I woke up yesterday to weird and wonderful news from one of my best friends as she called me the minute she was released from a vow of secrecy to tell me about an upcoming wedding this summer. As I contemplated yet another missed event in the lives of people I love back in Oregon while I battle a raging bladder infection here, I realized I still wouldn’t trade my life to be back stateside. I don’t want to give up the amazing students I have here.
It’s true, I’d happily give up the awful complications of nerve damage and the monstrous bacterial battle waging on my insides with all its uncomfortable, annoying, and occasionally painful side effects, but I love students finding me at lunch to debate the merits of John Calvin and Jacob Arminius. I’ll choose to focus on the intellectual tenacity of the teenagers seeking to understand the biblical and logical support for theological nuances in my conversations with most people, but I’ll recount here a little of my frustration on the microscopic level of my body.
Wednesday in my third period, students presented the points and evidence for the positions of Calvinism and Arminianism while bacteria in my body began to set up camp unbeknownst to anyone. I had some discomfort and interrupted sleep that night, but I was still able to fully engage in the lunch time follow up from a student who wanted to discuss more about what he believes based on the arguments presented in class. Thursday night was rough for me, and by Friday the spasms were interrupting my class as I told my legs to chill out while I tried to teach my lesson. We were reading excerpts from C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, and I assigned my students to write their own letter to a tempter demon at BFA. What strategies would be most efficient to distract BFA students? Let me tell you, leg spasms are a moderately effective strategy to distract me. Usually I can ignore little ones and blaze ahead, but Friday I was glad to have the students working on their letters most of the period because my legs needed more attention than normal.
Saturday morning, after a delightful chat with Desiree, I headed to the apotheke to pick up my order before the long weekend. Unfortunately, there was a slight mix up, and my catheters weren’t there. I panicked for a split second, but didn’t waste any energy stressing over what I couldn’t change. I took a deep breath. I had a single box left at home. Thirty catheters. Three days. That’s more than sufficient.
For a normal person without a raging infection.
Welcome to the circus of my life. The most common treatment for a UTI or bladder infection is to flush it out with water – drink lots, pee lots. Except most common people don’t have a limited number of times they can pee per day. So here I sit tonight, two days in, praying my catheter supply will last until the apotheke opens on Tuesday morning while also so loaded up on garlic I’m pretty sure I’m oozing the smell (which, according to the internet, means I’m accessing it’s antibacterial powers). The spasms are still present at an annoying frequency, and whatever I eat has a shadow of garlic taste. I’ve eaten a whole head of it in two days. Though as my friend Shannon pointed out, I am myself now vampire repellant which is beneficial in the case of soulless blood suckers on the loose.
All this madness, and I still wouldn’t trade my life for what I had before my accident. I hear I was a pretty decent freshman English teacher, but this whole mess has made me a significantly more effective theology teacher.
As a theology teacher, I’m also confident in the power of prayer, and I would beg of you to join me in praying that this infection disappear and all the little ailments attributable to it as well.
