Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman With A UTI

So I got a UTI last weekend after going home from a wedding with a dude. I am FANATICAL about peeing before and after sex because once I got a UTI that almost blossomed into a full-blown kidney infection and that was painful and traumatic enough to deter me from ever waiting to pee ever again. UTIs are tricky little bitches. I don’t know if it was because I didn’t pee fast enough after the fact or because I got that little blast of “surprise!” after-period or what, but here we were with a UTI again. Oh, nice to see you, old friend.

Said UTI decided to wait until Monday evening to present itself and its incessantly irritating, I-wanna-kill-myself symptoms: the constant need to pee, the fact that no pee really comes out, the burning … I spent the whole night cursing and moaning in pure misery.

I mean, I could’ve gone to the ER, sure, but can you imagine how huge that bill would’ve been? I have my own insurance and it’s not that awesome. I suffered through it Monday night with the help of some of those blessed AZO numbing pills and an anti-anxiety pill from a friend.

It’s so not fair! Dudes CAN get UTIs, but they never actually DO. They don’t have to ruin the moment to run and pee before penetration nor do they have to sacrifice any afterglow to the toilet. But if you don’t do it, you’re gonna pay.

I woke up early on Tuesday, threw on a dress and drove to my nearest Target Clinic. “Hey, I have a UTI,” I said to the receptionist. She just smiled ruefully at me, glanced at the massive water bottle I was trying to drink from to speed the pee process along, and slid the little cup across the desk to me.

Well, of course I couldn’t fucking pee when I got down to business; I’ve had a few UTIs in my life so I know the drill. You wipe down with that antiseptic, practice your aim and then you’re supposed to catch your pee “mid-stream.” Well, I barely peed at all because I’d been peeing all morning. My ex-boyfriend told me that if you do multiplication tables in your head it helps you pee because those parts of your brain are synched and that’s always worked for me – yay, math! – but no, not in this sanitized Target Clinic bathroom. I did what I could and pissed bright orange into the cup. (If you haven’t taken one of those AZO pills, they make your pee neon. It’s cool. I bless the person who invited those.)

So I’m sitting there waiting for the doctor to give me my drugs, twitching in irritation because I immediately feel the need to pee again as soon as I sit down. And my phone doesn’t work in here, so I can’t send my girlfriends a million text messages about how miserable I am.

“I need antibiotics!” I cried at the doctor when she called me in.

“Well, your sample was too cloudy because you’ve clearly been taking those numbing pills,” she said. “But …”

“PLEASE GIVE ME DRUGS. I AM MISERABLE. I’VE HAD LIKE 5 UTIS BEFORE I KNOW WHAT THEY FEEL LIKE.”

Long story short, she wrote me a prescription for five days of antibiotics. THANK THE LORD. Those pills are miracles because you practically feel better on the very first day, just like when you have strep. UNTIL THEY STOP on day three and you feel the urge to pee everywhere once again, which is where I am right now.

Hell hath no fury like a woman with a UTI. Do you know how snappy and short I’ve been this week? It’s like having PMS but instead of cramps it’s a constant burning urge to pee. I just wanna lay on my bed and cry and yell at men. IT IS NOT FAIR that I am suffering away and pissing bright orange every few minutes when dudes are just traipsing around all, “I got laaaaaid, I got laaaaaaid.” If sex wasn’t such a fun way to wile away a few hours, I’d quit it just to avoid this shit.