That's So Gay

Recently my youngest sister has adopted a habit I find both annoying and offensive. I don’t know where she got it from, or why she thinks it’s ok to say this, but she’s started saying, “That’s so gay” whenever she thinks something is dumb or annoys her. Not only does this bother me on a personal level, I wonder how it will affect her as a manager at her job if she is heard saying this. Even though she is my sister, I think language like this should be seen as potential harassment and at the very, very least, certainly inappropriate at any level in the workplace!

Now, I’ll be honest, this wasn’t always a saying that bothered me. In (a deeply embarrassing) fact, there was a time, before I learned to think for myself, that I was very vocally homophobic. (For those of you who know the area, picture me saying repeatedly and loudly, while at a public parade in New Hope, Pa, “There’s no hope for New Hope” and other obnoxious slurs.) However, somewhere around high school, perhaps when I began to admit, at least to myself, that I was either confused or ambiguous about my sexuality, I began to question and challenge homophobic statements.

Now, also in all fairness, I have not always stood up to people who arrogantly, ignorantly or hurtfully hurl anti-gay statements, but with my sisters, I feel I must establish a firm line here. I feel this way for three primary reasons, 1) They know, although don’t really accept, that I am equally attracted to men and women and therefore feel these kinds of statements are a direct insult to me as well as to humanity; because it is never ok to put down one group of people in order to feel better about one’s self, or for any other reason. 2) My entire family knows I made a vow, many years ago, in my single days, to not get married until all people could get married. (I confess, I have amended that statement to currently mean all American citizens and I have inserted a medical clause in there in case either myself or my partner should need medical treatment which we are only able to afford by getting married and being added onto the other person’s health insurance policy). I didn’t make this vow to be cool or start a trend or emblazon my views upon my chest. Instead, I made this vow because once I decided I could spend my life with a man, a woman, both, either, neither or someone who claims to be gender neutral, I couldn’t stop myself from seeing marriage as an federally regulated institution which alienated me. And 3) Because once my sisters started having children, it became an imperative for me to be at least one voice (and hopefully not the only voice) to tell my nephews that it is perfectly acceptable to love and date and marry or not marry whomever they choose.

Before anyone freaks out, if you haven’t already, I made sure to check with both of my sisters when their kids were still infants and get their permission to talk to their kids about how we feel it is ok to be gay or to love anyone you want. My little sister’s recent inappropriate comment aside, both of my sisters said it was fine with them if I had these conversations with their kids, but they wanted to be the ones to have “the sex talks”.

When, in a recent phone call with my youngest sister, I heard her say, “That’s so gay.” I cleared my throat and replied, “Excuse me, what did you say?” At the same time her eldest son overheard her expression and loudly enough that I could also hear him, objected to what she just said. In my opinion, my sister proceeded to cover her ass by exclaiming, “What? It could also mean happy!”

I didn’t buy it and neither did her son (who had probably never heard the word used that way before). My sister, in an almost combative manner, challenged her son to get a dictionary and see who was right about the meaning of the word “gay”. According to the CHILDREN”S dictionary she used, she was right. The book said it meant “happy”.

Lest she get too triumphant about her “victory”, I told her that while the CHILDREN’S dictionary she used might say that the word means happy, I still sided with her son that she used the word inappropriately. I also told her I was offended that she used that term the way she did. In fairness to my sister, she told her son what I said, word for word and he even more vocally voiced his gratitude to me, as well as to himself for also being right.

Later that same day, my partner and I were headed to my youngest sister’s house to pick up her four kids (ranging in age from just over 1 year to 8 years old) for a mini-family reunion at one of my aunt’s homes. My sister was unable to attend because she had to work and my partner and I were going anyway so we figured it was no big deal to bring along a baby and three slightly older kids…good thing my little sister let us use her minivan or we never would have all fit in my little Scion xD!

Before we left to pick up the kids, I replayed the conversation my sister, myself and her eldest son had on the phone, to my partner. I told him that it was very important to me that we make sure to discuss the many different meanings of the word “gay” with the kids and to reiterate how we feel about the rights of all people to love whomever they please. I asked my partner if he was comfortable having this conversation with the kids during the hour or so car ride to my aunt’s, and to my surprise, he was very willing to talk this over with the kids.

Naturally, since we don’t have kids, it took longer than I thought it would to corral all of them into the minivan and be on our merry way (already late for the reunion!). One of the first things I said to the oldest boy, who was seated next to the baby, as well as to the other two kids in the way back of the van, was that while their mommy was right that the word “gay” can, and probably was originally used to mean happy, that isn’t how it is usually used today. I asked my eight year old nephew what he thought the word gay means now. He fumbled his way through an explanation about a boy loving a boy or a girl loving a girl. I told him that he was right and I asked him if he thought people usually said the word “gay” as a positive or negative word. He told us that in school people seemed to use it as a negative word. He went on to say, with an upset look on his face, that one of the kids on his bus calls him gay. This surprised me as he had never told me this before and I made a mental note to tell this to my sister.

