she's
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My con report is posted; you can read it here.

What happens publicly and what happens privately are two different things in my life. I don't mind sharing milestones and disasters with close friends, but confiding in a large newsgroup is quite something else. So, here is the rest of the story.

Obviously, Dave and I had a bit of a rendezvous involving condoms planned. It went off (no pun intended) much as expected. Some fumbling, some miscues, and a bit of pain. It hurt fairly bad, more than I was expecting. Poor Dave - he was so concerned about me. But we got through it, and (after the pain subsided) I found it quite enjoyable.

Details? I can't give you any, not now. It's too fresh, it's too personal, and - truthfully - there's not much to tell. We made jokes about putting "Tab A into Slot B, repeat as necessary," but the magnitude of what we did wasn't lost on us. And it really was just Tab A into Slot B; we're not up to gymnastic feats of sexuality yet. Give us a while. grin

It was fun, so we did it again the next day. This time was even better, and I started to see what all my friends were on about. I used some of those neat muscles that women have down there, and he got a bit of a kick out of that.

Unfortunately, I also did myself in.

A few hours after we had sex for the second time, I felt an overwhelming urge to pee. We ran up to the room quickly so that I could go to the bathroom before we went to a spirituality roundtable that Dave and I had been looking forward to.

My pee was pink.

Ok, ok, no need to panic, right? Hah! You don't know me. I started freaking out, pacing the room while Dave watched. Was I sick? Did I hurt myself? Would it go away on its own? I couldn't afford a trip to a doctor. What if they said I had to go home? Dave did his best to calm my nerves, but every time I thought I had it licked the panic welled up again.

About half an hour later, I had to pee again. It burned. I knew something was wrong, but when I looked into the bowl, I almost vomited right there.

The toilet bowl was full of blood. My urine was a dark, rich maroon, and I hurt. Bad.

The decision was made to take me to the hospital immediately. I didn't know what was wrong with me, but I know something was Wrong. I was trying not to freak out, but I wasn't doing a very good job. I was fine until we asked for directions to the hospital at the front desk. The fear overwhelmed me, and I rushed into a restroom and knelt over the toilet. My stomach churned.

I felt like shit.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply over the toilet, willing myself to calm down. Slowly, I forced my terror back to a place where I could control it for a while. I went back into the lobby (where Dave was pacing), and we left the hotel.

A lot of things ran through my mind. This was going to be expensive. We were missing the panel I wanted to attend. I hurt. I felt like I was going to barf. We were getting lost.

Oh. Yeah. The directions the hotel gave us sucked.

We finally asked for directions, and Dave was summarily laughed at. (We were right next to the hospital; in the dark, we had missed the signs and the large building next to the gas station.)

I had a small laugh when the receptionist checked me in. She asked for my religious preference. When I said Unitarian Universalist, she glanced at her screen, hit a key, hit backspace, and looked at me again.

"Just mark me as 'other'," I said. She smiled with relief and entered that into the computer.

I hate hospitals. I never feel at ease. It didn't help that I was nervous, sick, and worried, and it certainly didn't help that there was an older woman wandering the halls while wrapped in a bedsheet and moaning incoherently.

They called my name, and I had to go in alone.

I think they wanted to see if I was being abused by Dave, to see if he'd kicked me in my bladder or something. After the nurse reassured herself that that was not the case, she got down to business.

The symptoms and causes were quickly narrowed down. What happened to me? I had a bladder infection (which I had suspected). Why did I have it?

Well, apparently I got it because I had sex.

They even had a name for it: honeymoon systosis. Apparently, many women get a bladder infection after (or during) their honeymoons, either from having sex for the first time, or from having too much sex. (I didn't know there was such a thing!) I had three different people come in and explain this to me, although the medical resident had three different explanations as to what it could be.

Had anyone else had this problem? Bladder infections from too much sex? And what's too much sex?

Man, I just wanted to get out of there. I had two people ogle my urine sample, exclaiming that they'd never seen such a bloody sample. Lovely. The doctor seemed a bit rushed, and curtly told me my diagnosis after the test results were back. I also got a lecture from the resident on how to wipe myself after using the restroom, and a brief lesson on female anatomy.

I wanted to go home.

We finally did, calmer and with a prescription.

It was a convention to remember, that's for sure.

In Other News Not About My Genitals

And we're back. Home again, home again, jiggety jog. Dave is here until Friday or Saturday (Saturday! Saturday!) and I'll be working days until Friday. I'll be poorer than shit, especially when that emergency room bill shows up. Dave has promised to pay for it, but I'll need to do something for him to make up for it.

Now I need to go snuggle with my husband-to-be.