It's Always the Bladder

What a rough past few days... 

Rewind to Monday evening around 7 pm.  The pain started.  The stinging sensations that I'm all too familiar with.  A UTI was in the works and it was bound to be a good one.  I've experienced numerous UTI's and I always start with the same plan of attack.  I started drinking lots of water.  I even had some pills left over from the last UTI I had just a week or so ago.  I started on those right away as well.  But it was too late.  The damage was done and no amount of water or pills were going to stop this one before it did its damage.  I couldn't sit, I couldn't stand, I couldn't lay down.  I was in hell.  It was getting late and everyone went to bed.  I insisted the hubs sleep because there was nothing he could do at this point.  I was determined to ride it out myself.  Little did I know that wasn't going to be the case.  By about 11:00 I was in such agony I was screaming, shaking, crying...it was the worst pain ever.  Maybe it's simple memory loss but I was certain that the pain was far worse than child birth.  I'd never experienced a UTI like this before.  The hubs woke due to the noises that I could no longer control.  I recall looking at him and telling him I couldn't take it anymore, I needed help and by help I meant hospital.  He contacted my mother who came to sit with the kids while they slept.  Off we went on one of the worst, most painful car rides I've ever been on.  Every tiny bump was agony. 

I'll spare you all the details of the ER but I did end up with an IV, several external and internal ultrasounds, some pretty potent pain meds in my IV and a sweet little (they're never little) catheter.  Diagnosis:  A severe UTI with a bladder filled to the brim.  Apparently the average bladder can hold up to around 800 mL and at around 150-250 mL the brain tells you to pee.  I was at a 1000mL and I was completely unable to release any of it.  I honestly didn't even know if I had anything in it.  My bladder wasn't communicating with my brain.  It's a horrible side effect of a surgery I had as a young child.  I will forever live with this problem.  That I accepted a long time ago so it wasn't quite as painful to hear this time.  The solution: self catheterizations at home.  Again, not something new to me but something I've always wanted to avoid as long and often as I could.  I was warned that if I don't get my bladder empty and this continues that it could/would eventually lead to renal failure.  Another fact that I've been confronted with before.  Only this time, having been through this nightmarish pain, I was hearing it more clearly and taking everything a lot more serious.