Both my partner and I told him, and all of the kids, that it is perfectly fine for them, or anyone, to love boys or girls or both at any time in their lives. Both the oldest and second youngest immediately chimed in that they had girlfriends (at 5 and 8 years old!) and I said that was fine but if they ever changed their minds and liked boys or girls or both or no one, that was fine too.

Since the two kids in the far back of the van seemed more interested in their handheld videogames than this conversation, I asked the eldest how it made him feel when someone called him gay. He said he didn’t like it, that it hurt his feelings. I said I could understand why it would hurt his feelings and that when people use the term gay in a negative way, it hurt my feelings and his uncle’s feelings too. He was completely confused at this point and wanted to know why, if we were a girl and a boy that loved each other, would we be hurt if people used the word gay as an insult. I tried to explain to him, as I have tried to explain to him since he was 3 or 4, that it is ok to love whomever you love, be it a boy or a girl and that his uncle and I don’t think it is ever ok to put someone down or hurt someone’s feelings. I tried to explain that this issue is so important to us that we are refusing to get married until all people in this country can do so, in the hopes that he and the rest of our nephews will have a much easier time having their choice of partners be accepted than we did when we were growing up. I tried my best to reassure my nephew that what the kid on the bus was saying was wrong and that he was welcome to talk to us or his parents about how it made him feel.

Finally, he asked me how the word gay could be used in a positive way. I gave him the two best examples I could think of at the time. I said, “Well, if you are talking about your male cousin, in a positive way, you could say that he is gay because he loves boys.” Even though this is at least the second time I’ve told the kids this, the eldest still expressed surprise, perhaps because since they have been old enough to pay any attention to their family member’s partners, my cousin has been single. My second example was, “If you are having a really good time, then you could say that you are having a gay time.”

Not missing a beat, he quipped back, “Well, can I say that I’m having a gay time now and it would be positive?” To that I responded, “Are you having a good time now?” When he said, “No. Not really.” I laughed a little and said that if he wasn’t having a good time right now than it probably wasn’t the most positive use of the word; however we wanted him and his brothers, whom I assumed were ignoring me, to know, that while some people don’t think it is ok to be gay think, it is perfectly fine in our eyes for them to love whomever they want, whenever they want.

I’m not sure how much of this conversation the kids understood.

Shortly after making that point, the car ride was interrupted with the unexpected surprise that we probably didn’t have enough gas to get to our destination as well as my need to give pesky directions since we dared to travel without a GPS. The gay conversation seemed to be over, for now and as far as I know, did not come up again during the reunion.

The car ride home was full of such deep philosophical questions as, “If you could be any superhero in the world, who would it be?” and “If you could be any animal in the world, what would you be?” Although three of the four kids fiercely protested that they weren’t tired at all when we got in the car, all of them were sound asleep before answering both of the questions. One of our nephews even fell asleep in the middle of telling us why he would be either a land turtle or a sea turtle.

My god I love our nephews!

I Just Skinned My First Chicken!

Hey Everybody,

I thought I'd take a break from writing about all my pain and health problems to tell you about something I've never done before.

In an effort to save money, I got this brilliant idea to buy a whole chicken because it was $.78 a pound. I had absolutely no idea how I was going to cook the damn thing but a bargain is a bargain and it is harder for me to pass up then sex (well, when I was having sex anyway!).

I didn't know what to do with the whole chicken, so I tossed it in the freezer and forgot about it. However, we have a very small freezer thanks to the old school ice cube and cold water dispenser feature that takes up a huge amount of space. The refrigerator/freezer was a bargain I found on Craigslist...Do you see a theme here?

Since I've discovered Amelia's Grocery Outlet a few miles from our house (and also located near a Goodwill...oh the bargains...oh the fun!), I have spent a lot of time and little money buying lots of frozen and non-perishable food. Eventually (like in the first shopping trip) I bought too much frozen food to fit in the freezer and it became obvious that I could no longer avoid cooking the chicken.

I must admit, I was deeply intimidated by cooking this thing. I used to be a vegetarian and I really prefer that my meat look as little like the animal it came from as possible. Also, I could still hear the humiliating laughter of my friend Sara as she showed me in a hostel in Ireland, in front of a guy I had a huge crush on, how easy it was to cook a whole chicken and how silly I was because I didn't have a clue how to do it. Clearly there is trauma everywhere associated with turning this bird into our future dinner!

After I let the frozen block defrost for two or three days in the refrigerator (I know, I know, that is too long but I got busy, I got distracted, I got intimidated....) I knew it was now or never. Fear or not, I didn't want to waste the bird who, without any choice, gave it's life to us. So I googled, "how to cook a whole chicken in a crock pot" and found this amazing blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ and I confronted my fears head on!

Like the author of "A Year of Slow Cooking", I am thoroughly grossed out by skin on my chicken and any visible fat. Non-visible fat in my ice cream, chocolates and other "less than great for me foods" are ok, but the nasty yellow, blobbish fat on meat is horrifying, so it had to go! Again, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing but I figured, "What the heck, people have been skinning chickens for generations, so how bad could it be?"

