One of my school projects this year was to interview patients and to write about them. Our professor asked us to have at least three patients who have related diseases. Related disease means disease that usually affects the same body function or system. The patients were assigned randomly to our freshmen class. For my project, I had two patients with urinary tract infection and 1 patient with kidney failure.

Now, I would like to tell you about it because this project has really taught me a lot only of the medical aspects of diseases but, more importantly, in taking care of our health and bodies.

Patient number 1 is a pregnant woman of 25, married and suffers from urinary tract infection. Patient number 2, single and female, also has UTI. Patient number 2 has recurring UTI. Patient number 3 is a married man, 36 years of age, and is in the hospital waiting for his kidney transplant.

Based on my interviews with them, UTI is a bacterial infection of the urinary tract. Statistically, it is more risky for women to have this infection. Antibiotics can easily treat this kind of infection if prescribed by a doctor and if followed for the whole duration.

Patient number 2 explained that her UTI was recurring because of the fact that she stopped taking antibiotics on the third day (her prescription demanded taking the meds for 7 days) when her symptoms stopped. Because of this, the infection just came back and now, she’s back in the hospital to get a new prescription.

Patient number 1 explained that her case is quite risky because she needs to treat her UTI soon before it is passed on to her baby. She needed to see the doctor to get a safe medication that would cure her UTI but not harm the fetus.

Patient number 3 told me that his kidney failure was a result of a UTI untreated. He had suffered from UTI for many years without knowing it until his kidneys finally gave up. Of course, his condition is an extreme case, but should be considered still and be a lesson for all of us.

What I learned from these 3 patients is the fact that we do have to take care of our bodies. Our bodies are good enough to give us signs when something is wrong with them. Our role, then, is to visit the doctor immediately once we feel something abnormal and have it treated properly.