June 3, 2004
Renal Revery
High school is happily over. I have to admit along with the normal happiness associated with leaving, I am also relieved to be finished with a few of my responsibilities. It got to the point I was resenting some of my activities, which is no good. I just lost my focus.
But mostly I am numb right now, as it seems most people are. I walked down the hall after my last class and waited for tears to fall or a song of joy to escape; it all felt anticlimactic. Sitting in the drop-in lab, mumbling about how unreasonable my Poli Rad final is with a few fellow commiserators, I started to realize I was going to miss some of these people. I am never going to have class with Darren, Ben, Kara, Karen, Adriane, Sabina, etc...the list goes on.
My last day was mostly great, however. About a month ago my Lit class went to see Troy and my teacher unexpectedly paid for all of our dinners. Most of us were bent on paying him back, so last night Christian, Branden, and I went shopping. This morning we brought in all kinds of baked goods, including some pizza rolls that were a big hit (made by yours truly) AND I had the whole class sign a ping pong paddle, since he loves and is good at the game. He claims it will have its own spotlight on his mantle. And being as lovely as he is, he also thanked us for being a bright spot in his most difficult semester.
And we are the only class he is going to miss this year. Probably more icing than truth, but sweet enough for my taste.
Now for the less good news, just because I am obsessed with chronicling this kind of thing. I went to the doctor today expecting round two of the urine sample game. It turns out I have protein in my urine, which indicates athleticism (::cough:: maybe not) or...well, I will hold off on that for just a second so you can stay with me through the suspense.
I left the office with an appointment for a renal ultrasound on June 11th at 8 am. Being me, I sent a text message to a friend to please distract me from self pity for the evening, then drove home, crying on and off on the freeway.
Remarkably, I did not spend much time on self-pity. After lamenting to myself that I did not want to become a Lurlene McDaniel novel, I quickly moved on to anger. I am not even 18, I told myself. I cannot even drink legally. How dare my organs give out on me so soon.
While driving under a yellow light I put my hand up to make a wish that my health would be absolutely fine and I would not die before getting to Smith, let alone graduating. My hand hit nothing but air because I left the sunroof open. Please do not let this be appropriate.
Slightly freaked out, I told my mom what was up when she finished her conference call. Because I am 18 the doctor's assistant would not talk to my mother and let her ask the good questions; instead I repeated my mother's questions into the phone and the answers back to my mother. My mom was slightly pissed off throughout all of this, since it is kind of ridiculous. I love my mom when she is angry at other people; it is about the only time she loses her stoicism.
It turns out it is probably just kind of kidney infection, but I will not know about it for sure until after my ultrasound. I also have to do some other absurd things to keep track of my kidney activity.
A lot of my anger came out of the fact that even though I asked the nurse what protein in my urine meant point-blank when she first told me there was a problem, she danced around the question and never let me know what the problem was. All she told me is that it is fairly common in healthy, active teenagers, which confused me because I am barely active AND if that was the case, what was the problem? I did not find out that there was something possibly wrong with my kidneys until I made an appointment for an ultrasound.
So mom may come with me next time. Sometimes a lawyer is necessary. Except not at all, but I am a big wimp and sometimes it is nice to have my mom make people answer questions directly and then continue pestering them until they are rattling off the digits of their social security numbers because they do not know what else to do to get my mother to move away.
Love,
Mandy