I began the denuding with inadequate tools and I struggled with my non-kitchen, barely sharp regular scissors, to open the chicken's package. This resulted in a lot of blood running all over the cutting board and the counter, but fortunately not on my favorite white tee shirt I was foolish enough to be wearing while mutilating my chicken. With my cheapo knives and scissors, I began to recklessly attack the skin before I remembered that I had to remove the innards. That part really was more fascinating for me than I thought it would be, as I briefly tried to identify pieces before dumping them into a bowl next to me. when I was finished stripping my chicken, I dumped all the innards and scraps in the backyard so whatever carnivorous animals that live near us will benefit from my experimentation. I saw this as a sort of giving back to the earth for the once living chicken I plan on eating. I hope that wasn't a bad idea!

The entire process of removing the skin and all visible fat took me about 45 minutes and was a far more effective anatomy lesson than dissecting a frog in high school ever was! It was also cold, slimmy and sometimes gross. However, it did give me a greater appreciation for the food I am hoping to eat tonight (especially when I removed what I think are the kidneys...they are so tiny!). At some point in time my hands began to burn and itch like crazy (is that a normal reaction?) so I decided it was time to stop, even though there is still some skin on the ends of the drum sticks and some persnickety fat which refused to be removed.

If you are curious what I ended up doing with my new, naked chicken, I took pictures of it with my partner's new digital camera, in case I can convince him to post them here. I then put about 1 cup of water in my crock pot before going crazy with the seasonings.

In generally, I rarely follow a recipe all the way, preferring my "Goddess Method of Cooking by Intuition". I gathered up the rest of our rather old garlic, and a few clementines we weren't eating and shoved those inside the chicken...hopefully as a flavorful replacement for what used to be it's vital organs. Then I created a mixture of white pepper, oregano, rosemary, thyme, double ground mustard and a dash of cumin. I stirred it all up in a bowl and rubbed it all over the chicken and tossed the rest inside the cavity with the garlic and clementines. I also added some clementines to the top of the chicken because I thought it looked pretty.

Why this combination? Well, because it seemed right to me. I have no idea how my naked chicken dinner will turn out, but it smells pretty good cooking right now. I'll have to follow-up and let y'all know how it turned out!

What Hurts The Most

For quite some time now, I’ve been uselessly debating what I would tell people if anyone other than someone I pay, asks me “What hurts the most?” Would I say that it hurts the most in my right side, an area which no one can figure out why it hurts? Would I try and describe how it feels like there is a large, ever growing lamprey living there, with teeth so sharp it feels like razors eating into my flesh…and that is on a good day? Would I tell someone, as I try to nonchalantly limp away from the table to pee that the inexplicable pain in my side currently feels like minions of fireballs searing, tearing, paralyzing me with pain, and that when I finally reach the bathroom stall I cry silently to myself unable to endure what is happening, scared to death about what might be wrong and desperate, so desperate for an answer…any answer…as long as it is the correct answer to what is causing this pain? Would I confess, when I rejoin them at the table that I was away for so long because I couldn’t stop myself from crying, that I couldn’t wipe the tears away fast enough or pull myself together quickly enough to devote my energy to the conversation?

No. I’d probably lie and say I was fine…fine...always fine. Because no matter what I say, it isn’t all of the truth anyway. Whether I am writing about my ripped rectum or my constant need to pee, even when I can’t, I’m never really telling the full truth about what hurts the most.

Well, I once told my Physical Therapist that what hurts the most is my ego and self-esteem; both so wounded and in pain that the mere act of getting out of bed is pointless. She did the best she could to console me but that isn’t her area of expertise. And I’ve tried to talk to my partner about what hurts the most, as the tears pouring down my face blur the distance between us…blur the space where all I want is a strong hug and a shoulder to absorb the snot gushing out of my nose and instead becomes the space where somehow it is about him and how he needs to fix things he can’t even understand. I guess those experiences, as well as a lifelong bludgeoning into my brain that pure truth is rarely what people are looking for, are a large part of what keeps me lying, to everyone but myself, about what hurts the most.

If I were to be truly honest, (will I ever learn my lesson?) as I prepare for one more whack in the face, I would say that what hurts the most is the indifference, the denial, the complete and utter forgetability of what I am going through. What hurts the most isn’t the physical pain…I’ve got pills for that as well as well honed childhood skills of separating my mind from my body when things hurt too much. No, it is what lies deeper and far more invisible than physical pain that hurts the most.

It is the lack of visible proof that something is wrong with me. It is lack of phone calls or e-mails or text messages with the sole purpose of seeing how I’m doing. Sure, people still call me, for whatever it is they need and want me to fulfill for them and sometimes, as a sort of cursory “pleasantry” they will ask how I’m doing and inevitably become too busy, too sidetracked, to one-sidedly selfish to really listen to my answer, if I bother to give one at all. Sometimes it is just so much easier to lie and say, “I’m fine.” in a false staccato voice which does not belong to me but isn’t heard anyway.

