I had a urinary tract infection that I felt progress up to my bladder and eventually into one kidney and then the next. I would’ve liked to visit a doctor immediately, but with American medical costs being what they are and hospitals advising me to hold out a few more days until a doctor in my insurance network was available, I’d hoped that small stinging pain down there would go away. But nope, it spread to all the regions mentioned plus I was passing blood almost nonstop. I couldn’t sleep, could barely walk, and felt like I was on the verge of dying.

I made it to a doctor once I knew it was a life or death situation, described my symptoms and the progression, and the guy starts digging into me, trying to say I’m just fishing for antibiotics (what?) and it’s clearly a kidney stone. I all but called him a dumbass, because it wouldn’t make sense for a kidney stone to move backwards up to both of my kidneys. I had to wait around for a urine test to prove that yes, it was in fact an obvious kidney infection, but the doctor was still skeptical asserting that it’s probably just a mild kidney stone, and reluctantly gave my antibiotics that cleared it up instantly.

That wasn’t the first time a doctor tried to argue against my obvious problem (I also had one argue that I didn’t break a clearly broken bone), but it was the most frustrating experience.