Renzatic on 29/11/2011 at 19:04
You know, I used to make fun of people with bladder infections. Anytime the subject was broached, I'd instantly get dismissive. "Wahhh", I'd say. "Maybe next time you'll think twice before you make sweet love to that septic tank, huh", "Oh, so it burns when you pee? Well guess what? I stepped on a tack the other day, and I'm sure that hurts considerably worse. You don't hear me complaining". Needless to say, I was rather the asshole about it.
I'm now convinced that karma is indeed a real thing, and it decided to give me a healthy dose of comeuppance and humility pie. These last 4 days have been, by and far, the worst of my life. I've never been so miserable.
It all started simply enough. About a week and a half ago, I began noticing that I felt the urge to go to the bathroom while lying down. Not just once or twice, mind. About 4-5 times before I'd finally fall asleep. Initially, I wrote it off as psychosomatic. Whenever I need to get up by a certain time, I usually get a little anxious, and have trouble falling asleep. I've been this way since I was a kid, and I figured this sudden need to pee constantly while in bed was just a new symptom of that. It's all in my head. Ignore it, and go to sleep, damnit.
Thanksgiving Day. I wake up with this light pressure in my groin. It feels a bit hot, slightly irritated, and the need to urinate is kicking well and good. Once I get up and start going about my day, everything is fine. Until that night, that is. I turn in at 1 AM, satisfied by the absolutely grand dinner I had earlier on (the mac and cheese was to die for). I'm in bed for 15 minutes when I feel, I dunno how to explain it, like my bladder is filling with Tabasco sauce. I have to pee. It burns. It aches. It doesn't abate. The pressure is almost unendurable. I basically have to force myself to stay awake until I'm too exhausted to do anything else. Bed time for me was 11 AM. I wake up at 5 PM. Miserable doesn't even begin to describe how I feel. Thank God it was the weekend, at least.
It's only beginning.
From here on, I'm awake from Friday Evening til Sunday Evening. I go just about 36 hours without any sleep whatsoever. Oh, I tried. 5 AM Saturday morning, I turn in. The pain, which can now be described as my bladder being filled with Tabasco sauce and pure, uncut, unbridled hate, is completely unendurable. And pressure. PRESSURE! When I first get in bed, it's not so bad. But 15 minutes pass, and it's there. And it gets worse. And worse. And worse. Until I finally get up and start walking around. Standing up abates it a bit, walking around makes it almost go completely away. As long as I'm on my feet, the pain almost goes away.
So I spend the next 30 odd hours pacing the floors. I can sit down. It only aches when I do that. But lying down is an exercise in masochism. I'm more than a little worried by this point. I take some strong general antibiotics given to me by my mom, and go to look up symptoms on the internet. Which only makes things worse, as I read that I could possibly have an incurable disease that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
The rest of my life. My God. If I have to live with this, I'll kill myself in a month, I think. I want to sleep, damnit. I WANT TO SLEEP! But I can't. Instead, I just worry. Fret. Continue pacing the floor. With these dark thoughts, the deep pain, and the weather not being anything but dreary and rainy, I think I experienced the closest I've come to bleak depression. It ain't fun. At all.
30 hours pass. I'm exhausted. I lie in bed, but I can't sleep. I do the only thing I can think to do. Exhaust myself more. On the elliptical I go! I ride it for an hour before finally going to bed for the night. Even then, after all of that, it takes me a good 3 hours before I finally fall asleep. I had to go into this almost zen like meditative trance to manage it. I lie there. Listening to the fan. Ignoring the pain as best I can.
I wake up 7 hours later, 8 AM Monday morning. The pain, while bad, isn't nearly as horrible as it was the nights before. While my black mood from the nights before hasn't exactly abated, I'm almost hopeful. Maybe it's going away. Maybe I don't have this horrible, incurable disease (I come from a long line of hypochondriacs on my maternal side of the family, so thoughts like this are natural when things get bad). I take my pill, and throughout the day, I actually start feeling almost normal again. It flairs up on occasion, but...should I be hopeful? Do I dare? By this point, I almost have a conditioned fear of my bed, so even though I'm feeling fairly decent by this point, I don't go to sleep until 1 AM. Things are a little bad. I still feel the need to pee, but it's not as desperate as it was before. Easy to ignore. I fall asleep in 45 minutes.
