Time for some celebrity medicine

March 1, 2017

Hi, Tracy.
I've had some surprises during the weekend, so I sent this note to the Advanced Registered Nurse Practicioner (ARNP) that I meet with every Wednesday:

I was under the impression that "incontinent" referred to the place where the tourists went when they got off the cruise ship. I have since been reminded otherwise. The most memorable time I've had this experience was on the Evergreen Point Bridge at night in a rainstorm, when there was no place to pull over and my urinary tract infection that resulted from the implantation of the gold beads in my prostate had not yet been diagnosed. 

Well, it's gone, but something has replaced it, and I have a sneaking suspicion it has to do with all those protons you people have been spraying at my prostate. I think at least one of the neighbors -- my urethra -- may have been listening to it moan and got aggravated the only way it knows how. Lately it felt a little tingly and when I passed water, sort of like someone ringing the doorbell. I noted the effect but didn't act on it, so today my urethra ran out of patience and decided it wasn't going to wait for me any more.
This happened twice today. I was wearing an absorbent pad which was in the wrong place at the wrong time, so it didn't help much. Fortunately, I had a spare set of undies in the backpack I took on my outing to with two ladies to Blaine, and I don't think they caught on. I thought I was OK, and didn't bother to put another absorbant pad in the fresh undies. Smart, huh?
Anyway, what would you suggest I do? (I can already imagine your ambiguous answer: Depends!)

 Well, as it turned out, maybe the radiation was contributing, but I also had another Urinary Tract Infection. So right away I got an antibiotic (Ciprofloxacin) and then some celebrity medication: It's called tamsulosin, but the stage name is Flomax -- yes the very one they advertising on TV for men who have to pee all the time. Wow.

However, the very next day the medication changed. The laboratory found E Coli in my urine,  As I understand it, the E-coli is resistant to Ciprofloxacin, but the laboratory test showed it responded to the new medication, Trimeth Sulf DS.

Here's hoping...

Love,
Dad