Last night, I head over to Arts and Sciences night. As I sit down, I am struck with the sudden and painful realization that I'm coming down with a bladder infection.

It was the first inkling, though, so I started drinking water like it was going out of style, hoping the flush the infection before it needed medication.

By the time I got home, it was incredibly painful, but still I kept with the water. I talked to Paul a bit on MSN (I wasn't staying at his house because I had an orientation for a new theatre this morning).

About midnight, just before I'm heading to bed, I go to the bathroom again, and start peeing blood.

Frankly, it scared the fuck out of me. I get bladder infections all the time, but I have never, ever peed blood. I might also note I only have one kidney, so peeing blood is even more of a concern for me.

I MSN Paul. He has no phone at the moment. I do the unthinkable and send him a (bleagh) 'nudge'. (I hate those things.)

Finally, he answers.

"What???" (He told me afterwards he was in bed, and his roommate had come and got him, because I wouldn't stop messaging him.)

"Do you know of any 24 hour clinics?" I ask.

"The emergency room. Why?"

I explain the situation.

His immediate reaction was: "I'm on my way. Drink some water."

I assured him I was, and he was there within fifteen minutes, and we were off to the nearest emergency room.

I cried a bit in the car, at the thought of the giant, impersonal hospital. Paul made jokes to lighten the mood, which I appreciated. That was the first time, I think, he's ever seen me cry.

He went into the emergency room with me. I controlled my tears through getting checked in. I was very proud of myself. I gave all the information clearing and concisely.

I didn't get to see a doctor until almost 4am.

I was feeling okay by the time they called me in. Like, not-teary. Everyone had been more or less nice and understanding to me so far, so I was feeling like I could handle it. The doctor was a short, bubbly woman who had sympathy down pat. I don't care if it was faked, it made me feel better.

"We need a urine sample," she explained after I told her what was going on. It was standard, and damn, I've done enough urine samples. Frankly, it was nice to be doing something I was used to.

What ever. Urine sample, handed it in. Went back to the little sterile room and waited.

And waited.

And waaaaaited.

Finally a different woman comes in and introduces herself as a nurse.

"Alright, Rosemary, we need to take a blood sample to check for *insert medical term here* levels. It's just to check your kidney function, and make sure everything's okay."

Blood sample?....blood sample...

"...needles?" I say, my chest starting to squeeze in panic.

"Er, yeah. It involves needles."

I start crying, and I can't help it, but I nod understanding. This is a Necessary Needle. I may have a slight paranoia when it comes to needles, but I can control it when I need to.

"Needles make you a bit anxious?" the nurse asks. She seems a little flabbergasted by my sudden tears. I nod again because I can't speak very well.

"I had a lot of them as a kid," I try to explain.

"Oh," she says, somewhat dismissively. "Then you know all about how it goes."

Yeah, but that doesn't make it any *better*.

She tries my left arm. It's taking a long time. I'm about to ask her how much longer it will take, when she says: "I can't find a vein here. We're going to have to try the other arm."

Oh. God.

I nod mutely. I was focusing hard on the rubber glove dispenser on the other side of the room, so I wouldn't accidentally look at the needle going into my arm.

She pokes the other arm, and it was pretty quick. I don't know what she needed four vials of blood for, though. She said the results would be back in an hour.

I'm doing pretty good at controlling myself by now. I'm gasping a little for air, and there are definite tears in my eyes, but I'm coherent.

"Can I have my boyfriend in here?" I ask as she's packing up her gear.

"Sure. What's his name?"

I told her and added, "He's probably the only guy in the waiting room with a ponytail."

She leaves. I get some kleenex to blow my nose; my coherency is disintegrating quickly as my brain succumbs to the phobia. The worst was over. I could afford to be a useless mass now.

Paul appears, concerned and quiet.

"Are you okay?" he asks, standing by the large medical chair I'm sitting in. I nod mutely, but I'm breathing so rapidly I can feel myself hyperventilating.

"They took some blood, huh?" he asks, pulling me into him. I nod again, and he hugs me while I cry my everliving heart out for a good five minutes.

Then he proceeds to tell me a story of one time when he did the hip-thrusting tighty-whitey dance on Terrance's head, complete with actions. It made me laugh. Laughter brings me back to myself a lot faster than anything else I know of. I really appreciated it.

Of course then, him being a guy in a room full of gadgets (albeit medical gadgets), he wants to poke around. It took all I had to keep him from wearing one of those assless hospital gowns.

An hour passes. It's five in the morning.

"You need to get up for your orientation tomorrow," he says. "You need to try to sleep."

I do not like napping when I can't sleep for a long period of time. It messes up my sleep schedule. Plus, the nurse was supposed to be back soon. I try to tell him so, but he reclines my chair and turns out the light, against my protestations. I give in, and try to doze.

About ten minutes later, I feel a couple blankets gently lowered onto me. I have no idea where he got the blankets from.

Damn, that boy takes good care of me.

I did end up sleeping, albeit badly, for almost a full hour. I'd just woken up when another doctor comes in with my chart.

He asks the same questions about my kidney that everyone else asked, and I try to answer them as coherently as possible, considering I'd just woken up from a terrible nap. From what I gathered, nothing unusual came up in my urine sample, or my blood sample, except for the fact I have a bladder infection.

He writes me up a prescription for some sort of medication that I can't pronounce, and gives me the first dose on the spot (I feel better already for having had it, but I definitely need to go get this prescription filled, considering I peed more blood this morning).

We got out of the hospital at 6:30am. The sun was coming up.

"You're coming over to my place," Paul says in one of those voices that doesn't allow for argument. "You can sleep for two hours, and then I'll drive you to your orientation."

"Alright," I say. I'm too tired to argue. He laughs a little.

"Not even going to argue this time?"

I shake my head. "Too tired."

I sleep solid at his place for two hours. He goes to sleep with me, but when I wake up, he's already up. I don't know how much he slept.

I borrowed his overalls for the orientation, as all I had was a skirt. And frankly, I didn't want to be touring some of the places in the theatre in a skirt (plus, I wanted to look competent). It amuses me that I can wear his pants with no problem.

Now, I'm just tired. The crooks of both elbows ache, and I start to tear up if I think about it, so I'm trying not to.

Paul has now seen me at my absolute weakest and most useless. I hope he does not run. I don't think he will.

And the moral of this story is: Don't Put Off Getting Alberta Healthcare.

On the bright side, when Paul was poking around in the office he turned on the scales because he was curious to how much he weighed (about 220lbs, which was about what I thought he'd be). He told me to get on the scale, 'cause he wanted to see how much I weighed. I resisted, because I'd been eating badly lately, and was sure I was well over the 200lb mark.

Well, turns out not only did I not gain weight, I'm down to 188lbs! And that's *with* all my clothes and my shoes on. I'm almost down to my high school weight again! (Which was 180lbs. Ideally, I'd like to be about 170lbs, but y'know. What eva. I haven't been 170lbs since I was 15 or so.)

Oh, yeah, and I've totally not been exercising or dieting.

I'm just awesome like that.

.

Rosie.

Before&After