Running on empty…
or how to drive the struggle bus with a migraine and a panic attack.
Hello friends, you many have noticed that my curated posts have come to a screeching halt as of late. I hit a figurative brick wall with my face and am having some difficulty climbing over it. So, here’s the scoop:
First I got a very manageable part time job (10-15 hours a week) doing the books for a very nice business owner here in town. This is yay! Shortly thereafter, I got ensnared in yet another medical drama. This is not yay. And I’m sad to report, this is ongoing.
Forewarned is fair warned, there’s about to be some medical talk and discussion of chronic pain and mental health, so if you’re not up for that today, it’s ok if you want to sit this one out.
For those who don’t know, I only have one kidney. I was born with a birth defect and my second kidney spent most of my life trying to kill me, so just before my 21st birthday, it was removed. Let’s just say that I am no stranger to a UTI and if you’ve never had one of those, count your blessings, trust me. On Thursday the 6th, I went into the doctor thinking that I had a routine UTI (spoiler alert, it was not). They sent my urine off to the big lab to be tested for specific bacteria and that too came back negative, so they put me on a couple of meds just to be on the safe side.
I’ve spent the last week Googling interstitial cystitis - translation god damn it, not again. A few years back I had a deeply unfortunate episode which was chalked up to probably IC and somehow I worked my way through it over the course of a couple months. Interstitial cystitis (or IC, for those of us who are tired of big medical words) is basically when your bladder decides to be an overdramatic little bitch for no good reason. It’s a chronic condition that makes you feel like you have a UTI all the time — but surprise! There’s no infection. Just pain, maybe some agonizing burning, pressure, and the constant urge to pee like you drank six gallons of water, even if you didn’t. Doctors aren’t entirely sure what causes it, and there’s no magic cure, which makes living with it a real party (by party, I mean nightmare). Couple this with all my past medical trauma and proclivity for panic attacks and congratulations, you’ve got a runaway train full of napalm.
The cherry on top of this shit Sunday: a Hemiplegic migraine which is like a regular migraines’ evil twin — but rarer and way more dramatic. Instead of just a crushing headache (because of course that’s not enough), they can cause temporary paralysis or weakness on one side of your body, along with slurred speech, vision changes, and general “am I having a stroke?” vibes. They’re terrifying, unpredictable, and about as fun as a root canal without anesthesia. And because life loves to stack the deck, the stress of dealing with interstitial cystitis has officially triggered one for me. So now my body’s like, “Oh, you wanted to function today? LOL, no.”
And because my body isn’t done throwing a full-on rebellion, let’s talk about the panic attacks. Panic attacks aren’t just “feeling anxious” — they’re like your brain hitting a giant red emergency button, flooding you with adrenaline, and making you feel like you’re dying right now, even if you know you’re technically safe. What a lot of people don’t realize is that extreme medical trauma can leave you with something a lot like PTSD — so when new health crises hit (like interstitial cystitis and hemiplegic migraine), it drags all that old fear and helplessness right back to the surface. Suddenly, you’re not just dealing with physical pain — you’re gasping for air, heart racing, body shaking, as if it’s all happening again. It’s exhausting, terrifying, and completely invisible from the outside — which makes it all the harder to explain.
So, I’m balancing all this fun and excitement with a new job and the shit show that is politics right now. I want to be brave and say I’ll be just fine, but the truth is, I’m on the bus of struggle. And let me tell you — it’s a bumpy ride, the shocks are shot, and I’m pretty sure the driver is a raccoon in a trench coat.
But I’m still on the bus. Still here. Still fighting. And if you’re hanging in there too, I’m so damn glad we’re on this ride together. Thanks for giving me the space to catch my breath when I need to, for reading my words when I can get them out, and for reminding me that even when life goes full dumpster fire, there are still people who care.
So yeah — I’ll keep writing when I can, and in the meantime, if you’re also on the struggle bus, scoot over. We’ll make room.
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