Well, today I have to pee in a cup. Actually, it’s a jug. Well, I don’t go directly in the jug, but I have to save all my pee in there…in the fridge.
I’m taking a 24-hour urine test. As you can imagine, I feel pretty great about it. Then, tomorrow, I take my pee down to the lab and also get a blood test. Then I go get a bone density scan (which, I hear, is an X-ray). The woman on the phone said I may want to check with my insurance provider to see if a bone density scan is covered completely since I’m so young. So, yeah, it’ll be me and the older women down at the clinic seein’ if we have osteoporosis.
Actually, what my thyroid specialist is trying to figure out is why my parathyroid gland hormone is so high. Sometimes, I guess, that can mean you have a non-cancerous tumor on your parathyroid (primary hyperparathyroidism), but I already got scanned for that a couple years ago and the results showed nothing. Yet, my hormone is still high per the blood test I took in January. But, what usually happens with secondary hyperparathyroidism — the other type — is you have a high calcium count in your blood, too. I don’t have that. My calcium level is normal. This is good, but doesn’t explain the high parathyroid hormone level.
The parathyroid regulates calcium levels. In secondary hyperparathyroidism, the body does not hold on to the calcium (it thinks it has enough), but then it doesn’t have enough and so it steals it from your bones, which is how you can end up with osteoporosis (and why I’m having a bone density scan tomorrow). Even though it steals the calcium, it still doesn’t use it properly and it gets flushed out in the urine, which is why I’m peeing in a cup-type thing and then pouring it into this lovely jug that Mr. T is making me keep in the crappy garage fridge…right next to the Guinness.
The doctor is making me get the bone density scan, in part, because I had that shin fracture in 2010, which I told her was an overuse injury due to running too much too soon. She made an I-don’t-believe-that face at me when I told her that. So, I guess it will be interesting to see if maybe a lack of calcium in my bones contributed to that, and maybe I can get that problem fixed…and run TONS of marathons!
Only thing is…the fix is surgery to remove the faulty parathyroid gland.
So…that’s what I’m doin’ today. I may take a break from peein’ to go for a walk or a super easy run later to stretch out my legs after yesterday’s PR 5K. Funny how one day, you feel young and fast and invincible! And the next day, you feel old and breakable.
Did you know that topics like peeing in a jug are totally cool in the blogging world? What are you doing today? If you’re peein’ in a jug, too, let me know! Power to the jug-pee-ers!
3 comments
Never done the pee in a jug trick…but I did do the spit in a vial every other day for a month trick. These testings are always kind of weird, aren’t they? I hope all turns out well for you 🙂
Oh, I’m sorry you have to deal with that stinky mess but sounds like a good move to get this business cleared up. I hope that they figure it all out so you don’t have to wonder anymore.
Oh my, I hate peeing in a cup!! That was the worst thing about Doctors visits while pregnant! I hope they figure out what’s wrong and are able to fix it. I’ll be praying it’s a quick resolve for you. 🙂