Looking up?

While the pain has been nearly constant, it's subsided to a reasonable level, and I had a few blissful, pain-free moments last night that were amazing. When the pain starts to become normal, it's absence feels like nirvana. Unfortunately, since most of the pain is caused by moving, I move very little, planning my trips up from the couch or bed to economize: taking a small load everywhere I go, such as my empty water bottle, phone, breakfast plate, book etc, and setting the items down in a pile as I refill the water, pit the plate in the sink, then grabbing the book and phone and continuing my rounds, etc. I can lift more than 10 pounds for 6 weeks, so I'm careful also not to take too much.

My extremely painful incident on Saturday was a bladder spasm, caused by the aggravation of an overfull bladder, I believe. These bladder spasms (uncontrollable painful clenching of the bladder muscles) are common after urological surgery, and I have a prescription, Ditropan, that's I've been taking regularly. Side effects include dry mouth and nausea, but both are preferable to the deep, organ pain that I'm getting with the spasms. My dad commented on tooth pain, and I was actually thinking that organ pain is perhaps very like tooth pain, it feels like something that our animal nature tells us to run away from, illogical as that is. The flight reflex is very strong.

I'm feeling spacy and out of it, but I will trade that for the pain. My apologies in advance if I see you or talk to you on the phone and I am a little distracted: I'm pumped full of schedule II prescription narcotics. Only 8 more days until the catheter comes out. The 'scrips will run out before then, so I'm hoping I'll either e lain free or can get a refill.

I've been fortunate to have a stream of people keeping me company and either bringing for or just making stuff for me from my well stocked pantry. Jen, my mom, Ray, etc. Thank you all. And i have many other distractions: hooray for Netflix, Roku, and World of Warcraft. I have plenty of distractions and an doing fine mentally and emotionally. If feels like the pain peaked on Saturday and Sunday and is now in decline.