I'VE never been particularly good at exams, but I hit a new low on Thanksgiving Day when I flunked a urine test. It wasn't that they found drugs or alcohol or anything like that. The problem was that I couldn't produce any urine for them to test. Embarrassing failure
on a urine testI was scheduled for surgery the next day to fix a messed-up ankle. They wouldn't go for my painkilling proposal of a little novocaine and a bottle of whiskey, so I had to go to Castle Hospital for tests to make sure I could safely handle general anesthesia. I had slips for lab work, a chest x-ray and an EKG.
They pushed my wheelchair into the lab first. The technician took three vials of blood from my arm and handed me a cup in which to collect a urine specimen.
"Uh oh," I said. "I don't have the urge. Maybe we should have saved the lab work for last."
"We don't need much," the tech said.
"I couldn't squeeze out a single drop if my life depended on it," I replied. If I had any blood left in me, my face would have been very red. I suggested that he give me the cup to carry on the rest of my rounds. When the mood struck, I'd duck into a restroom and fulfill my obligation.
The trouble was that I had emptied myself upon awakening and left for the hospital without drinking anything. My system wasn't exactly drowning in excess fluids. I stopped at the water cooler on my way to x-ray to remedy that. I gulped down at least a gallon of water.
But by the time they finished the chest x-ray, still no joy. I asked the nurse if I might have a drink. She gave me one of those shot-sized Dixie cups. I sucked down 30 cups of water from the cooler.
Still nothing after the EKG. I asked the nurse there for more water. Seeing the urine cup sticking out of my bag, she needled, "Can't perform under pressure, huh?"
Now this was getting serious. No man likes to hear any woman say that about any function involving that region of his body. I couldn't even use the old excuse that it had never happened to me before. It had, at the Straub Clinic at Windward Mall.
In that case, the lab tech sent me down to the food court to seek inspiration from several large glasses of ice tea. When he came to check on me, he found me eating a couple of soft pretzels to chase down the tea. "You're eating salt?" he yelled. "It's vaporizing the liquid from the tea before it gets halfway down your gullet."
Back at Castle, I had learned my lesson and passed up the salted Payday bar that called to me from the candy machine. I sat by the gurgling fish tank for awhile hoping it would give my bladder a clue. I wheeled down the lonely holiday hallways from water cooler to water cooler, from restroom to restroom.
I didn't want to hang around any one restroom for too long lest the staff and emergency room patients start speculating unkindly about what I was doing in there.
IN danger of losing my ride home, I went into a restroom determined to get this resolved. With a small ocean of water in me, I finally managed to fill a quarter of the tiny cup. I really couldn't say if I filled it with urine or perspiration.
Exhausted but triumphant, I took the cup to the lab. By then a new shift was on and they didn't know who I was or what they were supposed to do with this vile container I was handing them.
Like most things in life, there was a lesson. I could no longer fault the two sides battling over the Waiahole Ditch. Sometimes, you just can't find a way to share the water no matter how hard you try.