Smiling in Your Kidneys May Cause Trouble

Every morning, I have declard that Heidi and I will spend a few minutes in "Smile Meditation." This means: In the morning, I turn on a happy song (Soul Sister by Train, Somewhere of the Rainbow by Brotha Iz, Circle of Life from the Lion King, anything Casting Crowns or Kanye West, etc.), and Heidi and sit on the floor sans shoes and SMILE for the whole song. In case you are wondering, yes, at first it hurts your face to smile for three to five minutes. BUT if you do it enough, you'll have strong cheek muscles. Heidi and I have the strongest faces!

I have read that when you do smile meditation you are supposed to "smile in your liver." I love this image. I joked and asked Heidi on the first morning we were smiling (or more accurately - while our cheeks were spasming), "Heidi, are you smiling in your kidneys?" Usually, she and I end up giggling at each other.

After a couple of weeks smile meditation, I am a complete convert and believer. Taking a few minutes out to greet the morning with smiles is a wonderful way to begin the day.

Two weeks ago, we had a three day weekend because we were celebrating the end of first semester and the beginning of the second. Heidi, Rachel and I decided to go to Krakow, Poland and see the salt mines and the dragon for the weekend. On Friday, we left Tisovec and stopped in Cieszyn at the halfway point to spend the night with our Polish teacher friends Colleen and Sarah. We had a fabulous time.

The next morning, I was the first to wake up. I hopped in the shower, and then woke Heidi up so she could get ready. By the time Rachel was in the shower, I was eating breakfast with Colleen when suddenly, I realized that I had to pee very badly. When Rachel was done, I scrambled into the bathroom, and sat down on the toilet, and nothing happened. I have never experienced this before. I realized that something was probably wrong with my plumbing. Even though I was uncomfortable, I wasn't in any pain. Perplexed, I explained what was going on to the girls, then I packed my stuff up and walked with them across down to the bus station so that we could go to Krakow.

By the time we walked across town, I folded from an erect standing position to a ninety degree angle. I had broken out into a cold sweat and I was in serious pain. There was no way I was going to be able to sit on the bus for three hours let alone spend the weekend exploring Krakow. I decided to stay in Cieszyn. After Colleen and I saw the girls off, we headed to Kauflands for cranberry juice. Buying cranberry juice in Central Europe is tricky. Neither Colleen nor I knew the Polish word for "cranberry" and there were no pictures of cranberries on the juice cartons. Most small towns (like Tisovec) do not even sell cranberry juice. I was thankful Colleen lived in a larger city. I left the guesswork and purchasing to Colleen and opted for sitting in the Kauflands bathroom for about fifteen minutes hoping to urinate. I definitely got my twenty cents worth out of that trip to the bathroom.

After Kauflands, we stopped by an apteka (a pharmacy). Colleen rocked the apteka. When we walked in, she said to the woman behind the counter, "Mam (I have) ona (she)," and then whipped out her phrasebook and said the Polish word for urinary tract infection. The woman took one look at me and immediately understood. She brought three different boxes of medication back to the counter and began explaining the particulars to me in Polish. I understood none of it. So, when she was done, I pointed to the first box. "Dobsha?" I asked. (Good?) I did the same thing with the second and third boxes. Each time the woman nodded. Then, I asked, "Dobsha, DOBSHA?" and shrugged my shoulders with the question. (Which one is good GOOD or the best?) The woman pointed to the third box. "Tak," I said. YES. That's the one I wanted.

When we got home, Colleen (my best friend on this continent)brought me cranberry juice and medicine while I sat doubled over on her toilet for a couple of hours. She also spent time on google's translator so that we knew more about the medication I was taking. All we learned was that this medication could be taken in conjunction with anitbiotics and that I could have anywhere from 2 to 6 pills a day. I had six pills that day. During this time, Sarah spent time with WebMD (my doctor away from home). We decided that my symptoms best matched a UTI, a kidney stone and some scary bladder syndrome. We all banked on the UTI.

At this point, some of you may be wondering why I didn't go to the hospital/doctor. The answer is: Doctors are scary in Central Europe. The nurses do not always even have a secondary education (although this is changing now that Slovakia is part of the European Union). Doctors prescribe bizarre medications, and some of them clearly do not know what they are doing. The American teachers here have had some pretty questionable experiences with doctors. Usually, we avoid people in the medical profession at all costs. Colleen and I made an agreement that if either she or I thought that I needed to go to the doctor, we would go to the hospital in Cieszyn and hope that we could find someone to translate for us. We also had Katka's mother on our reserve list. (Katka is one of my brightest third years, and her mother is a physician a few towns away from Tisovec. I felt confident that she would be a good doctor to see.)

I was miserable for about 24 hours. It turns out that I had a kidney stone. As soon as I passed that sucker I felt immediate relief. I was exhausted for the next week, but I guess that's what happens when you pass a kidney stone on cranberry juice and tylenol.

I am now feeling much, much better. I must, however, add a disclaimer about smile meditation: Smiling in your kidneys may cause trouble. Do not smile so hard that your kidneys smile. I think it causes them stress.