Fire! Fire! Fire!

The definition of Flare Up is… “Erupt or intensify suddenly; ignite quickly and suddenly especially after having died down.” Sounds perfectly accurate to me…

Tuesday morning I woke up with what I described to my husband through text as, “straight up, old school IC pain”. In my vernacular that means deep, stabbing, throbbing pain in my bladder that travels all the way down and out my urethra wrecking havoc along the way. The day was torturous… full of staggering pain, nausea, vomiting, moments of being high as a kite, moments of wishing I was, in and out of the shower, drug induced naps, stubborn wakefulness and a sinking depression. It was all too much… I was in a horrible mood. You don’t have to trust me, ask my husband… he’ll tell you. I’m pretty sure I yelled at him for spilling sour cream and for repeating what I said to my mom when she apparently couldn’t hear me. I guess I did kind of have an excuse but turning on my slaves… I mean eh my support system… is not the right route.

Yesterday was even worse than the day before… my pain hit a 10 on a scale of 1-10 multiple times and left me speechless (shocking, I know) and desperate. Finally I gave in and had my Mom and Titus take me to the emergency room.

There I laid in the vinyl hospital bed, covered with stiff sheets and a less than proclaimed warm blanket, tied into two fetching gowns (one on backwards to use as a “robe”), with my feet covered in scratchy, non-skid socks. My Mom and my achingly tired baby sat in the visitors chair trying to make the situation seem less bleak in any way possible. But not even Titus’ nose wrinkle or deliriously tired giggle could distract me from the pain.

The Doctor determined it was an “exasperation of interstitial cystitis”, gave me dilaudid to bring the pain to a more manageable level, ant nausea meds, and sent me on my way with tips to follow up with my doctors. Overall, I was pleased with the nurses and doctors attitude, I was worried they would wonder if I was trying to sneak a drug fix or that I was some kind of sissy but they treated my pain and me with respect, even after I lost control of my bladder for the nurse to clean up…

This is just one flare out of thousands… my IC is a constant numbers game, using the 1-10 pain scale. If it’s less than a 4 that’s a great day! 4-6 is not great, I would definitely prefer to be at home in the safety of the shower if I could, but if we had plans I would keep them and try to ignore the pain. If the pain is a 6-8 that’s a bad day, I would cancel any plans, take pain medicine, and spend the day in and out of the shower. When stuff gets serious and my pain is over an 8, that’s bad news bears. Usually throughout the average day I’ll have moments of level 10 but during my flares the pain stays between an 8 and10 all day.  

So here I sit… in my shower, pumping before I start my pain medicine regimen for the day, typing this in the very midst of a bad flare, and drinking a shockingly nasty glass of baking soda water to reduce the acidity in my bladder. I am frustrated on so many levels… I hate the pain, I hate the dependence of others, I hate that yesterday Titus had two formula bottles because my milk was poisoned with narcotics, I hate that this weekend is memorial weekend and it looks like all my plans will be canceled, I hate that my flare causes every one more work and less fun and I kind of hate this blog post. It’s not me… my words are drenched in pain and drugs, they are missing my corny jokes and almost too visual analogies.

So… to end on a lighter note… a joke brought to you by The Ellen Degeneres Show… What did the grape say when it got sat on? Nothing, it just let out a little wine! Ha! Totally makes up for all the whining, right?