I don't have much to talk about tonight so instead you all get a Public Service Announcement. I read a bunch of different blogs. I was pointed to one earlier in November called AtomicTumor. Since I only came recently to this blog, I don't know it's whole history. There are a few contributors to it, the most prominent being a husband and wife team. When I was introducted to it, the wife was ill in the hospital. She took ill on November 1st, was admitted to the hospital with a mysterious infection and ended up dying on November 17th. She was 29 with two young sons, aged 10 and 4. I've cried many times ready the husband's accounts of her hospital stay, of her death, of how he and the boys are coping and living through this. My heart breaks for them. Yesterday, he posted that he received the official death certificate for his wife. The death certificate lists four causes for her death, in order of immediacy - Cerebral Infailltion and herniation, Diseminated Intravascular Coagulation, Septic Shock, Pyelonephritis. What is all that? Well, she had a UTI, it got bad quick, she went into shock, then had a stroke that left her in a coma and was ultimately brain dead and they had to let her go. Did you get all that? She contracted a UTI. How many of us have had urinary track infections? Did you all go to the doctor right away to get it treated? I already have one friend that ended up in the hospital because it spread to her kidneys. This young, vibrant woman died because of her's. Please, please, please, if you think you have a UTI, go to the doctor and get it checked. And if the quick test comes back positive, please have them run a culture. Why? Because my penicillin allergy has actually helped me twice in my life. The first was when I had a UTI. I couldn't take the standard antibiotics (penicillin, amoxycillin) because of my allergy so they ran a culture on the bacteria. It turns out my UTI was resistant to the penicillin line of antibiotics anyway. My routine UTI could have been much worse if not properly treated from the onset. The second time my allergy helped me was when I was pregnant with Annika. I tested positive for Group B Strep. Once again, they usually give you a penicillin variant and call it a day. Because I'm allergic, they once again ran a culture and yep, turns out the type of strep I was positive for doesn't react at all to penicillin and it's counterparts. I had to have a totally different antibiotic during labor. This time my allergy helped Annika from possible complications as well. Anyway, the moral of this long story is - don't ignore UTI's and have them run cultures on any bacteria strain found. Please. Your life could literally depend on it.