One Way to Spend a Day

Do you have periods? Do you hate them with a burning passion? Do you wish you could STOP having them? Have you, in fact, stopped having them as often and are super excited that you're about to be done with them forever? Do you think that there couldn't possibly be anything worse or more demoralizing than having to deal with bloody bodily fluids for several days per month?

Good news! There's something that is WORSE! It is so dehumanizing and challenging that it will push you to the brink of depression in a mere 24 hours!

I can tell: You're chomping at the bit. You're ready to hear what this miracle torture is. Well, great! I'll tell you.

It's called a 24-hour urine test. And if you're a lady and you go to Quest Diagnostics, they'll just hand you the same thing that I assume they hand a man: a container that looks vaguely like what you keep in the trunk of your car for in case you run out of gasoline and need to walk to a gas station and bring a half-gallon of gasoline back with you.

No instructions.

No way to collect the sample at all except to figure out how to eliminate into a small circle on a large jug that you will have to lower into the toilet, resulting in your having to clean the toilet, around the toilet, and the jug EVERY TIME YOU GO TO THE RESTROOM.

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I started this blog post 2 weeks ago, just after I'd done this. It sucked. It also confirmed that I have hyperparathyroidism, so I'm going in for a throat ultrasound and a bone density scan this afternoon. Fun times. Even the surgery to remove any offending parathyroid glands would be better than that stupid urine test. Also, if I had to choose between doing that 24-hour urine test or colonoscopy prep, I'd pick the colonoscopy prep every time.

Furthermore, I went 155 days without a period and started up again the day before we left for Phoenix last week. Good times. It was 118 days last year; wonder what I'll get up to next year or the year after before finding myself pregnant at the age of 62.