What hurts the most is that I envy people who are on crutches or temporarily in a wheelchair or have a cast or sling or brace on their arm, even people who are in the hospital, because “those are the ones who truly have something wrong with them.” Those are the people whose pain is easy to acknowledge…it is easy to do things for them..say, hold open a door or autograph their cast or give them special parking places until they get better. The people who are in the hospital get ‘round the clock questions about how they are doing. They get cards and flowers and visitors. They get obvious acknowledgement of what they are going through, even if it is only temporary (the acknowledgement and the suffering).

Believe me, I am not wallowing so deep in my depressed navel gazing that I truly believe this is the case for all people who are suffering this way. I know that I am romanticizing and glossing over and being selective or downright creating my own reality about what I want to see, but right now…today…last night…this week…for god only knows how long, that is of little consolation to me.

Because that is what I so desperately want. I want the money “wasted” on cards and the fucking flowers that are just going to die and make me sneeze anyway. I want a cast on my arm that people can write encouraging things on it like we used to do in school. I want the “I’m only calling to see how you are doing” phone calls. I want the visits where people are stopping by with homemade chicken noodle soup, or chocolates or hasty get-well drawings from their kids. I want visits and phone calls where people, for once in my goddamn fucking life, are asking no more of me than how I am doing and for once in my fucking life, are actually listening to the answers…the ones I give out loud and the ones I give with my body language. I want people to see through my false self-deprecating jokes that they can help me by “just cutting out whatever is wrong with me.” I want acknowledgement of the hurt and fear and pain and foreboding sense of hopelessness inside me. I want to know that there are people that I can lean on, that will put aside their own super busy lives, if only for a ten minute phone call or a quick visit that’s all about me…that is not a ruse for their own needs or desires for me to be a living “sounding board” for their problems, hopes, failures and despairs.

I want to be seen as someone who is sick, if even temporarily, and needs other people to lean on.
What hurts the most is this ridiculous game we keep playing that I am strong enough to get through anything AND that I can handle everyone else’s problems too. What hurts the most are the people…friends, family and professionals, who outright tell me, or subtly and cowardly, imply that if I just got over my anger, my problems would go away…I’d be able to shit without medicine, walk without pain, fuck without guilt, stand tall and proud without stabbing pains in my lower back. If I just changed me, without medicine, without anger and without help, I’d be fine.

That’s what hurts the most…that my problems are either my fault or that I am strong enough to handle them alone, and that I should fix them by myself while simultaneously being there gleefully supporting the rest of the world and the very same people who don’t call or send cards or stop by to visit but still want me to help them heal their wounds, their pain, their problems.

My Shit Stool

In our bathroom we now have a shit stool. It’s a lovely golden thing with fringes around the middle that the cats like to tear off. It’s cushiony and has a neat pattern on it for me to stare at in flights of fantasy if I need to.

It used to reside in our living room, in front of the wooden rocking chair with the woefully thin blue cushion. It never matched the rocking chair but it sorta matches our ugly gold sofa and it theoretically served as a great place to rest your feet if one was ever to lounge in the rocking chair with a good book and a stiff drink. I rarely ever did anything more than rock myself back and forth when I would cry in our last apartment, so I could sort comfort myself and not wake my partner up by crying in the same room. The foot rest seemed superfluous when I was crying as well as when we were moving for the second time in a year last year, but for some reason, we never got rid of it.

Now that golden stool resides in our bathroom. I bought the wrong color “oops” paint at Home Depot and we didn’t prime the walls before we painted them, so the bathroom has a rather morgue green hue to it. However, that is only relevant to this story to highlight the fact that this stool does not match the bathroom anymore than it matched its old mate, my rocking chair.

Whether or not it matches anything is irrelevant overall though, because the sole purpose of the stool in the bathroom is to help me move my own stool better, more efficiently, and with as few anal fissures as possible.

I learned about the shit stool when I was discussing my current pain problems with my physical therapist. At the time, it felt as though my bowels drove a Mac truck through my anus and left shred marks to prove it. Shitting was just as painful as sitting and it was a fascinating topic of discussion for that day’s therapy session. Turns out, my beloved physical therapist has a) heard of this problem before and therefore wasn’t openly repulsed by what I was describing and b) had some possible solutions in mind. Hell, she even had a diagram to send home with me that shows the proper 90 degree angle at which one should sit in order to most productively shit!

She also discussed the possibility of trying pelvic floor stretches via my anus (that reminds me, I probably should write about what happens in PT!) and getting a stool for the bathroom to help me achieve that perfect angle. For the meantime, I opted out of the rectal stretches in favor of the shit stool (my words, not hers).

Being either frugal or cheap, I did not want to rush out and buy anything as unglamorous as shit stool (I’d much rather spend the money I saved on one of my post-BI shopping trips.) so I went home and thought deep thoughts on the crapper as nothing came out of my bowels. Finally it occurred to me to use the plush, padded, mismatched stool we already had in our living room and see how that worked out.

