Pee trekking

Today went much better than yesterday, and while I’m still tired tonight, I do feel better than yesterday. I think getting a half decent night of sleep and being able to eat today helped.

Yesterday NIH just wasn’t its self. Sure, they’re often not on time for things and you’ve got to go with the flow – but yesterday was particularly bad. The computer system was having trouble. I didn’t arrive for a single test where they knew who I was or had orders in to do the test. Every diagnostic appointment ran behind, and I had a long list of tests to do. I didn’t get my blood taken until around 3:30 pm.

To make it worse, the air conditioning in the building wasn’t working well. It was so HOT! They were putting fans around, but a little fan doesn’t do much in a huge building.

I was feeling pretty out of whack by the end of the day. The combination of no food and drink, it being hot, and all the blood taken, was not agreeing with me.

And then there was the pee saga. I have to do a 48-hour urine collection. I knew this would be a problem since I was staying with Ryan, so I bought a cooler, just for the occasion, and checked it on the flight. I took it with me to the NIH thinking I could get one of the portable urine collection bags and ice it down in the cooler – thereby not having to stand on the subway with my jug of pee all the way across Washington, D.C. And, as Ryan rents a room in a house and doesn’t even have his own fridge, I didn’t want to put my pee in the fridge he shares with the other people in the house. So, I thought I could slip my lunchbox cooler in there and no one would have to know of its contents.

Wrong!

The double orange jugs they use to do the urine collection don’t fit in the cooler. While they’ll give you a collapsible bag thingie for going out to dinner, apparently overnight you’ve got to use the big orange jug. One side of it has some kind of special chemical treatment etc.

So, I leave NIH with several plastic shopping bags – one containing the urine jug, and the other with a measuring cup and a ‘hat’ for the toilet. They are big and bulky, and it’s really hard to keep the jug, which doesn’t seal well by the way, perfectly level.

I got on the subway and it was rush hour, so all the commuters were cramming up against me and hitting the jug. Then, the air decided to quit on the car I was riding in - and the train stopped in the tunnel. For at least a half hour, maybe more, me and my pee were crammed up against other commuters, the sweat just running down my already dehydrated body (my ostomy causes me to get dehydrated easily.) I was starting to feel faint and the pee was really starting to stink. Finally we got to another station and I was able to change train cars – but by the time I got home I was feeling pretty cranky!

Today’s tests seemed to go okay – although Kevin can be so serious sometimes he can scare you. I may have to trek across Washington with my pee an extra day because the samples from last night were ruined. Gee, wonder how that could have possibly happened?? And, thanks to the less than impressive quantity of pee, coupled with some bacteria, they’re now having to verify my kidneys are working okay. I think they’re fine. The fact that I went hours with nothing to drink, coupled by the fact that I “lost” some of the contents of the jug just trying to get it to and from Ryan’s should explain the problem. Today I drank three pitchers of water just to impress the pee patrol – see, look, they work!