Holy crap, askye, I had no idea this was something that'd been a medical issue for most of your life if I'm reading that the right way. My profound sympathies. Will have to read about bladder reflux, I've never heard of it before. Catheter stuff is awful. I saw an ad somewhere, a magazine probably, for self cathetering that made me gasp. It must be for guys with prostate issues. (All the magazines these days seem to have 80% pharm ads. Are they targeted by age, I wonder?)

Thanks, WSparrow! I'll have to fool around with that.

The IC is new, it developed about 5 or 6 years ago. Bladder reflux is alot like acid reflux only instead of acid going up your throat urine is sent back up towards the kidneys. It's a birth defect (mild as those go) and I had surgery when I was about 2 years old to fix it.

But I kept getting UTIs and for awhile they'd take me to the hospital to deal with my refusing to void my bladder. But the insurance wouldn't pay for it and so then it happened in the doctors office. I was on a lot of antibiotics as a kid, fought tooth and nail against taking meds and it was never pretty.

The UTIs seemed to resolve themselves until I started having major pain in my side and finally IC was ruled the culprit.

The surgery for the bladder reflux - they detached the urethra tubes and then reattached them to the bladder. When my surgery was done they left stumps and the tubes were reattached touching the stumps. At one point the urologist I was going to seee was going to cauterize the stumps from the inside but wasn't able to because of the touching.

I do know there are women with IC who do self administered installations but I've never had to deal with that.

(All the magazines these days seem to have 80% pharm ads. Are they targeted by age, I wonder?)

I suspect the demographic for paper media is trending fairly old these days.

I hope I didn't over share.

I'm also sorry my posting seems to be entirely The State of askye's Health because I'm sure it's boring to read.

Unfortunately I have no other intersting updates, not even a cute cat story. Penny has been relatively boring lately, she hasn't even made an escape attempt. Currently she's curled up on a throw pillow on the couch looking very stately.

I hope I didn't over share.

I don't really think that we accept that as a concept ;)

relatively boring lately, she hasn't even made an escape attempt. Currently she's curled up on a throw pillow on the couch looking very stately.

We should all be so wise.

I'm gonna need a bigger throw pillow.

Sympathies, Kat. It's just never easy, and seldom fair.

And I sympathize with your frustration, Askye.

I feel so bad for those of you dealing with snow and ice and cold. We're 40s-50s here, pretty unvaryingly. I feel like winter is never coming, Ned Stark be damned. Someone on Tumblr said (so it *must* be true) that 2014 was the warmest year on record, worldwide. That's no help to those of you mired in piles of wintry mix, but the global climate just ain't what it used to be, pretty much anywhere.

I cannot deal with this weather anymore. Even with electric blankets and a space heater, I'm still freezing, and I just need it to stop.

I'm nearly at the point where I want to just stay in a hotel for a few days, so that I can get at least a little while of sleeping in warm air, but then I'd still have to go outside to get to work.

Hil, maybe you should. At least it would be a break while you're inside.