First off, I left the car in the driveway and forgot to leave the keys for M. Street cleaning happens on Tuesday mornings right in front of the house and, since we got back late the night before from visiting E in the hospital, I decided to park it in the driveway (didn't want to deal with finding a parking space) and M agreed to move it the next morning in order to get a prime space after the street cleaning.

I realized I forgot to leave the keys after I had just gotten on the train. 'Oh, well', I thought, 'Hopefully M doesn't have a pressing meeting today where he'll need to use his car. Otherwise, I'll need to come back on my lunch break and give him the keys... GREAT.'

I called him after I got off the street car, before I got on BART and told him the scenario. He wasn't too happy about being locked in, but said he'd just have to do.

So I went to work.

The day went quite well until 2 pm. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an excrutiating bladder infection hit me. I scrambled through my "medicine drawer" at work and took some Vitamin C and two cranberry capsules. I also loaded up on water.

That didn't work. I then moved on to the Uristat, a lovely miracle over-the-counter bladder anaesthetic. By sheer luck, I found an old box in my "medicine drawer", which had one remaining dose. (I used to get bladder infections every other month until about 8 or 9 months ago, so I thought I was rid of them for good.)

Usually it works within 10 minutes of taking it. No, not this time. It was more like one and a half hours later!

For that entire hour and a half, I was in the bathroom. I was so embarrassed and humiliated to be lurking in the bathroom that I'd change bathrooms every 10 minutes or so (thank heavens I work in a large building). I had the chills and sweats. Very pretty.

I was stuck at work. I called M. He offered to come pick me up. I reminded him that I had blocked him in. Ugh! The only day I stupidly forget to leave him the key is the one day he really needs it.

I then started rummaging through my "Guaranteed Ride Home Program" information so that I could get a free cab ride home (this is a free service offered to carpoolers or public-transit riders during emergencies). I found the information and began filling it out... then realized there was no way I'd be able to go without a bathroom for 5 minutes, let alone the 45 minute to 1 hour cab ride home.

I called the Healthnet nurse advice line. After assessing my symptoms, the nurse told me to see or talk with my doctor within the next 8 hours. She also told me some ways to relieve the pain, none of which worked.

The Uristat wasn't working the wonders it usually did, so I popped some Extra Strength Excedrin, hoping it would relieve the pain enough so that I could take BART home.

Finally, around 6, the pain subsided enough so that I could make the trek home.

I stayed really still and willed myself home, hoping not to throw up in the meantime. Luckily, I made it home in one piece.

I called my doctor's office as soon as I got home and spoke with an after-hourse nurse, who told me she'd page the on-call doctor. She called me several times over the course of the evening to tell me the doctor wasn't returning her page, i.e. "maybe her pager was accidentally turned off."

Finally, at 10:30 last night, the nurse called one last time to tell me that I should just call my doctor first thing this morning because there was nothing else she could do.

So that's what I did. And, in doing so, I got to work 4 hours late and had to miss the "thank you" luncheon my boss was treating her employees to for meeting all our deadlines. I had been looking forward to that for the past month because it was at some elite new restaurant!

But I did get some strong antibiotics from the doctor, an antibiotic I'd never heard of before. It works amazingly well. After just one dose dose, my symptoms appear to be gone.

I hope I never re-live yesterday again.