What a day!!!

[teachermom]

We had a grad party to attend three hours away. We were about 30 minutes from home when the air started cutting in and out. Did I mention that it was in the upper nineties here? But there was no way to go back and switch cars or we'd be at least an hour late (for a three hour party). Okay, it's going to be miserable, but we just have to keep going. Another fifteen minutes and G (T's ex-bf) says "Why is the heat guage so high?!" Oh CRAP!!! I flipped on the heat and rolled down the window and it started to go down. But when we tried to turn the heat off, it started back up......

My parents live about twenty minutes off the interstate that we were on, so I called her and asked what she was doing that day (Thank God the answer was nothing) and could she meet us at the exit - we were about 40 minutes from the exit closest to her house. So she met us and switched vans, but the catch? HER van's AC was going in and out. So yes, we had no AC for the drive (It ran for a bit, then went out)

But we DID make it for the party (thank goodness it was poolside at a country club!)

But that's not all!

We hung around at the grad's grandma's until it got dark and cooled off a bit, and just as we were leaving at 9:00, Tori realized that she was having to pee often and it was starting to burn. Yep, sounds like a UTI (she's never had one). LONGEST DRIVE HOME EVER!!!!! She quite literally cried much of the way home from the pain and we had to stop several times to let her go (and this is a midwestern interstate wth VERY few exits with gas stations and bathrooms). Stopped at my mom's and switched cars back, but the hour drive home is two lane highway with NOTHING open, so she had to make it home.

As we're nearing home, we discuss that it's Memorial Day, so her doctor will not be in today, so we might as well go to the ER. There's no way she's going to sleep anyway. It's past 1:30 by the time we get there and two hours, a handful of drugs and one very painful shot later, they send us on our way. All three people we see (one dr and two nurses) remark on how MUCH pus was in her urine. eeewwww...... (Actually when she peed in the cup, she pointed out the dark flecks/chunks in the extremey cloudy liquid and said, 'I think that's blood.')

I got in bed a little after 4:00 and woke up 2 1/2 hours later. I can NEVER sleep in.... sigh.......

[Barbara]

Glad you made your party but sorry for all that happened along the wait.

I am amazed at the UTI part. Why? I have had them (never like your dd's) and never once have I gone to the ER. The dr.'s don't consider it an emergency and sometimes I have waited a day to get an appointment. That hasn't happened oftened since I once had a nurse confide in me that they as nurses "know" what it is like and will always try to fit you in. Never had a shot either. Hope she is doing better today.

[Stacy]

So sorry your adventure was that kind of adventure! I hope she is feeling much better now.

When I register patients, and have to ask if the address and phone numbers are still the same, they often say, "Yes. I'm boring. Nothing ever changes." I always reply that if things stay the same in this day and age, that is a GOOD thing because too often, if something changes, it is due to something bad happening.

[teachermom]

Honestly Barbara, we only went to ER because we knew she couldn't go to her regular dr. today anyway. And I think the Urgent care/Convenient care option is run through the ER anyway - I've never used it before, so I don't know for sure.

But I'm glad we did, since it was apparently really bad, really fast...

The shot was an antibiotic, to get it into her faster. The pills were also an antibiotic, and something to numb her bladder, for the pain. Pyridium? something like that.

[Barbara]

Honestly Barbara, we only went to ER because we knew she couldn't go to her regular dr. today anyway.

I hope I didn't come off as criticizing but rather I am amazed that you thought to do that. I would never in a million years have thought of that option.

[teachermom]

I would never in a million years have thought of that option.

A three hour drive listening to her quietly sob most of the way? You'd have thought of it!!

That's the first time I've been to the ER since Matt was a baby who would spike 104 temps that didn't respond to Tylenol. We're not sick that often, and never hurt badly enough that it can't wait until morning.

hmmm.... I wonder if I thought of it because I work with a population who use the ER as primary care......

[TamieJP]

The pills were also an antibiotic, and something to numb her bladder, for the pain. Pyridium? something like that.

Did they warn that the pyridium might turn urine a different color?

What side effects can this medication cause?

Phenazopyridine may cause side effects. Your urine may turn a red-orange or brown; this effect is harmless.

[teachermom]

Yes, they did, thanks.

I'm gonna post elsewhere, but she's on a sulfa, and so expecting diarrhea - how much yogurt should she eat to try to combat it?

[vicki]

I would go to the ER with a bladder infection under most circumstances unless an urgent care was available.

With Daniel, I didn't really recognize the symptoms so we put it off a day. It developed into a very serious life-threatening kidney infection.

If it hadn't happened to Daniel, I wouldn't have thought to rush to the ER (and that's exactly what happened when Veronica had hers about 20 years ago--I didn't rush to the ER and then her urine turned to blood!).

When I was in DC last week, in the evening I suddenly developed all the symptoms of a bladder infection. I drank straight cranberry juice (unsweetened--ewwwwww), and then bought a UTI tester at CVS plus pyridium (numbing) pills. Because I knew how horrible the DC ER was, I wasn't going to go there. I figured that if I did have an infection for sure, I'd call my doctor back in Duluth the next morning and have them send in a script to Walgreen's.

Fortunately, the two gallons of water I drank, plus the cranberry juice, took care of it.