When I got up this morning and took my usual morning pee, I immediately knew I was in trouble. Serious trouble.
Because peeing hurt. Wow did it hurt. Like someone was trying to rip a piece of my bladder out with red hot tongs, it hurt.
And there was blood. Not as much as when I went to the ER last time, around 7 weeks ago, but a highly noticeable amount.
Well crap. This was bad.
The next two or three hours were spent in the all too familiar cycle of having to pee every 15 minutes or so and said peeing being bloody and painful.
Slowly I gathered the will to go ask Julian to drive me to the ER. But I got up and left my bedroom at the exact moment he was leaving to go dog-walking.
As in, all I saw was the apartment door closing. Comedic perfection, really.
So then I decided I would ask Joe to drive me. But I didn’t want to bug him too early, so I kept dithering and hesitating.
Then, right before I was going to go knock on his door, I did a quick bathroom break and ….no pain, no blood.
Um. Well OK. I waited another 15 minutes and then went and took another pee. Still almost no blood and almost no pain.
So for now, I am assuming that whatever it was cleared up on its own. Since then, I have not had the frequent urination or the bladder pain, although I do still feel rather feverish and a tad off.
Eating lunch and hydrating seems to be helping on that score.
I was tempted to just go to the ER anyhow, but my social anxiety would not allow me to go if there was a serious possibility that they would not find anything amiss.
Rationality be damned, if I go and they find nothing I will feel massively guilty and foolish and face a tsunami of deep and terrible shame,
It’s easy to say “you should go, just in case” but for the likes of me, it’s not easy to do.
I will keep a close eye on the situation, of course. And if things take a turn for the worse once more, I will take a cab to the ER without hesitation.
And to think, I canceled today’s therapy session over this. If only I had know it was going to disappear like a fading frost.
In fact, normally, I would be highly suspect of any illness that cleared up so quickly, given my history of psychosomatic illness.
But while my mind is perfectly capable of turning anxiety into nearly any kind of pain, I am fairly certain that putting blood in my urine is beyond its reach.
At least I hope so, otherwise I do not stand a chance.
The good news is that my therapist is calling around 1 pm tomorrow to get a status update so hopefully I will get to talk to him then.
I have a lot of stuff about my recent thoughts of rage and evolution I want to discuss.
All in all, it’s been a weird and irritating day.
But at least it hasn’t been boring.
More after the break.
Still doing OK
Everything seems to have gone back to normal.
Which is weird. The sorts of symptoms I had this morning, with the severe pain on urination and the blood in the urine stream, do not strike me as the sort of things that simply come and go.
If nothing else, it’s bad narrative structure. What kind of ending is that??
And yet, here I am, peeing at normal intervals and without blood or pain.
The deeply paranoid part of me doesn’t trust it. It’s too easy. Surely this is but the harbinger of something far more dire and drastic.
Otherwise, what’s the point?
Seriously, though, it’s not the first time something very weird has happened with my health and then just disappeared. It’s happened enough to make me wonder just what kind of strange mojo I possess.
I won’t go into details because quite honestly I don’t want to bring up the specific memories as they would likely freak me the fuck out.
But seemingly serious shit that ends up being strangely transient is not an unknown phenomenon in my life.
This is why I don’t immediately go to the ER. For all I know, whatever it is, no matter how seemingly dire, might vanish like it never happened.
Weird mojo indeed. I have a strange relationship with fate. I have had a lot of things happen to me that were unlike anything anyone else had experienced.
But not in a flat out implausible way. That would be a giveaway. That would end the tension. It’s always something normal in content but strange in the specifics.
Or maybe I just don’t know how to describe things that happen to me in a way that other Earthlings people can relate to.
I’m a bizarre creature but I mean well.
I can see the appeal of believing oneself to be an alien. Or a vampire, or a reincarnated dragon, or a secret fairy princess, or whatever.
Such a leap provides someone with an identity structure that works for them when the society they live in does not. It gives context and justification for their alienation and gives them, at long last, a tribe and a place where they belong, however unreal.
To me, these people are victims of a society that has failed them spectacularly. One of the best things one can provide for the loner nerds of the future is perfectly human role models that they can relate to.
Why do you think Star Trek is so popular?
Because it represents a future in which smart people are accepted and valued instead of alienated and ostracized and even bullied.
Where they are seen as having a valuable role in society instead of being viewed as pathetic misfits who will never get lai.
A future where things are calmer, more rational, more enlightened, more sophisticated, more socially advanced, more secure, and above all, a lot more fair.
No wonder so many of us want to move there.
I wouldn’t mind going there myself.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.