a night out

its 6:20 am and I'm so glad to be home, finally. What started as a regular Saturday of bountiful rest ended a few minutes ago, early on Sunday morning. When I left home Shawana and her friend Sherita were busy working on code for work, imagine that, on a saturday too. Anyway, I was going to Kris' house to attend a "gathering of good times" for his girlfriend's birthday. Hippo bird day two ewe! That was out of one of her birthday cards. It was clever and had the party crowd confused for a second as to what that meant. I stayed up there for a couple of hours and had a grand time, also realizing I'm still sucking at playing pool. When I got back to the apartment Shawana and Sherita were still hard at work with Saturday Night Live on the tv. Poor Shelby was still locked in the bedroom because he is not Sherita's favorite animal plus he can be very distracting while working. Which, I'm sure, is stressful on such a 'people-person' cat. Work time soon wrapped up and Sherita left. Its after one and my body is working overtime to convince me that I'm tired, really tired. Shelby is wide awake and still scurrying around the apartment at full steam. Shawana is still up, but she isn't feeling so hot. She is dealing with a bit of discomfort from her lower stomach/bladder area, but we decide to go to bed, hoping this will pass.
We fast-forward to sometime after 2am. Shawana is still suffering and is going to the bathroom every 10 minutes or so. I'm still awake out of pure concern of my girlfriend's well being. After a little discussion and a strong suggestion from Shawana's mom we went to the emergency room at Bayfront Medical in downtown St. Petersburg. Its 3am when we walk into the empty ER. A nice security officer points us towards the regestration window. There was a guy working the window and he was using the late hour calm of the ER to catch some rest. With it being so dead we quickly got served and setup in an exam room, just to wait some more. Shawana stopped by the bathroom to collect a urine specimen for testing before she joined me in the exam room. I giggled as she had to dawn one of those sexy, forever drafty hospital gowns. And we wait. Shawana brought along her palm to keep us occupied, but the wait was still long and difficult. I can say that the chairs in the exam room were not designed for comfort or sleep. I managed to pass out for 5 minute intervals.
The environment of the ER was calm except for one patient who was not a satisfied customer. She would yell out every now and then, which didn't help Shawana with her nervous feelings about being in the hospital at all. But she did managed some rest in the midst of what she deemed a cold world. After all was said and done the nurse practioner told us that the problem was a severe case of Urinary Tract Infection. Probably from too litttle water consumption and too much soda drinking. It was a relief for this experience to be over. Shawana got a prescription for treatment and she promised to increase her fluid intake to a normal level for humans. And that was the end to our 3 hour field trip to the emergency room which also included several update calls to Shawana's mom, who was definitely in full worry mode.
To add to the fun we walking out of the hospital behind the screaming patient. Who continued with her loud outburts while being loaded into a transport van. It started to drizzle, but I remember looking up at the guy trying to get her in the vehicle and he shook his head at me. What a night?