go, they would have to get the sample by using a catheter!

Now, this really freaked me out. Because my Grandmothers were/are catheter dependent, and I did NOT want to live the rest of my life like that. But, after another five minutes, I admitted defeat. At twenty, a catheter was put into me. After me asking the nurse, the intern, and the Doctor, if this was going to make me catheter dependent. They all denied it. And the catheter was painful. But they got the sample, right?

So, I'm sitting in this room reading the Iliad, and they come back, and tell me...there's nothing we can do. You have food poisoning. So...basically, I went through this experience for nothing. Not even a prescription. For food poisoning. Nice, right? And I couldn't go pee for about 24 hours afterward, and that scared the shit out of me...but all is well in the end.

LOVE!

Courtney