Blood in the Urine

So, I don't really want to talk about what is going on with me usually because my children are already SO interesting. But I know I'd be sad if I didn't talk about my experience today. About 3 weeks ago I went to the doctor to have a regular physical, and as you all know, that's a sucky experience in itself. But for me, it was a little different. The doctor told me I had excess blood in my urine. This was news to me! I've been peeing fine recently thank you and did not see ANY blood. He said it could be a number of things and to come in for another UA (urinalysis) to see if the bleeding was gone. 10 days later I came in again.... aaand there was still excess blood in my urine (hematuria). They scheduled me to see a urologist and after another week I went to my pee doctor. Peed in a cup again and was told yet again I had hematuria. He ordered a CT.

And I had a date with this guy.

After lots of paperwork, waiting/napping in the waiting room, I was finally called back. They made me dress in this crap.

oooh good times. I mean who doesn't love walking around a hospital with no bra on and an open back gown. 

They brought me into the room. Had me lie down and then just told me to listen to the machine. They put this really warm blanket on me and I have to admit it was rather nice. I was pulled through the CT about 3 times as it told me to "breath in" and "hold your breath". Inside the donut you can see dark band in the photo. Inside there they have something that spins around. It makes you feel like you're in a dryer, either that or you're going to be transported to the dinosaur era in nothing but some hospital garb and no bra!

The first round of this was to check for kidney stones. I had none that were apparent. She told me that meant I get to have the contrast dye injected into my veins to look at my organs.

This is the best most basic picture I could find. 

She started me on a IV and then told me she would pump the first half into my arm and then after 10 minutes she'd pump the 2nd half so that my entire insides would be lit up. No- this is not something you can just obviously see. But I could feel it. First I could feel my vein pulsing as the dye was being inserted, then my entire body got really warm. It felt like I had to pee. Very odd. And then came the nasty taste in my mouth that I couldn't really taste for long. For whatever reason, my insertion site hurt like crazy. The catheter inside was causing all sorts of hell. I just dealt with it rather than get another IV inserted. IVs feel like a bee sting to me, except once the bee sting feeling is gone, it feel like the bee has lodged itself under my skin at the IV site. I suck at getting poked with needles.

After the second round with the CT machine I was able to get up, get dressed, and wait for the results. And it was nothing.... they couldn't find anything. All scans were negative. Don't get me wrong! I'm glad for this, but this also means I just went through all that crap for NOTHING. Oh and of course this means I have to have a cystoscopy on Thursday. I'm looking less forward to this than I was for the CT.

What they're basically going to do is feed a little  camera up my urethra. . . ew. So, thank you excessice hematuria- you suck.