To Pee or Not To Pee (Part 1)

Hello Friends and Family,

If you remember, a couple of weeks ago I wrote a whole thing about poop and a bunch of you read it and I got lots of good emails back. So, we are back…talking about human waste. Again.

It was not my intention to write yet another post about human waste, but this is what life has decided to present me with. The good news is that this newsletter is about #1 and not #2.

The bad news? Well…it is about MY pee not Mills’ pee. The entire saga starts back in April, so buckle up.

April 2023 - The Busiest Month of Our Lives

To say that April 2023 was a busy month for our family would be an understatement. We kicked off the month by hosting my parents and my Aunt Kim and Uncle Tony for our baby shower.

Just a few days later we traveled to Augusta, GA to attend the Masters.

The next morning on April 7, 2023 we started the 2 day drive to Grand Junction, CO.

We spent 10 days in Grand Junction, CO. Where I did more than my share of early morning hikes.

And I managed to haul a table, chair, and iPad up a long climb to get some work done one morning.

At the end of our trip I went on a weekend camping/climbing/rappelling trip to Moab, UT with my coaching program.

We loaded up the car on April 17th to make the 2 day drive back to Atlanta.

So, 3,720 miles later we were right back where we started and ready to get back to work. I left for a work trip the day after we got back.

After a few days in Knoxville, I got home to continue cleaning and preparing the house for Mills’ arrival and get ready for jury duty and another work trip, this time to Memphis, TN.

I almost missed my trip to Memphis because of Jury Duty, and rushed to the Airport on April 27th just in time to learn that my co-worker’s flight was canceled and I had to scramble to get my own car and prep to run the meeting on my own.

Whew.

Why is my pee red?

Way back in March 2023 I was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed some medication to help with those symptoms which I started while we were on our trip to Colorado.

The medication worked amazingly well and I felt more “myself” than I had in quite sometime.

I’ll spare you the details, but I have had ADHD my whole life, it was just not presenting in a way that caused anyone to think it was an issue until much later in my life.

So, I was in the Delta Skyclub at the Atlanta airport after one of the most stressful weeks of my life and I went to restroom to empty my bladder before my flight and my pee was red.

I have never had that problem before in my entire life. So I got on the plane and as soon as I had internet I texted my Doctor for some advice.

Side Note on Concierge Medicine

Shout out to Dr. James O’Keefe. You are the man. I can’t say enough good things about concierge medicine. If you are in Atlanta, you should give him a call and see if he has room in his practice.

We like concierge medicine so much that we also have a pediatric concierge doctor for Mills. It makes traveling and all of the adventures we do much easier. We can simply text or email pictures, have zoom appointments, and get prescriptions filled wherever we are.

I highly recommend this for busy/active families. You will not regret it.

Back to the story…

Back to the story…

I got upgraded to a huge suite which was really nice, but if you have ever been sick on a work trip…no amount of nice makes it better. Sorry, Westin, I wish I could have enjoyed this perk a little better.

I spent the entire night making sure I was hydrated per my doctor’s orders and the blood in my urine went away.

At some point in the night I was looking at potential causes of blood in urine. (Do not do this.)

At some point between bladder cancer and kidney failure I found a reddit thread that mentioned a potential side effect of my ADHD medication. Some people were saying it could cause UTIs or blood in the urine. So I immediately stopped taking the medication.

(Side note: I would not recommend using Reddit to diagnose medical issues. It’s barely good enough to help you get through a 17 hour brisket cook.)

My pee was never red again and I was certain that the medication had caused all of the issues.

(Narrator: It was not the medication)

You’ll have to wait until next week to find out what happened…

Until our next Adventure,

Austin, Courtney, Mills, and Willow

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