Bourbon and Pink Pee

How come nobody told me that eating beets makes pee turn pink?

I was having a perfectly loving evening in a motel on the shores of Lake Huron, when I got up to go to the washroom. We’d spent the evening in the bar, sun-kissed and slightly drunk, listening to a performer who was making us very happy.

Scene of the Crime

Afterwards we went out to look at the stars, marveling at what nature has to offer.  The water, sunset, food and the music had all been better than we’d imagined. There’s got to be a better word than ‘fulfilled’ to describe it – but I don’t know what it is. I might have to start looking in another language.

At 3 am I got up to pee. At 3:01 I glanced in the toilet. And at 3:01 I almost fell to my knees.

Here’s what went through my head. Oh no – I’ve got cancer again. The bad kind.
How am I going to tell my mother?
I have blood in my pee.
My perfect night was the goodbye gift.
I shouldn’t have had the second bourbon. I shouldn’t have had any drinks at all. Ever.
Is it really pink, or is the shitty motel lighting? It’s really pink. What else could have cause pink pee? What else what else what else. WHAT ELSE!
Should I google it and scare myself to death, or should I put of the terror until tomorrow.
How much time will I have left?
I promise not to eat anything bad ever again, if I can get through my treatment. I’ll go back to school, write a novel, and help build houses in Africa.
I don’t want to die. Please, someone, please don’t let me die.

Then I went back to bed. I cold have looked up ‘pink pee’ but decided to procrastinate a little longer. As long as I didn't know, I was still ok. I went back over my day to think what other clues there might have been to my new cancer. I felt great all day (albeit a little tired), I’d exercised and eaten well – we’d wisely chosen the seared trout followed by a beet salad….

Another Sunrise. Lucky me!

There it was! The tiny crack that allowed a shard of light to shine in to the doom of my self-diagnosis. But it was something. I grabbed my phone and goggled ‘Beets & Pink Pee’.  Three second seemed like hours hours, but then my little phone came to life. And it announced the yes indeed, beets could be the culprit.

How I love my little phone! And the stars! And the sunrise. And the fact that I would be alive tomorrow to see the sunrise, with  the promise of even more sunrises up ahead.  

And I felt that once again, and for the time being, I was once again carefree.