This morning. 9 AM. I wake up, and...what...no pressure? No pain? Besides what I'd describe as a residual ache, I feel perfectly human again. I don't know if I should feel relieved or what, because I'm still half way afraid that whatever I have might come back. I mean I still do have that occasional ache. It's not totally well.
This is the first time in my life I've ever been scared of being sick. I'm going to a urologist tomorrow. But, knock on wood, I think I'm getting well and good again.
And I'll never make fun of people with bladder infections ever again.
henke on 29/11/2011 at 19:19
Quote Posted by Renzatic
go to look up symptoms on the internet. Which only makes things worse
Hah. Yeah, I recognize that situation. Happens to me all the time. About a month ago I suddenly had a big bruise on one of my knees and I didn't know how I'd gotten it. I looked up the symptoms for unexplainable bruises on WebMD and spent the next half week worrying about whether or not I was suffering from liver-failure. :p
Good that you're going to a urologist. Hopefully it was just some temporary infection or something. :)
Renzatic on 29/11/2011 at 19:31
Quote Posted by henke
Good that you're going to a urologist. Hopefully it was just some temporary infection or something. :)
That's what I'm hoping, praying, pleading it is. I didn't get too deep into the symptoms, but whatever I got, it's got a bunch of checkmarks on a few things, but it doesn't fit any one thing exactly. It's like somewhere between a kidney stone, or a bladder infection. The fact I have this center of pain in my bladder that everything else radiates out from, and the fact it moves around a little bit, makes me think it's a kidney stone. But if it were a kidney stone, the symptoms wouldn't be going away until I pass it. So who the hell knows.
The only thing that's been weird externally is that my pee has been oh so very slightly foamy...which is usually a sign of kidney failure. OH GAWWWDDD!
Eh. I'm gonna go get a haircut, so I'll look good for the nurses when they're stuffing stuff down my junk.
Sulphur on 29/11/2011 at 19:35
Yeah, I totally had your brand of machismo when it came to illnesses. One particularly intense Friday night when I felt a cold coming on, my friends and I went out binge drinking. 'Have a brandy, it'll make you feel way better,' my friend said. 'Okay,' I said, and proceeded to have eight glasses of it, three vodka shots, a tequila, and a Long Island Iced Tea I mooched off another friend while dancing because I was 'concerned you're drinking too much'.
While we staggered home that night, our arms locked over each other's shoulders, wondering where home was in the first place, I think the thought dawned on me that this was probably a bad idea. And then I went and peed in a field in front of two people who had no idea I was going to do that, but that's irrelevant.
So I wake up the next day, and of course my throat feels like it's had a basket of kittens using it for a rumpus room the previous night. As I sip the first cup of coffee, I also realise that I can't hold the damn cup steady because my hands are shaking, shivering, it's so cold. And my eyes are burning like someone stuck hot coals under my eyelids.
No one else feels this way, of course. So I grit my teeth and drink more coffee and gently spasm on the bed while progressively feeling worse. It was pretty obvious that I wasn't well, because then my friend told me that she thought I'd better go to a doctor.
'Bah, I'll get better, I'm not made of glass!' was my response to my friends' urging.
This was regardless of the fact that, while saying it, I had to grit my teeth together to stop them from chattering and my eyes were streaming tears and my fists were pale, bunched up, and shaking uncontrollably.
So I go home, and proceed to have the most unpleasant, awful viral infection of my life - it's so bad I can barely move without something aching, all I want to do is curl up in my bed and wish everything would just go away for the next two days. I'm dehydrated, shaking, and can barely eat anything.
Do I go and seek help during that time? Of course not. I'm not made of glass, damn you.
So I recover, after two very unpleasant days, and of course I'm all macho and shit and my friend just shakes her head when I tell her I was fine.
