Kidney and stones

Last Friday, June 15, I finally went in and got my blood work done, including the world famous poop on a stick test (which you have to pay for, because people don’t like handling poop or something).

By Monday the results were in and I got a phone call from the doctor’s office. This was disconcerting because I had previously agreed that they would only call me if there was something up, that a negative report would be treated as “no news is good news” in terms of letting me know. The person told me it was “non urgent” but wanted me to come by in two days to discuss these non-urgent results.

And so I made the many-days excursion to the office in Steveston, but I only arrived just in time, so I couldn’t sight-see, despite the spiffy nice weather.

As it turned out, the doctor was behind schedule by a million years. I sat in the waiting area, plinking away on my phone, using the clinic’s spotty but free Wi-Fi for about half an hour before being let into exam room #6, where I sat for about another half hour. With little else to do, I examined the soles of my shoes and discovered they were embedded with thousands of tiny bits of gravel. I plucked them all out, as shown here:

When boredom strikes in the exam room.

I need better shoes. It’s on my agenda for the week.

When the doctor finally arrived, he confirmed all tests were good–except one. My kidney was apparently not quite up to snuff. When I had the kidney infection the clinic that I went to didn’t seem to update my file, as this was news to him. He admitted the infection could be responsible for the current results, though enough time had elapsed to still raise a flag. I am going to take the kidney test again in mid-July to see if things look normal or wacky. Disturbingly, the affected area has been acting up the last few days, making me wonder if the infection may have simply gone dormant. With a vacation to the north in a week and a half, the timing is awkward, to say the least.

But I’ll have some answers soon enough. Also, my poop is fine.

Here’s to the second half of 2018 being pretty please oh pretty pretty please better health-wise than the first half.