Piss happens.

Well, it's been quite awhile since I have written about IC, the original topic of this blog, so I suppose I should sneak one in every now and then, right? If you are a reader of this blog for reasons other than IC, you may want to skip this one as it is probably TMI.
It's been two months since I underwent hydrodistension, which is a "surgery" used to diagnose IC. When they fill the bladder with water so that it stretches, a normal bladder wall will remain pink and smooth, however an IC bladder looks like it has the measles. Even coming out of anesthesia, and having no idea what the inside of a bladder should look like, I knew as soon as I saw my pictures that something was amiss at the Circle K. Hydrodistension is also performed as often as every six months as a therapeutic tool (if you have one of those insurance companies that cares about you...wonder what that's like!). For reasons unknown, stretching the bladder like a water balloon gives most people with IC a few months of pain relief. So far, the shooting pains in my urethra, which I mistook for passing kidney stones, have not returned. THANK GOD. Alas, some of the stranger symptoms of IC have returned. Each person with IC experiences their own range of symptoms. Mine include urinating as often as six times an hour (seriously, yesterday I went right before getting in the shower, and had to go as soon as I got out again), and always feeling like my bladder is full, but rarely being able to empty it completely. I will be honest in saying I'm not in pain as much as discomfort. It's like having an itch I can't scratch or a joint I can't pop. Some days I forget I have IC and others I am very aware.
There is something new going on however, that I am apprehensive about sharing, perhaps because I will have to admit it might be a real problem in my future, or maybe just because it is both embarrassing and personal. I haven't told anyone this, not even J (who knows way too much about my bathroom escapades), but as the blog gods are my witnesses, I said that I would be open and honest about my IC, so here it is.
Yesterday I almost peed my damn pants. Not in the "I can't hold it anymore" sense, but the "what the hell? Did a drop just come out!?" sense. I felt as though whatever muscle keeps you from letting go was about to let go on it's own and I tried to hold it until I made it to the bathroom. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't able to go. At least five times a day the full bladder sensation sends me sprinting to the bathroom on a fool's errand. This feeling of almost losing control out of nowhere was new though. It was the first time since being diagnosed and coming to terms with IC that I got angry and scared and bitter and pathetic. It was the first time I really hated my body for betraying me. I'm 25 and I swear to God if I start pissing myself....I mean I was the kid who never wet the bed (right, Mom?). I was the one at parties who could hold it and let the girl who looked close to tears go in front of me. Hell, I once held it for a ten hour bus ride in Ghana because the only place to go was on the side of the road and I thought it would be rude to go on some poor family's coffee plants. I am not the girl who pees herself!
It's low moments like these, and I know there are going to be a lot more, that make me wonder if this is Karma. This has to be punishment for something bad I've done, mean things I've said, committing the seven deadly sins, right? Then it dawns on me, "how self-absorbed is that?" Just the thought that there is a cosmic force out there keeping tabs on all my wrong doings, and paying me back by making me piss my pants, is so hilariously self-centered. I'm sure the Karmic forces have their hands full with Kim Jong-il and Charles Taylor and the Kardashians (just kidding.....kind of). The truth of the matter is that piss happens. My bladder didn't stop doing it's job because I've been bad, and it's not going to get better because I'm good. It is what it is, the future will be what it will be, and even though I may not always see the silver lining, I just have to accept it. For now, I'm going to stick the whole "I almost peed my pants like a 5 year old" thing in the denial file and cross that bridge when I get to it. Hopefully in no less than 60 years.