spasms and sandpaper

Poor Chelsea. This is a pain I, myself, know all too well. Is it some sort of divine retribution that we girls who embrace our inner sluts seem to get smote by this particular affliction all too often? Maybe god really doesn't like fornicators after all?

Her description of the misery is pretty accurate. Except she forgot to mention the sensation that your vagina is lined with sandpaper. And she forgot about the part wherein your entire abdomen convulses and spazzes out in the most all-consuming manner whenever you even attempt to pee. And she didn't really mention the "you know what causes this, don't you, you dirty, dirty, filthy whore" glare you get from your doctor. Sheesh. You may as well go in there bimonthly with recurrent and alternating cases of crabs and syphilis.

OK, OK... having your doctor think you're a whore is a *little* bit satisfying...

(Having anyone think you're a whore is, you know, kinda satisfying.)

UTI factoid/UPDATE: E. Coli is the most common bacteria found in the urine of women with UTIs. That's what grows in fecal matter. It's really incredibly poor evolutionary planning that the orifices that produce fecal matter and urine are so close to each other. It's just a recipe for, if not disaster, deeply problematic discomfort. Furthermore, as I continue in my reading of my stolen copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma, I'm learning much about this industrious little bacterium. Here's a little gem I've gleaned from Michael Pollan's research (for context, I'll tell you that at this point in the book, he's hanging out in one of the most godforsaken landscapes to be found in this existential plain: the commercial cattle feedlot):

One of the bacteria that almost certainly resides in the manure I'm standing in is particularly lethal to humans. Escherichia coli O157:H7 is a relatively new strain of the common intestinal bacteria (no one had seen it before 1980) that thrives in feedlot cattle, 40 percent of which carry it in their gut. Ingesting as few as ten of these microbes can cause fatal infection; they produce a toxin that destroys human kidneys.

Most of the microbes that reside in the gut of a cow and find their way into our food get killed off by the strong acids in our stomachs, since they evolved to live in the neutral pH environment of the rumen [the multi-chambered stomach cows have that allows them to digest grass, their natural diet]. But the rumen of a corn-fed feedlot steer is nearly as acidic as our own stomachs, and in this new, man-made environment new acid-resistant strains of E. coli, of which O157:H7 is one, have evolved--yet another creature recruited by nature to absorb the excess biomass coming off the Farm Belt. The problem with these bugs is that they can shake off the acid bath in our stomachs-- and then go on to kill us. By acidifying the rumen with corn, we've broken down one of our food chain's most important barriers to infection. Yet another solution turned into a problem.


Fantastic. Be prepared, fair readers. I'm on the verge of one of my semi-annual freak-outs about the world's food and water supply. Once I get this effin' antibiotic out of my system (yes, I'm REALLY feeling Chelsea's pain), I might have to fast again. And remember what fun that was last year? (See most of my posts from May 2007 for remembrances of food deprivations past).