so you may have known that i was convicted of a crime recently and sent to a correctional institution. yes, i did time again at east shore state penitentiary, my friends.

i was deep in slumberland one night when big momma came into my room to give me some milk. (with no cookies, so why bother, i ask you?) she told big daddy that i was, as paris hilton would say, ‘hot’, and they brought me to see The Doc (code word for Drug Dealer) in the morning.

it was there where i was busted! framed! incriminated! kena pluck!

they said i had been harbouring a dangerous fugitive called UTI. i wonder if it was previously hiding at Yew Tee MRT, along with mas se/lam/at.

behind bars, i was only given some hardtack for sustenance, barely enough to keep me alert for the long hours i needed to study the blueprints of the floorplan i smuggled for my prison break.

to pass the time, i chilled with my cell mate (see calloused, un-pedicured foot in picture) and hung around, rattling the cages and jeering at the prison wardens.

which was a bad idea, because they then performed daily acts of persecution upon me that made me howl a hundred howls, involving an excruciatingly large needle poked into my thigh.

one of the prison wardens there was a crooked old fella who cruelly and inhumanely tortured me with a cavity search for contraband (he found some all right – in my butt crack, hah!), and if that wasn’t enough, a complete strip search. oh, the indignity!

i was bailed out eventually, after two hard nights in cold confinement, and appeared in court the next day to hear the verdict.

the judge ruled: i was out of danger.

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ok, that was auni’s version, of course.

to summarise, i went into her room at 1am to feed her, something i don’t normally do after she’s gone to sleep, and found her body warm, although she just slept through with nary a whimper. brought her to the paedi the next morning when it didn’t subside, and discovered she had high fever of 38.5. since there were no other symptoms and the fever came unexplained, a urine test was done, by attaching a sterile plastic bag thingy to her girly-bits, and we had breakfast while waiting for her to fill it up. a urine dip test was done, and a purple stain showed traces of possible urinary tract infection. and off we were, warded once more, like the time she had jaundice.

and so it was deja vu, rushing home to pack our things for the 3-day-stay, which was necessary as we had to collect another urine sample, which then had to go for a culture, which took 48-72 hours, and her fever had to be monitored, and antibiotics to be administered by injection.

i was kinda bummed at having to stay at the hospital again, this time with an active baby who’s awake most of the day, with little space to play and explore (what to do? what to do??), but looking back, it was nice, a little bonding time, just chilling on the cot bed, going on short strolls around the (boring) hospital premises, finding out things about her i didn’t know she could do.

the third day, we asked to be discharged since she wasn’t having anymore fever, and after the urine culture result came back, the doc told us that it was an external infection, ie. just the skin. it could’ve been worse, like in her kidneys or bladder. that would’ve caused permanent scarring and lead to long-term medication. so, syukur alhamdulillah, we hope there won’t be a recurrence.

so what actually caused UTI in babies? who knows. possible factors are hygiene, dehydration, or genetic, i guess. it’s different with adult UTI, which i hear is painful. i asked the nurse and she said it’s not so with babies. from the way the little one looked, it sure didn’t look like she was in a lot of pain. either that or she’s got that pain threshold i was talking about.

it’s more common in girls, so be careful, mommies out there with baby girls. i can’t say that we practice bad hygiene at home, because we all, including her daytime caregivers, do wash her girly-bits with water and baby soap whenever we change her diaper. maybe we should change it more often. maybe we should offer her more water to drink. maybe maybe maybe… but as some tell me, well, these things *just happen*. :S

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