A walk down memory lane

The fifth urine culture has come back, still with the Klebsiella infection, with a higher bacteria count. I guess the collidal silver didn't help. I am going to stop taking it.

There was one type of urine culture left in order to rule out absolutely anything possible that may be tainting the culture... to take it straight from the bladder: through a catheter. Now *that* was fun. Hate that so much icky owie embarrassing painful mortifying bad bad bad way to do a urine culture. But I am just *that* brave.

What could've made that worse? Me having to bring it to Soroka myself. The delivery/pick-up for all the lab tests from the clinic was already finished for the day, and tomorrow being Friday (labs closed Fridays), I had to do it myself if I want results by Sunday. And I do want them; Monday I am going to see the infectious disease doctor, Tuesday to the nephrologist.

So this was my morning (all by cab, our car was still in the shop): Drink lots of water at 9am to be ready for a 10am ultrasound of the kidneys. Get there, did that, got the disk, not too much to say about that.
Then to a different cupat cholim (my regular clinic) to have the very special urine culture done. Did I mention yet that I hated that? That it hurt? Oh, did I mention about the part where the nurse got polydine (iodine) on my skirt? Walked around the rest of the day with my jacket tied around my waist.

Then to Soroka, to two different labs until I opened the door to the correct one and gave my culture vial.

I want to write here a piece I wrote one day when I had an appointment at Ichilov hospital. I was trying to put into words my feelings about hospitals. Being that those feelings came up today again (from being in Soroka), I decided here to include the piece I wrote that day. It'll be part of my book. Possibly the introduction.

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Every time I go into a hospital, it feels like I've entered a vortex that could easily suck me up. It wouldn't take much force. I walk the halls knowingly, with an eerily strange feeling that this is the right place for me.

The sights and smells enter my senses and comfortably find familiar referencing. I feel at home.

The day the doctors told me I could go home, I was stunned. All I really wanted to do was to beg them to let me stay. I had a big hole in my gut, scarcely covered over by a skin graft. At the time, the graft felt like nothing more than a huge, wet paper towel, sunken into the gaping hole delicately, precariously covering it.

I wanted to tell them about the panic and pure terror I felt about leaving the cocoon of round-the-clock care.
I wanted to say: You Are Sending Me Home With A Hole In my Gut!

But I didn't say that. I held that in. Instead I said 'OK'. I agreed with them about getting away from the germs and contamination of the hospital.
I took my release forms. I put on my "real" clothes. Underwear was a farce, and my dress merely accented the thick, heavy bandage that was covering me on both sides of my lower body and thigh. I got onto the ambulance bed that would take me home.

I left behind in that hospital pieces of my body... and also a piece of my soul.

So while most people have neutral or negative connotations with the sights, sounds, and smells of the hospital, I walk down hospital corridors with my soul thinking there is the chance we'll find that piece left behind.