For awhile, all I could do was shoo our white cat, Jezzabella of the stool, since she now thought it belonged to her, and maneuver it in front of me before I sat down on my throne. I would place my feet upon it as I sat there trying to expel a trickle or two of urine, since nothing was coming out of my little Wal-Mart.

My partner and I have taken to calling my anus my little Wal-Mart when the stores around here got the less than brilliant idea to change their symbol to what my beloved claims, looks like an anus. Initially I did not agree that’s what the symbol looked like, but that was before I spent so much time contorting myself to look at my own anus for cracks, tears and fissures and to apply the once or twice daily ointments to that area. Then I began to agree with my lover that Wal-Mart’s new symbol and my anus do bear a striking resemblance! Although I swear Wal-Mart has an easier time moving shit out of its orifice, err, store than I do.

It never ceases to amaze me what you can learn to talk about and become comfortable with in a relationship, since I’ve never discussed this part of my body with anyone so openly and frequently as I do now!

Even though I couldn’t shit for a while, I rather liked the feeling of having my feet propped up when I peed. It gave me a more comfortable chance to impersonate Rodin’s "The Thinker", as I tried to expel something, anything, from some lower hole in my body.

Eventually the Miralax and the three stool softeners I take each day kicked in and something festering inside me for entirely too long serrated it’s way out of my colon and my anus. And I was somewhat more comfortable as it tore slightly less of my ass part now that my perch perfected that sought after angle of release.

The shit stool doesn’t stop the anal tearing and it certainly isn’t something I’m going to take with me everywhere I ago, but now that I am used to it, I find it much easier to crap with it’s help. Plus, since many of my medications make me constipated, and I know it takes a day or two for the Miralax to work, I am rarely caught off guard with the need to shit. When I am, I now try to replicate the 90 degree angle by sitting on the throne and pushing my knees up as high as they will go while simultaneously trying to balance most of my lower weight on my tippy toes. This usually results in very sore toes, wobbly legs and an occasional cramp in my arches…a small price to pay for an easier crap I’d say!

Pee Envy

I am starting to suffer from pee envy. It’s a condition I either developed or became fully aware of yesterday.

See, I was in the bathroom stall at the hospital, needing desperately to pee for the second time in less than five minutes, when, presumably, a woman entered the stall next to me. In the time it was taking me to line the seat (again) with toilet paper and sit down, the woman next to me was already getting down to business.

As I paused to consider whether or not she had taken the time to line the seat before plopping her ass down on a much used seat, my urgent need to pee was, for a millisecond, outwitted by my deep pondering. My deep pondering was interrupted by the noises that issued forth in the stall next to me.

As I sat, impatiently trying to wait patiently for my urine to spew forth, there was an active geyser jettisoning its way into the toilet next to me. I was aghast. I was stunned. I wondered what the hell was going on over there! The woman seemed to be peeing as if her very life-force depended upon it…as if she drank an entire pot of coffee mere moments ago…as if she was trying to disgorge something in time for a drug test…as if she weren’t human.

I was still sitting there, waiting, waiting, waiting for my “urgent pee” to come out and this woman must have pumped a gallon or more of liquid into her throne. I say liquid because the sound lasted for so long that I began to doubt it was really a human being urinating next door. Perhaps it was just someone pouring out all the leftover stale beverages from the holidays…into the toilet…when it would have been so much easier to empty it all out in the sink. I thought about looking under the wall, you know, quickly and inquisitively like you did when you were a kid, but at 32 I felt too old to risk the reaction I might get.

Then I considered that maybe there was a horse in the stall next to me, which would obviously explain the ferocity with which urine was pummeling the toilet. Again, I resisted the urge to stick my head under the partition and instead, I surreptitiously surveyed the floor next to me, in case it was a horse, not a woman, making all that ruckus. To my dismay, I only saw two feet when I was hoping to see four hooves.

I know that this might sound utterly ridiculous, looking for horses in a hospital bathroom, but hey, it may have happened somewhere! Yet what it really came down to was a realization that smacked me between the eyes as my own urine trickle, trickle, drop, dropped out. I was jealous! I was insanely jealous of the ability of the person next to me to urinate freely and with such force she could probably propel herself into another universe if she tried not to pee at all during an 8 hour work day. I was jealous of the fact that she was out of the stall and washing her hands as I, who got there before her, was still trying to coax more urine from my bladder. I was jealous that she doesn’t pee like someone who has IC, and truth be told, her ability to do so, made me want to cry about my own inadequate urinating abilities.

I know I wrote recently about the things I was grateful for, but right now, I’m having a relapse. Mentally I am forgetting the brief feeling of relief I had when my pains had names and treatment options. And physically, for reasons I cannot figure out, I seem to be “flaring up” as bad, or worse than I was before I started all my treatments.

Now, having the powerful, “I will stomp on small children and elderly ladies in the way of my getting to the bathroom” need to pee after physical therapy doesn’t surprise me too much, I just didn’t think it would last ALL DAY! And even that doesn’t explain why, seemingly within the last week or so, I feel the need to pee far more often and produce far less urine. I’ve been, with the exception of chocolate, ridiculously good about trying to stay away from any “problem foods”, even over the holidays. And even if I did have three glasses of Sauvignon Blanc on New Year’s Eve (and I took my Prelief!) it shouldn’t be causing a “flare-up” so many days later!

