On another note...

Gotta love physiology lab...why? you ask, 'cuz clearly no one does. I mean, in all honesty, it's three hours of stupid experiments about your organ processes and such things trying to be illustrated by very strange models of canisters with balloons (lungs) and plastic bags in water filled with sugar (osmolarity and our capillaries), etc. At any rate, this last Wednesday was an extra great one, (that in my well-dutied studying ways after 8 years of college) I had read will require someone in our group to drink 600mls of water (pure torture, as water in mass quantities guzzled does not sit well with me), another the same amount of water with a salt pill, etc. Basically water drinking torture of sorts, all to explain to us how our kidneys are working. Given, I suppose, that they even are working properly at all.
This last part is where the lab last Wednesday was interesting. We drink our various copious amounts of water, and then have to urinate, every 30 minutes for the next two hours (no earlier and no later) into a lovely red cup and then measure the volume, the specific gravity, etc....well, I urinate the first time and proceed to dip the strip of multi-color blocks into my lovely urine while lined up along the bench with all my fellow lab-goers doing the same. Awkward in a sense, and in another sense, quite the experiment in social psychology, prob something along the lines of strength in numbers, etc. At any rate, I dip my strip and begin to compare the back of the bottle to read the results. Well, let's just say I was all good to go until I hit the "blood" square of the dipstick. All my "friends" had lovely pale strips all the way across, and mine was a lovely pale strip with a large DARK GREEN square right in the middle. Hmmmm, pretty sure that can't be normal. Now, I realize I'm female, but no, not that time of the month, and yes, still an absolute highest reading for blood level in the urine.
Needless to say, thank you, physiology lab, for letting me know that I potentially have a very bad kidney problem allowing blood to get into my urine. Who would have known without your amazing facilitation of my dip strip? At any rate, hoping it's all a random fluke and i'm good to go, but ya never know. So, I'll be peeing in a cup one more time this week (although, this time it will be a sterile cup brought home for me from the hospital by Rob) and getting it read professionally (Rob will take it to the lab with him when he goes to work - now that's dedication), and i'll give you the update. Until then, just hope that you never have to dip a strip in front of twenty people to find a large DARK GREEN square staring you back in the face, right smack dab in the middle of your otherwise lovely and comforting pale squares of color. Ha, oh man, I'm a walking medical miracle. I'll keep ya posted.