Pissy Day...

With the addition of Medicare, I come to you basking in the sunshine of health insurance, a fulfilling feeling to say the least, after going through most of my 63rd and 64th year without any insurance. I decided to investigate some of my problems, compliments of the U.S. Government, hooray!

After a couple of visits with Dr. Harvey, he determined that my blood pressure is too high and that the cause needs to be investigated. He did this once before in 2006, when he decided I had cancer of the kidneys as a secondary location and bone cancer was my real problem. He determined this with blood work that spiked a certain enzyme, indicating either cancer or some other benign problem. So after getting shingles from nerves, he figured I'd be dead by then if it were cancer, so it turned out to be the other benign thing. By then I'd been going to an oncologist for 6 months.

So tomorrow I'm scheduled for an MRI and an ultrasound of my kidneys, to try to locate the culprit that is driving my blood pressure up. In preparation for these tests, I was told to do a 24 hour urine collection. My first. Now I thought, where in the world would I find enough people to donate their urine to fill up the 78 ounces required. I didn't even know any of the neighbors! The Lovely Jules turned me down, flat! On Friday, I drove around for almost an hour looking for a street named Eugie. I learned never to ask women where certain streets are, because they will send you on a wild goose chase instead of saying they just don't know. I finally found a mail carrier (male) that knew exactly where it was, thus I found Sonora Quest Lab, in Thunderbird Hospital.

When I opened the door, a guy literally fell out, because the line was back to the front door. I did a quick uh-uh and left and that was just to get the container. I decided to use empty water bottles instead. What I'm about to share were some very personal moments, that no self respecting man should ever have to do. The closest I'd ever come to this, was at a drive in movie one night, peeing into a 16 ounce Budweiser can, in my early 20's. Ah memories! To be sure that I had enough water bottles, I prepared for the event by saving several and removing the tops to let them dry. I didn't want to dilute! You know I never needed to flush the toilet once the entire day. Imagine the savings in water. Then I was up late last night thinking of a way to smuggle the water bottles filled with pee into the facility. Here was my plan.

Wearing a fake mustache, I'd enter Sonora and ask politely for a 24 hour collection container, then I'd go outside, remove my mustache and come back with the container already filled. Or I'd go to a second location to do the sting! Suddenly I remembered I had a mustache and no razor, so I just went in there carrying 5 full bottles of pee in a Trader Joe's shopping bag, looking like every other homeless man.

The girl behind the desk knew me and said hello. I replied, hello and that I'm here for a 24 hour urine collection, would she like to donate? She just opened her mouth, but no words would come out! I guess she didn't know me that well. That's when I started to take her into my confidence, big mistake. I said, "Look, I've got about 5 water bottles filled with urine and I need to turn them in to you here, will they be okay like this or do I need to transfer, said contents, into one of your containers"? From the look on her face, she obviously thought I'd asked for her first born! Her mouth was agape and she was aghast. All she could say was, she could lose her job! I asked what the difference was and she yelled, "CROSS CONTAMINATION"! The she asked me what I washed the bottles out with and I knew better than to tell her soap, so I told her just water. That was the truth. You'd have to be an idiot to wash out water with soap!

That's when I realized that nothing in life is easy and I was certainly driving in the left lane today. I decided to use an Obama approach, so I lead off with another "Look"! Either accept my urine collection OR give me a container and I'll turn it in somewhere else, to another location. She decided to call her boss. Twenty minutes later, the OKAY was approved and I was allowed to take my pee bottles into the men's room, to do the switch.

As I poured my own chilled urine, from one container into another, I thought to myself. I believe this is the first time I've ever had to do this......................... Yes, I'm certain of it!