I’m getting sick of writing down everything I eat and drink (which is only water and milk and I think milk is gross!) and when I pee and when I shit and how I feel when I feel it. I’m getting sick of watching what I eat and still seeing my weight go up. I’m getting sick of feeling ridiculously strong urges to pee and not being able to fill a thimble, or even better yet, feeling like my clitoral hood and/or urethra is being sliced apart with razor blades when I finally dribble something out. I am no longer amused by the AZO Standard (over-the-counter pyridium) I take before my bladder instillations which turn my urine Easter egg shades of yellow and orange…as well as my underwear if I forget to wear dark colored ones and our white sheets too!

I don’t mind the oral medicine so much, even when the Elmiron lodges in the back of my throat like stifling cum, but that is probably because I haven’t noticed any hair loss, or other unpleasant side effects which may occur. Nor have I noticed any marked improvement, but I was warned that could take 3 to 6 months and I have only been popping those babies for a month or so.

I am beginning to loath the bladder instillations. Even as much as I like the nurse who does them, there is NOTHING FUN about having a catheter shoved in your urethra and to do that for 9 weeks in a row is beyond madness, it might even qualify as a form of torture! Another nifty thing about BIs is that when the catheter is removed, and I am finally allowed to pee, I almost always produce a profusion of air bubbles which make me feel like I am farting from the wrong place. Sometimes those air bubbles hang around for many feeble urinations afterwards.

During my last BI, as they are called in the office, the nurse suggested that it was possible that the IC spread into my urethra and the treatments that were supposed to make me better (the BIs) might be causing me more pain. So, I stopped going for several weeks over the holidays because my urethra hurt and burned and felt fingered by Freddy Kruger so much that air, never mind underwear, was causing me intense pain. Everything hurt that area…sitting down, laying down, standing up, walking with my feet as far apart as possible, being naked. Everything.

I am often frustrated and disgusted. I feel like one treatment option exacerbates something else. Sure, I could stop the BIs and continue with the Elmiron, but realistically I couldn’t stop urinating, no matter how painful it may be. And as much as I love to be naked, it is too fucking cold to be tottering, legs wide apart, throughout our house and I am too damn cheap to pump the heat into the 80’s so I would be more comfortable naked. And it never occurred to me how much I envy some people’s ability to urinate until yesterday, until the full reality that I really do have a problem, finally sunk in.

Today alone, I have peed 16 times. Sixteen times and it is only 8:30 at night! If I were able to collect all the urine I produced in one day, I sincerely doubt it would fill a pint glass (which is what the woman next to me yesterday was able to produce each millisecond!!). I used to think my urge and frequency was normal, but now that I know it is not, it is really fucking with my life. A few weeks ago I thought I was getting better. Now I feel like I am just getting better at peeing through the pain.

The Christmas Coercion Song

Taking a brief break from my pelvic pain writing, I’d like to rant for a while about a Christmas song I loath and I must do it now because the friggin’ song kept playing ad nauseum in my head two days ago and I promised myself that I would write about my thoughts on this song if only it would stop it’s endless loop through my brain. So here I am, trying to maintain that promise, even if it is a day later than I said I would write this.

In case you are curious, the song I absolutely loath is called, “Baby Its Cold Outside”. Apparently this song was written as a duet between Frank Loesser (is that pronounced Loser?) and his wife in 1944 and played at a housewarming party (Source: http://www.christmas-lyrics.org/baby-its-cold-outside-lyrics-song.html). I don’t understand the appeal of the song then and I certainly don’t understand it now!

Last year I used to refer to this song, in as loud a voice as possible whenever I heard it played in a public lace, as “The Christmas Rape Song.” But this year, after closer examination of the lyrics, I have come to the conclusion that there is no evidence of rape or any other form of sexual assault taking place within the song.

Therefore, this year I had to change the title to “The Christmas Coercion Song” because every friggin’ version of this song I’ve ever heard is all about a “man” trying to convince a woman to stay at his place when she repeatedly tells him that she must leave. I do not see any other way of viewing this song as anything other than coercion and as an absolutely terrible message to be putting out there…that it is ok for a “man” (or anyone for that matter) to hound, pressure, coerce, manipulate or in any other way try to force someone to comply with your desires when she or he has made it clear that they are uncomfortable with the situation.

Depending upon which version of the song you listen to, the woman says at least once to repeatedly that she needs to leave and her answer to the guy’s request for her to stay is NO. My least favorite version of this song features Rod Stewart (as if that weren't bad enough!) and Dolly Parton where she concludes the song by saying "You sure know how to wear a girl down, don't you? Okay Okay..." (http://www.metrolyrics.com/baby-its-cold-outside-duet-with-dolly-parton-lyrics-rod-stewart.html).

