I recently got married and in the first six months of marriage, I have actually experienced a lot of new things. There are the usual adjustments to married life: having a husband who expects to be your priority, a house and home to manage, cooking real meals, juggling with my ever-shortening personal time and work, saving money not for myself but for the future family, having to meet friends to compare and share experiences about my new married life, and to visit my family to report about my new status. One thing, though, was unexpected… urinary tract infection.

I have always been very picky and strict about my health and hygiene. People would classify me as the obsessive-compulsive type who would make efforts to keep my health up and my surroundings squeaky clean. So when I started having the symptoms of UTI, I was quite shocked. I first noticed that my need to pee was more frequent but once I was on the toilet, very little or no pee would come out. Then, came the pain. I came to complain about feeling pains on my abdomen (which I never experienced even with my monthly period) and on the back part of my hips. I learned to ignore those signs and put them off as signs of fatigue until I experienced slight fevers (twice in one week) and nightly chills.

Finally, I went to my doctor and he asked me to undergo the usual processes… interview about medical state and history and laboratory tests for urine and blood. The blood test came out quite normal. But my urine test showed us the culprit. Yes, a high number of bacteria had been reproducing in my urinary tract and they are making a home out of it. My doctor explained about UTI and prescribed some antibiotics that I needed to take every eight hours for ten days. Not used to taking pills and capsules, I hesitantly agreed. The doctor explained that curing the infection is quite simple as long as I religiously follow the medication and return for a follow up after ten days.

On the eleventh day, having followed his instructions carefully, I went back to the doctor’s office and once again underwent a urine test. Surprisingly enough, the number of bacteria significantly went down to the normal range. The infection was gone and I felt genuinely happy!