On my trip to Disney World last June, I got off to an interesting start. On the second day, I began to notice pains while urinating. Since I have experienced exponentially worse pains before as far back as 5^th grade and as recently as last August, I didn't think much of it. My concerns jumped up a few levels when I noticed that my urine was looking to be an unusual shade of orange, and I freaked out when I later produced a solid drop of blood.

I called out to my mother and she set up an appointment at a hospital on Disney property for early the next morning. I got little sleep.

When I woke up, my mother treated me to multiple bottles of water as we drove to the hospital. When checking in I was asked to take a urine sample, and oddly there was no pain this time around.

When I finally met the Doctor, she asked multiple questions and told my mother and I exactly what she was thinking. The working theories were an infection from dehydration the first day or a kidney stone. To make sure I was hydrated, they put an IV in my arm.

I freaked out. Up until then I was still a little drowsy, but after the IV I'm guessing that I might have let go of a little adrenalin or something, because I was very, very awake. The IV hurt like heck, and it made every movement uncomfortable. I freaked out even more when I saw air bubbles make their way through the tube from time to time and thought I was going to suffer a heart attack. To make matters worse, the IV was placed close to a hardened fat deposit in my arm that hurts when it's touched.

Mom wanted the television on to keep my mind occupied. It really didn't work, and I really didn't like it when my mom left the room for an unusually long time. If I can remember correctly, they kept me there for about two hours. Near the end I had to use the bathroom and I was getting agitated that I had to wait for so long for a nurse to come and unhook the IV.

After going through all that, which was a nightmare, the IV tub was removed, although not after another moment of freaking out on my part, because it looked like the lady had pulled it out with a movement that was perpendicular to the way in which the tube was slid into me, leading me to assume that instead of sliding it out the way it had gone in she had just yanked it up from under the skin.

They subscribed me to pills for the next week. Since my tongue has an odd forward thrust I can't swallow medicine, so they crushed the pills up and put them in apple sauce. It was one of the most awful things I have ever tasted, with the exception of vegetables, eggs, tomatoes, high school food, my grandma's cooking, and my father's cooking. I nearly through up several times.

Then I was told that I had to eat that stuff twice a day for the rest of the trip. Yuck.

The doc's verdict was a little odd. What she knew was that I had pain urinating in the past, that the pain suddenly went away, and that I have uncles with diabetes though I don't have it myself. Yet I'm young and I rarely drink carbonated beverages, though my calcium intake is tremendous with the gallons of milk I drink. It was hard to say for sure, but she thinks I passed a kidney stone.

Well ain't that a blow to the teenage invulnerability complex.

Your Honor,

Emperor Kraggh