Why the hell, in the 21st century, when we try to teach our kids that “no means no” and rape is an unacceptable crime, is this song still being played? Even if the guy never rapes or assaults her, he is still using his powers of persuasion, as well as alcohol, compliments, flat out refusals to help her get home and guilt trips (“How can you do this thing to me?” “…my lifelong sorrow if you caught pneumonia and died…”), in order to have his way, regardless of how she feels.
Throughout the song the woman talks about how her family would react to her staying so long, possibly overnight, at this “man’s” place and all he can do is think about his dick, her looks and his pride. He, apparently, has nothing to worry about except for whether or not she complies with his demands for her to stay.

Wow! That really puts me in the Christmas spirit like nothing else does!

Every year I become enraged when this song is on and I let everyone in earshot know how I feel about it, but until now, I’ve never done more than loudly complain about the mixed messages in the song and how I don’t understand how people can listen to this.

My lover, who has heard my rant for years, tells me people don’t listen to the lyrics and analyze them like I do, that is why they aren’t pissed off about it. According to his view, at best people tend to hear the chorus, “Baby it’s cold outside” and some crap about drinks and a fire and how beautiful she looks and that is about all the thought they give the song...if it even gets that much attention from harried shoppers, pissed off drivers stuck in holiday traffic and all the other holiday situations and mayhem which might cause someone not to pay attention to the music being played.

And yet I can’t help but find it interesting that in “the Valley” where I live, the local news paper ran an editorial debate over the lyrics of the Insane Clown Posse. Now, I haven’t heard their songs in years and I never liked what I heard and I’m certainly not a fan of “Imma Kill U” (the lyrics of which I just read a moment ago). (http://www.metrolyrics.com/imma-kill-u-lyrics-insane-clown-posse.html).

Even I recognize that there is a huge difference between talking about killing someone (even if that someone is a child molester as in the Insane Clown Posse song) and trying to coerce someone into doing what you want, but both songs send strong (and in my opinion) terrible messages to people and the song, “Baby Its Cold Outside” is heard by far more people, even if only at Christmas time, than any song by the Clown people, especially since the Clowns aren't played in most public places.

I also think that it is crap that, at least in “the Valley”, some people are trying to link a horrific murder to the “Imma Kill U” song and yet I’ve never heard one person, ever, link ruining a woman’s reputation (“My sister will be suspicious”…”My brother will be there at the door…”) if she stays to long at a guys house, or worse yet, is sexually assaulted, to this “cheerful” Christmas song.

Can anyone explain to me why that is? Why is it ok to gloss over the coercion simply because one hears, and maybe even agrees with the fact that it is cold outside? Can anyone offer me a plausible alternative on how to interpret this song? Because I can’t think of any other way to view it or excuse it and I can’t seem to not be pissed off each year when I hear this song.

The older my five nephews get, the more I wonder about the impact of songs like this, especially songs that are presented as cheerful, holiday tradition songs, versus songs that are clearly ok to vilify, even if we are condemning them without fully listening to the lyrics. And I wonder what kind of impact, if even a subtle one, it will have on them as they begin to explore sexual relationships and form opinions of their own.

My Angry Bladder, Part One

Well, I’ve procrastinated writing anything else after my last posting, because what do you follow up your blessings with? I couldn’t think of anything that sounded as great as what I am thankful for, but today by bladder is in spasm and it really hurts, so I’m going to write about that (lucky you, my dear reader!).

Interstitial Cystitis, which is one of my many diagnoses, means that I have one very angry bladder. While no one knows exactly what causes this problem, or the best way to treat it (I’m sooo comforted my these realities!), the current theory is that IC is a wearing down, or eroding of the bladder’s protective lining over time. This possibly allows the very acidic urine to come in contact with or aggravate surrounding nerves which are used to being shielded from this abuse by the bladder’s protective liner. The nerve aggravation is believed to cause incredible irritation to the bladder and possibly surrounding areas, leaving the IC patient in sometimes excruciating pain, with frequent and incredibly strong urges to urinate. Some IC patients urinate over 50 times a day!! Prior to treatment, I was probably averaging 20 times a day, which really interferes with one’s life since I am peeing almost once an hour every day! Right now, I average 13-15 times a day, which is still far higher than the normal bladder’s voiding 5-7 times a day.

While Dr. E doesn’t know how this problem began for me, I strongly suspect that it has roots in my childhood. When I was a kid, we had two bathrooms, one in my parent’s room and one downstairs. I learned very quickly that it was a horrible idea to wake my dad up and it was a long, scary walk downstairs at night. This meant I often held my need to pee all night, or all night until I wet the bed (which I did until an age far older than I care to admit). This stress on my bladder, along with other traumas and life events, as well as the endless mantras to “hold it just a little bit longer” and road trips where I forced myself to hold my urine for hours longer than I should have, are probably strong contenders in the reasons why I now have IC, and may possibly have it for the rest of my life.