And of course I've done this before. There was the time I had this tooth infection so bad one side of my mouth had all swollen up, so if you looked at me from that side, I looked just a little bit like Elvis. I'd had prior warning of something up with that tooth before, but I just thought it'd go the fuck away. It didn't, and I looked like Elvis for three goddamn days. And then I had the most painful extraction ever.
Looking back on the innumerable occasions this has happened, there's only so much to machismo. Is it worth it? I've got to do the math and say, sadly, no.
It's taken me a while to accept it, but if you've got a problem, get it looked at. You're only 'invincible' until you're not a teenager any more.
Ulukai on 29/11/2011 at 19:48
Quote Posted by Renzatic
And I'll never make fun of people with bladder infections ever again.
Why would you do that anyway, you're a bad man ;)
Had the misfortune to have one once, and suddenly had a whole new appreciation for Tom Hanks' character in
The Green Mile when faced with the prospect of peeing. Once I was feeling better, that is.
As I get older I find my self wondering more and more whether any minor ailment I have is the onset of something permanent and/or deadly. But one thing I have learned is never, ever look up symptoms on the Internet.
But anyway, you're going to the urologist, good man. Otherwise we'd all have to do our customary 72pt bold font GO TO THE DOCTOR. If I were a betting man, I'd be betting you're gonna be fine :)
PeeperStorm on 29/11/2011 at 20:20
Quote Posted by Renzatic
I'm going to a urologist tomorrow. But, knock on wood...
Ouch! I hope they don't use that little knee-reflex mallet when they do. :D
Anyway, I hope you get better soon. (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_5oCkpAkUk) Here's some inspirational music to get well by.
Martin Karne on 29/11/2011 at 21:43
At least you didn't step on a garden rack and perforated your feet in a way worse situation.
Renzatic on 29/11/2011 at 22:48
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Snip
Damn. You sound about like me. The last time I got what most people would consider really, really sick was about 8 years ago. Normally, the only thing I get is a light case of the grud, which I can sleep off in a day or so. But that time? I was sick for almost a full week. During that time, I was in a fitful, semi-delirious, state of half-consciousness. The only times I'd wake up would be to get some water, or to hack my head off coughing. Calling in to work took almost all the energy I had to give.
So did I immediately go to the doctor? Did I call for help? Did I take any medicine to help alleviate my symptoms? Hell no! I manned up, and slept it off! The only reason why I even went to the doctor at all was to get my work excuse. He examined me, and said something along the lines of "Well, I hate it call it pneumonia, since you're obviously not dead, but I'd say you just slept off a case of acute bronchitis". WOOHOO! Well that explains why I lost almost 15 pounds, and why I spit up brown for two weeks afterwards. I guess nothing burns fat faster than a high fever. Probably the only reason why I lived was because I literally cocooned myself, head to toe, inside of three heavy quilts to keep warm.
So yeah. I guess we're both idiots. :P
Quote Posted by Ulukai
Snap
I hope so. Right now, I'm practically skipping around like an extra from The Sound of Music, but I've still got my worrying suspicions in the back of my mind. I doubt I'll be able to put it 100% behind me until I go to the urologist, which I've now got scheduled for this Monday.
Though Peeper's song is helping me to relax a bit. :thumb:
Mr.Duck on 30/11/2011 at 22:43
I tend to josh and poke a bit of fun at people with X or Y ailment, but always in good jest, never go all-out-asshole with other peoples' medical conditions (specially the painful/terminal ones).
I have the suspicion that if I did, the Universe/God would come to collect in full, and in my case, you can bet the Universe/God will come a-knocking personally. And I know I already have an outstanding debt with the house :D
So, yeah....pee-pee infection....owie.
Get well soon, ya dumb hick.
:)
demagogue on 30/11/2011 at 22:49
Haha, Pee Stang.
Seriously though, I wouldn't wish that kind of pain on my enemies, if I really had any which I really don't. A hilarious stumble into a bucket of hot pink paint maybe, but not real pain.
One thing I've been more sensitive to as I've gotten older is that quality of life is a big deal, and you have to work at it, and so-called "annoyances" (not that that's what this is, it just unfairly gets that reputation) are far from trivial when they start tearing all that down. Welcome back to the quality side.
