I might be out for awhile.

And maybe I won't.

Yesterday I was scheduled for a lab test. This time the issue is kidneys. Distressingly, this required a 24-hour collection of urine. That was to be kept stored in my refrigerator.

!

How gross!

Right next to my chocolate milk and leftover pizza and lettuce.

But that also meant me unzipping right there in the kitchen and like a perv whipping it out and peeing into a large orange plastic jar.

Don't tell my dead mother or she'd slap me silly.

And that was the one single thing that made it fun.

It snowed and was still snowing. I looked out the window to Acoma and saw it had not been plowed. Surely Broadway will be plowed to the pavement. Outside, no such luck. The street was coated with ice and and with snow, cars were slipping and all drivers were freaking the f out. Five lanes became three lanes, some drove between lanes and the truck behind me rode my butt bumper the whole way down Broadway. It's a straight shot to the lab.

Sign on the door: "Due to the inclement weather appointment might be delayed."

I walk up to the kiosk and enter my phone number. "Check-in complete."

I walk back to the reception desk to regale the woman with a Halloween-related story.

One paragraph into my lengthy story my name is called. So much for inclement weather delays. I was ushered right in within seconds. The lab assistant is an attractive young woman who is sexually inappropriate towards me by calling me "Babe" and "Gorgeous" and calling me "Handsome" instead of my name. I'd sue her ass off but I like it too much.

I test my own blood pressure machine against theirs. It fails. I test it again and it fails again. It's killing my arm but I test it again and it fails again. I switch chairs to the blood-draw chair. She attaches her own blood pressure machine, the same brand but theirs is a lot better, mine is a toy compared to theirs, and theirs fails too.

"Maybe I should take off my shirt."

     "Yeah."

She tests again. The reading is lowest so far. That means this 3rd high blood pressure medicine is finally working. I'm filled with glee.

Let's test it again. A similar low reading but different.

Let's do it again to average them out. A similar low reading but different.

"These things are bogus."

     "Small changes affect them. Like you talking so much."

Yet another way to tell me to shut up. I add it to pile of 500,000 unique ways that people have found to tell me to shut up. This is one of the better ones by involving a high blood pressure reading. "Shut up so I can get a good reading."

The kidney specialist insisted I get one of these machines so that I can keep track for him. I have no interest in it myself. I cannot feel any difference between alarming low and alarming high numbers. What I feel is different: energy and acting on impulses contrasted with laziness and exhaustion. That's what it feels like to me. He told me that home-readings are helpful because they are done in stress-free environment. While my home-readings are all terribly scarily high and this last set of readings on two machines following an incredibly stressful drive to their lab is the lowest so far.

And that right there is a paradox.

Or else it means the new medication is working very well.

The lab wanted a fresh random urine sample to test separately from the bulk but I had already donated to the orange jar right before driving over there. I tried. Standing there for several minutes holding my dick aimed into a jar. It makes you feel really stupid. But it simply wasn't in me.

What are you doing, just standing there holding your dick?

Why yes. That's exactly what I am doing. Shut up. Leave me alone. I'm busy.

This morning I was awoken by a phone call from the kidney specialist telling me they have the lab results from yesterday and potassium is alarmingly low. I must hasten to hospital emergency to have the potassium level corrected.

"Can't I just eat a banana?"

     "No. You must go to emergency right now."

"I don't want to do that."

      "I am informing you that your risk of heart attack is critical. The decision is yours."

"I'd rather die right now than go to emergency."

     "The choice is yours. My duty is to inform you."

"So we're done then?"

     "No. I must reiterate; stop taking the new blood pressure medication immediately."

"Okay."

The first blood pressure medication caused my feet and legs to swell to gigantic proportions. It was ridiculous. The second blood pressure medication interfered with liver function. This third one apparently affected potassium level dangerously enough for them to suggest emergency room. Each of these pills is so tiny they can barely be seen. And each one very low dosage. Yet each one had powerful repercussions including lowing my blood pressure very well.

It's a mystery to me how such tiny things can be so effective in both bad and good effects.

This is the second time in as many weeks that I was told to go to hospital emergency. But I'm afraid that they'll keep me there and admit me to hospital for more testing like they did last time. And that was miserable. The reason it was miserable was the ambulance technician inserted a needle into my arm. At that moment I thought she was starting to administer some kind of fluid. But she didn't. She simply inserted a needle and taped it flat against my arm. Then at hospital, once admitted, not in emergency, they inserted another needle into my other arm. So then I had two needles in me and that prevented me from moving around. I was literally captive in the most horrible way of not being able to move. And it drove me out of my goddamn mind. And I promised myself to never let that happen again. And if it does happen again, then pull one of them out myself.

So I have a call to my primary who hasn't had time to respond. To tell him that the specialist he sent me to told me to stop taking the third blood pressure medication he prescribed. (But not all the other crap about emergency room or yet another lab.)

Meanwhile the kidney specialist's office contacted the head honcho and he was informed of my recalcitrant attitude about sending myself to emergency room and he told them to tell me to eat a banana.

And tomatoes. And potatoes. Leafy greens, orange juice, apricot juice, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, raisins and dates.

Nurse Ratched was markedly more pleasant this second call.

See? Now, given a choice between eating a banana and going to emergency room, which would you choose?

And be sure to go to the lab again tomorrow or the next day.

What a massive pain in the ass.

The more precise the specialist, then the more acute the pain in the ass. He wants to see lab numbers just days apart. Without enough time for anything majestic to actually happen. I do not see how any significant or noteworthy change can happen in so short of time. But then, I'm not a kidney specialist.

But look at me: eating a banana and driving to the lab again, peeing in another jar again and getting jabbed in the arm again, taking my own blood pressure at home, to cooperate and make a numbers-guy satisfied.

If the disease doesn't kill you, the specialists certainly will.