Warning: This post is about pee...again.

Being diabetic and girl usually means you get UTIs. This just seems to come with the territory because diabetics are prone to infection and girls are more likely to get UTIs than guys. I seem to get them a couple times a year where I notice I'm getting one, call the doctor immediately, treat with antibiotics, and end in happy. There's only one day of absolute misery and then I'm fine. The most recent occurrence did not happen that way.

Last Monday it started, I was miserable, I went to the doctor, I got cipro (which is the usual antibiotic of choice for UTIs) and Tuesday I was a much happier Bunni.  Wednesday I was no longer a happier Bunni. I was an in-pain Bunni with lower back pain in the kidney area and a doctor whose nurse did not check voicemail because she left early. I had to call the on call doctor who was, luckily, my normal doctor. She found my symptoms to be very strange and gave me stronger antibiotics and told me if I started throwing up to go to the emergency room. Yay! New drugs! I figured I'd be fine.

The next morning she called me back to tell me that none of the organisms in my urine had colonized when they cultured it. I thought of tiny bacteria cities but then she said that because of that, it didn't look like an infection and instead looked my like kidney stones. GREAT.

I called back later because it was getting worse and instead of relying on the "if it gets worse, go to the hospital" plan I decided I should go with the "it hurts lets go to a specialist" plan. It seemed cheaper that way. The doctor's office make me an appointment so I could see a urologist and I figured he'd say "oh! Stones!" and then tell me he could break them apart with magic kidney pills or something.

He did not tell me that. Instead, he told me that it seemed like I might have vesicoureteral reflux. That is basically where instead of all the pee escaping out your urethra from your bladder like a normal human, it actually leaks back up into your kidneys and causes stupid infections and swelling of the kidneys.

Signs of Vesicouretal Reflux
Childhood UTIs - check
Frequent UTIs - check
High blood pressure - used to have that so we'll call it a check
Protein in the urine - had that in the past...check
Pain in the lower back/kidney area - check

FUCK.

So it seems that I have malfunctioning ureter valves and my kidneys are swollen. HOWEVER...they can't run the tests to find out if that is the case because I was on cipro. You have to wait 10 days after taking cipro to run the tests. I stopped taking the cipro wendesday which means they wont be shoving tools up my urethra to run tests for a little while so I have to wait with painful kidneys and KNOW that they will soon be shoving tools up my urethra, filling my bladder with contrast fluid, and then seeing where that fluid goes. OH JOY.

Why can't I have normal people problems?