I experienced a pain last night that was new to me. Let me set this up a little bit. It might get weird.
Last year when I first started being concerned about my health prior to my cancer diagnosis I was experiencing a pain in my lower abdomen where I could feel my body's waste moving through a section of my bowels. Weird, right? This sensation included gas and the solid stuff moving towards the exit (I know, I know). It would last about 24 hours and sometimes be coupled with a low grade fever. It would knock me on my ass a little bit and just put my whole body on edge because it was a pain I couldn't 100% get away from no matter what I tried. It felt like a nagging little stab in my guts like every 10 mins or so and then it would subside to a dull throbbing pain. It's amazing what the human body allows or ignores as a regular viable sensation. This all started around a year ago and would occur 1-3 times every 3 months.
Back to last night: That pain had been slowly building all day yesterday in my lower abdomen, the same sensation of things moving through a tube that is too small to push through. I got up off the couch at one point (to pee, because honestly, why else would I move in this situation) and the pain in my guts hit me with a force where I took two steps and stopped in my tracks. It hurt so much I wanted to process it a little bit before moving again to try to not anger the colon gods more than I already had. Standing still and just breathing normally, it hurt on the left HARD and then it gently hurt on the right (which was new to me.) Then it felt like a balloon animal was unraveling within my belly so the pain could puddle at some point and join forces in the middle. And then POP, intense fire at a central meeting location of The Two Pains, my internal temperature felt like it was rising a good five degrees and slight wave of nausea. I was continuing to stand still four feet away from the couch and I looked over at Em and said "This is bad" or "This hurts bad" or "I'm really hot all of a sudden" but I don't remember specifically. What the fuck was going on? I still don't know.
I eventually was able to very slowly make my way to my destination and then go to bed. I decided to get a hot water bottle on my abdomen which helped a ton with going to sleep. Waking up this morning wasn't easy, the residual pain was still around, but luckily a hot shower and some ibuprofen seems to be keeping the pain at bay.
I've mentioned this symptom to my doctor(s) before but the consensus is, "we can't figure it out unless it happens and you get an MRI during the pain." So that's probably a $10,000 test I won't be doing anytime soon.
My first week of radiation + chemo is now over! Five more weeks to go!
Capybara Chaser!
