I spoke too soon, it turns out, when in comments a few posts back I reported that I had successfully stopped getting urinary tract infections and thus regularly turning into a mad and uncontrollable beast who lies on the couch complaining and demanding drugs while at the same time bemoaning the fact that I have to take them. Because, you see, early this week I felt the familiar pain rise up again out of a dark and forgotten place. I thought I'd never feel it again, but that's ridiculous, is the thing. I'm just...prone...and I got another urinary tract infection and went to my regular doctor, who confirmed my fears and gave me the proper medicine to get rid of the problem, and assured me that if I was going to get them, I might as well get them one or two times a year and not every other second, and since I hadn't had one since five or six months prior, well, at least I was on the right track, right? I agreed. If I can't knock them completely, at least a brief respite between each would be nice, and if I can reduce the number through my brilliant hydration-and-cranberry-pills-plan, then good for me.

So instead of going on an extended self-loathing binge, the kind where I sit J down on the couch and, over the course of 40 minutes, involve him in a philosophical debate regarding my condition, I only involved him in a minor one. He, being a scientist, explained, for the 578th time, "Cara, this is an infection. You go to the doctor, you get rid of it. End of story." And then I usually say, "Yeah, but the infection and course of antibiotics affects me deep in my soul, in the very emotional part of my being that says I'm a good person. That I am of sound body." After a while I come around and do what the doctor says and I'm better. You guys know. Because I've told you about it before. Many times.

This time, of course, having so successfully avoided this pain for so many months, and because I am pretty much crazy, really really crazy, on my last day of the meds, feeling ever so slightly that maybe the mega dose did not completely wipe out my symptoms completely, and thinking that I'd be damned if I wasn't going to get rid of this thing entirely, I decided that I needed to go back to the doctor and make sure, absolute sure, it was gone. And that's what I did today. Lucky for him, it was a new doctor, a very nice one, one I hadn't seen before in my casing the joint on a regular basis, and therefore he didn't skip right to the problem, like my normal guy does, knowing how to appease me and get me out of there in a semi-reasonable amount of time, but proceeded to ask me questions, the normal questions you'd ask a normal person who was actually sick, like what my symptoms felt like, and when I'd taken my last dose of Cipro and, the kicker, if I thought the problem could be related to anything else, like, say, my being a total nutcase. Which he didn't ask, obviously, and so I had to explain to him as he sat, bewildered, in the chair. "You see, when I get any pain that could be referred to as 'anywhere near' the region we're talking about here, I become, like, neurotic urinary-tract girl, and everything takes on significantly more weight than it normally does, so my still feeling symptomatic? That could be due to, like, my having had about ten thousand gallons of water over the past couple of days. Surely that would make a person feel like they have to pee all the time, which is how I'm feeling. So I think I just need to know if the infection is gone (and it turned out it was), because, to be totally honest, I feel completely fine right now."

"That happens a lot," said the good-natured doctor. "People make an appointment and then come to the doctor, and they feel better, and it turns out nothing is wrong."

"Yeah," I replied, sheepish. "Yeah, I would imagine that, ah, that happens to people a lot."