So there I was, having what might most delicately be called Pee Issues. Cranberry juice didn’t help, and I was starting to feel really run down. I figured the latter to be a) lingering depression over Not Moving, and/or b) fatigue from Finally Moving last weekend, both exacerbated by the stress of having Comcast screw up transferring my Internet service for over a week. But they turned it on at last, and I still felt every bit as crappy, and besides . . . Pee Issues . . . so I did what my urology team told me to do like a good girl and popped into the ER yesterday.

My expectation was to be seen promptly and sent home with a prescription for some Macrobid for a run-of-the-mill bladder infection. One out of two ain’t bad–I have a groovy ER and my butt didn’t even touch a waiting room seat. But part of the grooviness included a conscientious doctor who had recently seen somebody with my exact presentation (urine clean, but a stone is [painlessly] blocking my right kidney somewhat) take a turn for the worse and get very, very sick. And the worst part is that I myself have been very, very sick. Twice. (I’m a kidney stone gravel pit. Had ’em for my entire adult life, although for years they masqueraded as Mysterious Female Problems, as “women don’t get kidney stones” was long the prevailing belief–until only a decade or so ago, in fact.)

Goethe’s wife died of pyelo, I hear, and he had to spend three days in the kitchen listening to her scream. And in my own experience it does count as “no sheep, really sheeping sick.” So I didn’t really want to argue with her, and here I am in the hospital. And although I know the symptoms of pyelo and they would have scared me into making a beeline back here, maybe it’s just as well.

They gave me a bolus of a strong IV antibiotic, and I swear I’m feeling better already, despite a special hospital Night in Hell: At around 11p, they admitted a 97-year-old lady with mild dementia and apparently no bladder control over even more pee than I make. They spent all night changing her bed, trying to get her on the bedpan, and cleaning her up (which made her screech like a parrot). And by all night I mean about hourly.

So this morning I am counting my blessings, which I habitually do in the hospital:

Yeah, I make many little trips, but making them hooked up to an IV pump and fitting it into a bathroom the size of an average stall added to the challenge of the night. I’m currently not hooked up, and going on such a plebian trip solo is a big treat.

So is finally being put in the johnnies (one front, one back) meant for BIG people,  so I don’t feel strait-jacketed. I guess I’m fatter than I look or something; don’t know why they didn’t start me in ’em. But I yowled a bit about it when made to take the hospital’s extremely hot shower, and now I am steam-cleaned with full shoulder movement. Bliss!

My hospital has wifi, and my very nice daughter schlepped in my laptop so I can blog to you, watch Netflix, and maybe even work a little.

And blessing the greatest: They’re letting me go home today (albeit with prescriptions and the usual command to drink tons of water) And I have a home to go to. This has been made particularly meaningful after yesterday in the ER, watching an endless stream of street people being carried in with hypothermia. We have adequate emergency shelter in Cambridge/Boston, so most of these folks are the hardcore who are on the street by choice. Chronics make me sad–I spend much of my life invested in my own mental health and that of others; I have to believe that they can recover too, but they have to make the choice themselves.

I chose. Blessing!