In Dr. E.’s opinion, it was most important and most practical to start treating my Interstitial Cystitis right away since he could treat me in his office at a reduced rate while we waited to see if I would be able to afford any other forms of medicine and physical therapy. He also thought this was the most important issue to address because I have likely had untreated bladder problems since I was at least 5 years young and 27 years of an untreated problem is a tremendously long time to be ignored!

I chose today to write about this because apparently my bladder is in currently in spasm, the nurse may have used another word for what is happening, but that is what my bladder feels like to me! The current cause of the bladder spasms, which started three days ago, are probably the weekly bladder instillations I’ve been getting since November 4th.

If you’ve never had a bladder instillation, or treatment as they call them at my mom’s place, you are really missing out in life! In addition to all the medication I take, once a week, for at least nine weeks, I get my bladder pumped full of medicine too. Now, there are only a few ways to get medicine into one’s bladder, and I do two of those ways, one of which is by orally taking medication. The other way of getting medicine into my bladder is far less pleasant!

A bladder instillation, in Dr. E’s office consists of meeting with a nurse once a week. At the beginning of my appointment she asks me how I am doing, triages any problems that I am having and adjusts, changes or adds any medications as needed and tries to answer my plethora of questions. Either before or after this discussion, I go to the bathroom in an attempt to empty my bladder, even though I’ve already peed less than 40 minutes ago before I left my house. At some point the nurse leaves the room and I get half naked from the waist down. As I await her return, I try to make myself comfortable as I sit cold and cross-legged on the examining table with the giant scratchy tissue looking thing covering my nude bits.

When the nurse comes back, I maneuver my body down the table and put my feet in the stirrups as she sits on a low stool with her face between my very unshaven legs. I don’t really think this is a comfortable thing for either one of us, no matter how many times she’s done this. It certainly isn’t comfortable for me, no matter how many times I do this! Then, while talking about something or other, she will either use a giant Q-tip to lightly examine my latest problem (the Lichen Schlerosis , the tear in my anus, the Vestibulitis…whatever) or she will gently apply Lidocaine to my urethra (can you figure out where this is going?). The Lidocaine stings and burns in an attempt to numb my urethra for the child size catheter she is about to insert.

Ever have anything inserted into your urethra? I firmly consider that orifice to be an “exit only” hole, and this procedure sure as hell violates that rule!

When “Susan” is my nurse, she is very gentle as she guides the catheter through the bumps and ridges and whatever else is inside my urethra. When Dr. E. does it (which thank god was only once!) he was not nearly as patient or gentle! Once the catheter is in place, my bladder spews forth more urine, even though I swear I just emptied it, and it is caught in a pink plastic something or other. I never actually see this part since I am covered with a giant tissue, but the first time it happened I was mortified! I thought, not very rationally, that I was peeing in my nurse’s face! When she didn’t say anything about her golden shower, I was left trying to figure out why the hell I still was peeing when I literally went to the bathroom 5 minutes ago! When I finally got up the courage to ask, Susan told me I, A) am not peeing on her face or any other body part and B) it is because my bladder and the pelvic floor muscles supporting my bladder are, and have been, in spasm for so long it is just about impossible for me to truly empty my bladder right now. Evidently the catheter which is scorching holes in my urethra is going to help me fully empty my bladder once a week.

After my bladder is drained, it is filled with a mixture of Elmiron pre-dissolved in (I believe) bi sodium carbonate, water and something else I always forget. Several treatments later, I no longer feel the medicine being pushed through a big needle looking thing into the catheter and finally deep into my bladder, but the catheter still burns and its insertion always makes me feel a terrible urge to urinate (despite the fact that I just did before I got half naked and that my bladder was drained even further when the catheter was initially inserted! How much pee can one person have?) When I’m good and full, of what, realistically is probably two or three inches of liquid, even if it sometimes feels like 40 gallons, the catheter is withdrawn. The procedure is over, and unless I’ve asked a few questions or we have a good conversation going, the entire process takes fewer than five minutes. Sometimes we talk while Susan’s face is still between my hairy legs. Sometimes I scoot back on the table and have the conversation in a more “normal” position. Eventually Susan leaves the room, I get dressed and she generally comes back with whatever new ‘scrips I need or to follow-up with any other questions I might have. She is a brave woman to come back into the room, as I always have more questions to ask!

Finally, I am given instructions to try my best not to urinate for an hour and a half and I am free to go (after I pay, of course!). An hour and a friggin’ half??!! To someone with IC, that is almost akin to asking me to never pee again! The only times I ever go that long without peeing are if I’m asleep (and up until recently I was lucky to sleep more than two hours without needing to get up and pee) or if I deliberately dehydrate myself because I know I am going out and I don’t know where the bathrooms are, if there are any or, if I try mightily to ignore the increasing pressure and painful need to pee, like on long road trips to Massachusetts. Telling me not to pee for an hour and a half is torture sometimes. I might ordinarily be able to hold it that long if no one told me not to pee, but once that edict is given, my bladder pounds at the door of mercy, begging for a bathroom, threatening to saturate my clothes and publicly embarrass me if I don’t release my urine right this very minute!