My Yesterday As An Elder Woman

First of all, I want to start by telling you this isn’t about every problem elder women have but rather just a few from yesterday. I woke up thinking it was Tuesday, and I had a group at New Leaf. I worked it out with another woman to do the group every other week and this was her week.

Before I left the house I went back in for my phone and walking stick two separate times. By this time, I should have known for sure I had a urinary tract infection(UTI). But, I wasn’t quite there yet in my thinking.

My daughter, a registered nurse (RN) said it appears we can have very few symptoms as we age. I asked her if she was calling me old.

She laughed and said if the shoe fits. Then she added, that when her residents start acting loopy, that is the first thing she will tell her staff is to get a urine test. I shouldn’t have told my husband that about being loopy as now he is wondering if that wouldn’t be a good nickname for me.

When I got to the group, the other woman who does that group was there. Well, I didn’t realize it wasn’t my group. She was pleased to see me as she didn’t plan anything. I didn’t either and I left my group bag in my husband's car. I just got my car out of the shop the day before. No big deal or was it?

We had a great group, with a couple of small mistakes. One was I asked a guest to go to my car and get a braid of sweet grass. She came in concerned as a staff person stopped her and asked what she was doing with the car keys. Oops. I reassured her that I would make sure she wouldn’t have a problem.

The next group mistake was we smudged in the room that the fire alarms had gone off in once. Some of the other staff were not pleased. Thankfully, it was no problem.

I went to the walk-in clinic as by now I’m getting the feeling I better check for a UTI sooner than later. I had noticed some discomfort prior that could be signs. I went into the clinic and had a prescription to pick up so I signed in for urgent care and went to the pharmacy first. Then I went to the bathroom.

Well, the clinic wasn’t busy and I got right in and then they weighed and took my vitals, and moved me to a room across the hall. I forgot my purse where I weighed, went back and got it. Then the doctor said I would go to the lab and get a urine. Well, I just went to the bathroom about ten minutes prior.

It was a wait, but not that long. I drank some water and went bathroom in another ten minutes or so. Now I’m noticing urgency and frequency. I went back to the doctor and on to the pharmacy again. During my wait time for my prescription, I talked to a pharmacist about the pills I take.

Half are vitamin-type, like D, B12, fish oil, magnesium, biotin, and an age 55+ multi-vitamin. It is five pills in the morning and five pills with lunch or dinner. One on an empty stomach with an immune system tea, and topical progesterone cream, and one in the evening on an empty stomach.

Twelve plus total pills, plus depending on the size and how it comes, i.e. 5,000 a day of D3 = 2–2,000, and 1,000 is in my multi-vitamin. That is a lot! The heart pill gives me the burps and is the one on the empty stomach.

I take a preventative allergy pill daily, two when I’m around dogs or cats, and a UTI preventative daily. I thought maybe the pharmacist could help me cut out some of the pills because there is something I don’t need. I hear people cut out pills with the help of a pharmacist all of the time.

If I get something that makes me sick to my stomach it is an allergy reaction. Tums is added to the list. I can’t take tums within two hours of another pill that I take, so sometimes I have to suffer for a while. If I’m flying I take meclizine.

I’m not supposed to take Ibuprophen but I do on occasion. They want me to use tramadol but then I’m not supposed to drive with that, so no thank you, it feels narcotic and I’m a recovering person.

Anyway, she told me that I am taking fewer pills than most that she sees for this review, and she thought they were all important and necessary for me due to my health issues, including the vitamins.

I was on my way home and had to stop at a friend's house who has 4 cats to drop off a prize for her winning a contest. Another allergy pill it is and don’t stay for more than ten minutes. Before I got there my gas pump light came on and it started dinging. I was on the phone with my daughter.

Before I left home I knew I would need to stop for gas but I never looked again or thought about it again until the dinging and lights were flashing. I haven’t run out of gas since I was a teenager and now here I was.

She said, “What is going on and where are you?” She knew I was loopy before I did and was checking up on me. She was glad to hear I got on an antibiotic and another pill. Not me! I wasn’t glad as I was already on too many pills. I’m trying to figure out if I can not take the pill that will turn my urine a bright fluorescent color!

The UTIs started after having a hysterectomy and that caused back-to-back UTIs until the chiropractor told me to use D-Mannose. The urologist concurred, so I now take that as a preventative, until I ran out and was out for five days. That is when the UTI became noticeable at first.

Aging is not for sissies! There is always something. If I wasn’t having intercourse I probably would have less chance of getting these. Is that then about the hubby causing this? My primary doctor gave me four antibiotics a week to take after intercourse.

Either they think old people don’t have sex or they think they have sex like when they were younger. I told her, you know my husband is in his 70s right? He isn’t impotent but sex is not as often as it used to be. Sex is a whole other subject that I can talk about and will at some point.

And then they think old people are all incontinent. It may be coming on with a UTI at times, but maybe they should check for a UTI earlier, and more often.

With the preventative D-Mannose, I do not need the antibiotic. Main point to this story. No one seems to know about D-Mannose or UTI causes, fixes, and consequences, except my chiropractor. He also fixed my tennis elbow in minutes. People suffer with that sometimes for a year I’m told.

Well, okay there may be more than one main point to this story. I can be happy, joyous, and free even with a UTI, as I have plenty to chuckle about.

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First published by Mercury Press on medium.com