How To Do Vegas In Three And A Half Days, Day 2, Part I

To get the most out of any vacation, I like to see the parts of a place a tourist usually doesn't see.  Unfortunately for me on this Vegas extravaganza, I saw the urgent care.  I did not sleep at all after our exhausting day of travel.  I also had not slept the night before that, and only a few hours the night before that.  Why?  Because my bladder decided to get an infection the Sunday before we left.  Then my infected body decided to not respond to Cipro, what most people respond to.  I then went on some sort of sulfa drug.  I was on day four and everything was getting worse instead of better.  Flying with a bladder infection was horrible.  Spending our first night on vacation wide awake and achy was terrible. So when we got up, I said to Eddie, I have to go to a doctor.  He was like, Yeah, no joke.  Apparently, I looked the way I felt. 

I took a shower.  The tub started filling up with water.  I pulled up on the drain plug.  It came apart.  I'm not joking.  Since I can't see a thing without my glasses, I thought maybe I'd done something wrong, so Eddie came in to help and saw that I didn't do anything wrong, and the drain was simply broken.  So I took the piece that came off and wedged it under the drain plug to make sure it stayed open so I didn't drown in a tub of bathwater and sorrow.

While Eddie showered, I looked over my "Be Prepared For Anything" list of stuff and found two urgent cares.  They were closed on the weekends.  We hopped in the car and drove to one we found on the GPS.  Closed.  Then we found another one.  It was open.  During all the driving, we did see a good amount of Vegas landscape, which is very pretty.

The people at the urgent care were really nice and seemed genuinely sympathetic because, once again, I looked the way I felt.  The woman at the counter said that I should fill out some forms and the entire process would take two hours.  I told Eddie to go sleep in the car.  At some point, he did wander out because he was tired from having gambled late. Eventually, I was called back and did the usual thing.  Here's a cup.  Pee in it.  Is there anything more degrading than someone asking, Do you think you can give us a urine sample? while holding out a plastic cup?  Oh, yes, actually there is.  The woman in the sample lab had run out of cups, so she had to hop onto her headset and ask for someone to bring back the "small urine sample cups" and then she handed me a cup the size of a small cereal bowl instead because the cups were taking too long to arrive.  She also hadn't heard of a second medication I was taking that is supposed to ease the pain and discomfort of the infection...and the side effect is that it turns anything that comes out of your body orange.  So, what's even more degrading?  Coming out of the bathroom with a cereal bowl sized cup of orange liquid.  Head held high, I placed it on the tissue on the counter and headed into the exam room.

Someone came in and took my temperature and blood pressure.  Then the doctor came in and we spoke at length about what my symptoms were, how they were being treated, and for how long because my pee test didn't show much indication of an infection.  When I mentioned I'd gone to urgent care first, he asked which one, and I said, One in New York; this is my vacation. Again, pity.  He asked for a glucose blood test because it seemed high in the pee sample.  I told him I'd eaten a cookie that morning and asked if that could have anything to do with it.  Not really, he said.  Then he double checked the meds I said I'd been on and asked why I'd been taking the one the other woman hadn't heard of.  I was like, I don't even know because they don't seem to be working--all they do is turn everything orange.  He stopped himself from opening the door, looked up from his folder, and then said, You know, that's probably another reason your sample came back so indecisive.  That figures.

The woman who had taken my temperature came in and pulled out a finger-prick kit.  She asked, Have you had this done before?  I answered, not since I was a kid.  She pulled out a finger-pricker-thingie and pressed it against my finger.  Nothing.  She did it again.  Nothing.  She said, That's odd, while holding it up. It apparently did not contain the pointy thing.  She grabbed another one.  She pressed it against my finger.  Nothing.  She did it again.  Nothing.  She held it up and scrutinized it closely.  Hmm.  She pressed it against my finger, putting her body weight behind it.  Finally.  Blood. 

She laughed and said, At first I thought it was me, but I've been doing this for twenty years, so...

I responded, I figured it was me.

She said, Tough skin.  I suppose that's a good thing.  Then she smiled big. 

The doctor came back and said that the glucose was fine.  Then punched me in the back a few times, making sure I had no signs of kidney infection.  He said that my "puzzling" infection would hopefully go away with macrobid.  I've had a bladder infection four times in my life.  The first time I had one, that's the medication I was on--I remembered as soon as he said it. I suddenly felt relief.  I mean, I still felt like I had to pee even though I'd just peed, but I felt relief in that I was going to finally feel better.

Then he gave me a plan, like an actual plan as if he were my actual usual doctor.  Going forward--do this, this, and this.  If this happens again, then do that.  Insist on this.  Plan for that.  Here's a prescription. And then he said, Feel better--I don't like to see people having to come here while they're on vacation. 

Awesome doctor.  Eddie and I were on our way, and we'd spent about two hours there as we were told.

We went to IHOP because Eddie was starving.  We got take-out.  While we waited, we took in the scenery.  It was still lovely.

We drove to a minimart nearby and ate pancakes and eggs from plastic containers in the parking lot.  We ate it all in about five minutes.  We were fat pigs, but it was worth it.  Driving back to the strip, we saw that we were missing this event:

We went to the CVS we'd been to the day before to fill my prescription and to stock up on more cranberry juice and water.  I must have had at least a gallon of water during the day with maybe a quart of cranberry juice mixed in.  Sure I was stopping every five minutes to pee, but I'd been doing that anyway because that's what a bladder infection is all about. 

And so that's how we spent the first three hours of our first full day in Vegas.  Thankfully, it got better from there.