I have a lot going on in my life right now that is, unfortunately, unbloggable. Trust me – I would love to blog about it; it would make for very good reading material. Alas, I can’t do it.
But just because I can’t blog about it doesn’t mean that I’m not thinking about constantly. Did I say thinking? I believe what I meant was that I am stressing about it. Wait. Hold the phone. Stress? Aha! There’s the culprit. Perhaps if I just latte and pedicure my way out of all of this stress, all of my problems will just melt away. Because this thing that I am stressing about? Is whether I’m becoming a puddle of broken-down goo in my old age, or, alternatively, if I’ve turned that last corner and finally become my mother.
In other words, is my body really falling to pieces or am I just jumping at symptomatic shadows?
Yesterday I went to the doctor’s (again) because my bladder/girly-parts are still bothering me. [Wait. I should warn you: intimately personal and descriptive symptoms are NOT unbloggable, so all ye of who want to know – turn back here.] Basically, since the first of the year, it feels like I have a constant UTI, and an amount of pain that I would describe as a knitting needle stabbing me in my cervix. Mommies – remember when you were dilating and you’d get one of those stabbing pains, and you’d automatically double over and squeeze whatever happened to be in your hands to a bloody pulp? Like that, only constant. Luckily, I don’t have the two types of pain all the time, or even at the same time, necessarily. But it’s constant enough to know that something is seriously wrong with me and the doctors had better fix it RIGHT NOW, because I don’t deal well with pain under the best of circumstances.
So I went back to the doctor’s for the fourth time to rule out any number of things – from STDs to fibroids to cancer… Okay, the doctor refused to pap smear me. I know! How often do we ask for one and all of a sudden she’s saying no? To be fair, she did say that she would do it, but she warned me that despite my symptoms, no matter how they coded it, my insurance company wouldn’t pay for more than one a year. She tried to reassure me that since I had my “well woman” exam in August, the likelihood of something severe popping up that fast was extremely unlikely.
The tests came back with presumptive negatives, although we’re waiting for full pathology/cultures on them. In the meantime, the doctor told me she thought what I have is interstitial cystitis: a painful, swollen, spasm-y bladder. My friend was diagnosed with that a few years ago and the thing that sticks out most in my mind – besides the fact that it’s incurable and requires you to give up all acidic food, alcohol, and caffeine – is how expensive she said the medicine was. JoyFun.
If my tests all do come back positively negative (heh), then I get to see a specialist for the next course of action. Maybe I should see a quack instead. Because I started wondering if these muscle spasms I’ve picked up over the past few months have anything to do with it. A shoulder muscle, the one under my eye almost constantly, the one by my left ribs, a muscle near the front of my stomach… what if my bladder-thing is really just a spasming muscle like the rest of them? It could be neurological…as in (say it with me now) all in my head.
That is what made me wonder if maybe I’ve become the hypochondriac we all know and love as my dear mum. You might as well cart me off to the funny farm right now. It will save you all a lot of trouble – not to mention endless hours of listening to me rattle of supposed aches and pains and diseases and conditions I’ve contracted.
Just make sure they have internet access; I don’t want to also cut off your endless amusement that is the drama of life!
Tags: health, interstitial cystitis, UTI
February 17, 2009 at 8:31 am |
Thats hilarious. Great blog and hope to have some time soon to come back and read more!
February 17, 2009 at 9:16 am |
I must say, I have always wondered if childbirth is too much more painful than that (which is one solid reason – of many – that four years in we remain childless). But I do suppose it is at least more transient and less frequent – I mean the kid comes out and you can be pretty sure that that’s not going to occur again for at least a solid 9-10 months. Not so with bladder/girly part weirdness.
I wholeheartedly concur with the necessity of internet access at your funny farm – you would have no excuse not to find a variety of misadventures in such a setting! (How many negatives was that English major?? hehe)
February 17, 2009 at 9:17 am |
I really don’t envy you right now. But, see – still something to blog about.
Anyhow, you are probably not turning into your mother or a hypochondriac. But, I would say you have been under more than your fair share of stress this past year and maybe it has all caught up with you. Wish I could take some of today’s stress away, but alas no. Feel better soon – it will get better you know.
February 17, 2009 at 9:07 pm |
i recently web md’d a problem i’ve been suffering for quite awhile as well and the only thing i could find said that it mostly effected men in their early to mid 40s, and i double checked to see if i pointed in the wrong spot lol. hope your funny farm has room for 1 more (ohh we would have all sorts of fun!) and crisanna makes me laugh because last week i was yelled at twice for using the trickery of double negatives in arguments in order to get people to accidently agree with me =]
February 18, 2009 at 12:17 am |
I have IC as well… and I’m uninsured – can’t afford $400 a month for Elmiron – the drug that helps me so much I feel cured (even though it’s not a curable illness)…
Depending on the severity of your IC, and what causes your flares, you can control it (more or less) by diet…. and (although my case isn’t as severe as some people I know) as long as I take prelief (OTC acid reducer/preventer/something), and am not ingesting acidic or other flare inducing foods constantly I can have almost any food I want as long as I take a Prelief or two beforehand. The one thing I have found that I can’t have no matter how many prelief is Mike’s Hard Lemonade – Lemonade and alcohol both cause nasty flares on their own without prelief… put the two together and prelief just doesn’t do it.
I wanted to give you some hope though.
J
December 27, 2009 at 6:30 am |
[...] icky symptoms were tentatively diagnosed as interstitial cystitis, but then I didn’t have interstitial cystitis, only they made me get x-rays to be sure, and [...]