In the interest of full disclosure
Posted January 30th, 2006 by MichelleI’ve chronicled many an unpleasant illness and ill events in my life on this blog, and so it is time- yes, it’s time- to talk about my current raging UTI. Nope, not the Universal Trade Institute, not the UTI Bank, I’m talking the whopper of all whoppers: the unmistakable, undeniable Urinary Tract Infection. Know what that really is, folks? It’s when you get E. coli, or some other awful bacteria, in your female innards. It can happen to men, too, and when it does, it’s really REALLY bad, as opposed to just really bad.
So I could talk about the causes, the history, the statistics, but instead, I’m going to talk about the pain. There’s the constant pain- the awful, sharp, cramp-like pain that makes you want to double over, but then also the rushing, frightening pain whenever you visit the loo. It’s dreadful. I’ve really tried to keep my head above water all day, and indeed, I just came from a two-hour meeting that I had to facilitate regarding coaching foster youth (so YEAH, it was kinda important), but now that I’m home, I think, really, that I’m going to go curl up in bed and cry for a while. I really think that would help. Because none of the pain medications are working, and I don’t see my doctor until mid-morning, and I don’t expect to accomplish much in the meantime.
I’m really not so much of a wuss when it comes to pain. I live in a constant state of mild soreness from working out all the time (and trying to work off the fifteen pounds of wine and cheese I gained when I moved to Napa). Indeed- even when I impaled the meaty part of my thumb with a fork tine while trying to wrestle cookie dough from a cold baggie, I didn’t even flinch. (This is a true story, and it happened this weekend. The fork when through the cookie dough, through the bag, and one tine stuck straight into my palm. Fascinated, I withdrew it, watched the blood pool, and then got back to eating the cookie dough.) But this is a scary pain, one that makes me feel very alone. I know help is around the corner, just a antibiotic prescription away, but there are parts of you that just shouldn’t hurt, not like this.
58 days until LASIK.
One word: stress. At least for me, UTI is one of the many kinds of fallout from stress.
I don’t know of a cure for stress. If I did, I’d be sleeping thrugh the night, able to eat a meal without feeling like throwing up, and I’d probably not be writing music and producing recordings.
And when a UTI gets to the point yu decribe… well, all I can say is, at leat you’re not in the middle of a three-hour layover in Long Beach Airport, facing a six hour flight to NY. No curling up and crying there… oh, wait. I did do that.