5/31/14 I woke up angry and resentful that I awoke in pain AGAIN. Nearly 20 years of this - some days I struggle to find a reason to get up but usually something very basic drives me from bed. I need to pee. I have to admit there have been days I have considered just peeing the bed but I'm not so far gone to think through the consequences of that. Sometimes I do wait too long to get up and that results in a change of clothes. There are times when I wake up with the urge a little late and the insipid pain from the exertion of lying down to standing up results in a stress relief loss of urine (that's the medical term for it). During these last two years of major injuries and surgeries I have come to almost expect this to happen and when it doesn't I do kind of a pee pee happy dance in my head.
TMI Warning: Gross old lady info to follow-
Last year I underwent testing for pelvic floor prolapse. For those who don't know it is common for women who have previously given birth who are in or beyond menopause to start having stuff in our abdomens start trying to fall out. Bladder prolapse, uterine prolapse, rectal prolapse or if they are all trying to fall out at the same time they call it pelvic floor prolapse.
The reason this happens is that without estrogen our tissues and tendons thin out and become weaker. The stresses of previous pregnancies are then pronounced. And stuff tries to fall out. This can result in pain during sex, difficulty urinating or completely emptying the bladder and difficulty in bearing down during bowel movements. Or so I read.
Luckily for me I hadn't prolapsed but my bladder is oddly shaped and I have an old tear on my rectum muscle. I didn't know this - and I blame my high school Physiology teach Mr. Jaggi for this (what an opportunity lost to make a whole generation of Lyman, WY students giggle, cringe and squirm more than you did) - there is a large and substantial muscle surrounding the length of the rectum. Mine is about 2 inches wide all the way around and up and down, except for that tear which is a blank and missing section on the left side near the top about the size of my thumb.
It's a very old injury so the doctor didn't think repairing at this point would help much but seeing it there it made a lot of my lower back problems make sense and 'esplained' some things I'd been wondering about. Out loud at times to doctors but always dismissed. I had noticed a pattern of exacerbated pain about 12 hours prior to needing to poo. If I was trying to do something physical during that time it would result in a major event of pain and recovery. If not the pain would scream in and then leave a little later. It would be gone by the time the need to poo came so it was sort of a vague observation and connection.
So since I wasn't prolapsing but had the obvious weakness from the tear I began vajajay training. Funny thing too because I had always secretly taken great pride in how well trained and worked out my vajajay was but there I was with electrodes up in there with me trying to make the dolphin on the computer screen jump out of the water.
I have to admit that was one lazy ass, limp dolphin with my vajajay in the driver's seat. I live in Florida right now and I see dolphins a lot and my computer screen dolphin would not even be ALLOWED amongst those dolphins except maybe as one to laugh at.
I went through the whole training and never made him?/her? jump. It would just barely surface so at least it got to breathe. I left after six weeks feeling let down by my vajajay's lackluster show and then for the next six weeks angry because things seemed to be WORSE than before vajajay training. I even called and complained about this (ya wouldn't you have loved to be listening to THAT conversation?) and the vajajay training tech assured me that was common while my body figured out what to do with all the newly sparked nerve signal pathways. Because, oh yes! I remembered the doctor had told me my success/failure would depend on how and if nerve signaling could be improved.
And then!!! Six weeks later everything clicked and started working together and better. I even went so far as to take my pee pee happy dance verbal by commenting about it to my husband and my sister
and maybe some other people who REALLY could have done without hearing about it EVER.
Kind of like you right now. Reaching the end of this post and thinking, asking, beseeching - did I REALLY need to know all of that?
And in the words of my daughter Kaycee Lalalalala STOP!! Lalalalala.
Peace be with you and all that jazz!!
Copyright. 2014- Chardale Irvine. All rights reserved.
Babe, your dolphin jumps plenty high enough for me. I love you and am sad you are going thru so much misery.
ReplyDeleteYes, my wife and I both have M.E. and have had severe fatigue this week. I managed to get the chores done, shop and make some meals. Thank goodness we invested in a Sleep Number bed years ago. My back would be a real mess with all the time I spend in bed. Here's hoping you have many spoons and some enjoyable activities.
Walter Irvine blogs collections of observations and amusing stories based on real experiences, as far as you know. You may read his posts on Walt's Inquisitive Ramble at: http:/www.waltsinquisitiveramble.blogspot.com