h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Folks, would like to tell you a bit of my recent woes. I've been experiencing abdominal pains, which were on and off, for a few weeks. They usually happened while I were eating dinner, but afterwards the pain would fade again; since I also have fibromyalgia, I've come to live with the idea of experiencing daily pain *somewhere*.

But this latest one is different. It started Sunday evening, but instead of fading again, it actually got worse, not stopping at all. So I've been to doctors and for tests. Today I was taken for a sonar inspection of my innards ... and was that an ordeal!

The pain is usually easiest when I'm standing, walking, sitting or lying on my *right" side. Lying on my back is pretty painful, and lying on my left side is flat-out excruciating.

That's a good word for it, excruciating. In Afrikaans we say 'rasend van die pyn' or being driven mad from the pain. Well this came close!

The radiologist who inspected me, wanted me to lie on all my sides! And then she prodded me with that thing in the most tender and painful parts of my abdomen.

I tried not to complain but I was groaning and grunting and a few yells escaped as well. And my body was involuntarily spasming and jerking. In the middle I whimpered "is it almost over?" But didn't get a reply ... there was still a bit more to come. And she wanted me to do some impossible things like breathing in deeply or pushing out my belly.

This was an interesting experience in pain. It's one of the worst pains I ever experienced ... it's up there with the time I was poisoned from a suicide attempt with medications, and the time I got a drop of the extremely poisonous latex of an Euphorbia plant in my eye.

Well during the sonar the pain would start like a kind of 'twitch', almost like a muscle cramping up, and then the pain explodes, seemingly outward. Pain shot from the 'focus point' in my side, into the rest of my body. Every movement, every breath would bring it on. And I waited and waited as the prodding went on.

I was ready to confess!! I half expected those unexpected priests with their red robes to come bursting into the room. But while the Spanish Inquisition would stop torturing once a confession was won, this sonar-session had to go on until it was finished.

The pain usurped the rest of reality ... when it was at its worst, the bed was gone, room was gone, I didn't even see a black void, I saw nothing any more, *really* nothing. And the pain became the whole universe. No other sensations, no awareness of anything else.

Well I've been reading and practicing and meditating upon the principles of Stoicism and Buddhism. OK fine, I like learning about that, but I didn't realize there was going to be a practical exam! I did try to apply some of it. In my more lucid moments, I let the pain flow through me, not resisting, not judging, not desiring it to end, just regarding it as an experience from which I could learn. But this kind of thing is pretty darn tough, and I'm not a monk who's been training for this pretty much for life.. I now know I'm not as stoic as I thought I was. Still, I guess it was something!

Well having been through this, I think I'll be able to weather future trials a bit better.

I'm sharing this, it may help some of you also who experienced/are experiencing extreme pain. I think it helps when people can know that others are going through ordeals also. And I really think it *is* worth working towards being able to meditate over pain instead of getting very upset about it - having a stoic attitude towards it. But by stoicism I don't mean *not* going to the doctor or to the hospital when feeling the pain of an illness or injury! If you're hurt, get help! And don't refuse pain medication either! Even with that, the pain can still be pretty awful. Sometimes you *do* have to just grit your teeth and endure it. But also, we can help and support each other ... even small friendly words and gestures are able to ease a lot of suffering.

That sounds terrible! Did they at least find out what was wrong?

I hope you feel a lot better, very soon.

~ ~ Hope you will feel better soon and. Find out what the cause is. ~ ~

You've my heartfelt sympathy and earnest hope that it proves to be something easily resolvable.

Oh dear

I had a mammogram last week and I have always thought them the worst torture ever devised, but I didn't experience the kind of pain you describe

I really hope some good comes of it and you get good results,

"I now know I'm not as stoic as I thought I was. "

I think you are as stoic as you thought you were but you were subjected to something beyond what is possible...

Surely there must have been something that could have been done to be more sympathetic to you, given the problem you were there for, to minimise the pain as much as possible under the circumstances...

Thank you for sharing your experience - well done indeed for getting through it, and I hope it was worth it in the sense that you get the treatment you need and feel better very soon

Hi folks! Thanks, all. Sasha, actually the scary thing is, I can imagine it getting FAR worse than this. Joking aside, it's not a patch on actual torture. And we've had too much of that, over here. In the so-called border war, they (actually I should say 'we' because it was the South African forces but I want no part in what they did) used the poisonous Euphorbia latex to extract confessions/information ... yes, they deliberately dripped it into the eyes of 'enemies' they'd captured. Having experienced this accidentally myself, I can't easily think of something more evil that can be done to a fellow human being.

Well anyways. I'm still in a lot of pain, but it's bearable. We still don't know what's going on. I'm very handicapped by my social isolation and difficulty in communicating with other people. It's hard to get doctors to have any idea what I'm going through. I've had to make an insane number of phone-calls all of which were wearying, and things are progressing at a snail's pace. Blood tests today show that there's an infection ... but we don't know where or why. All we know it's something deep inside and it cannot be denied. At least I finally got some proper medicine today. So let's hope!

you had to go through that, Willem. I hope the new medication works and you'll feel better soon. We'll be praying for you!

Good to hear from you Willem. Been worried about you. I hope you get some resolve to your health problem and total relief from your pain

Yes, at least there was no malevolent intent in what you were put through Glad the pain is at a bearable level for you now... That's good that you have at least a partial diagnosis so hopefully the medication will help quickly indeed

Hi folks, thanks for all the input! Well I'm still very sore and sick, but I've only used three pills so far. My sister reckons I likely have diverticulitis. Tomorrow I start with the big entrail-cleanup in preparation for Monday's adominal scan.

I'm a bit delirious from time to time. For instance I think I see an interesting object ... I reach out for it ... and then it disappears, and I feel around for it but there's only empty air. And then I realize that I'm actually awake and half out of my bed, and physically reaching out with my arm to towards where I had hallucinated the object.

I've also been a strange smell/taste I've been plagued by ... a combination of boiled onions, tomatoes and cabbage.

There's also been a strange obsession. Like an earworm but more of a 'mind's eye'-worm ... an image I can't get out of my head. It's Toni Braxton's stare, displayed in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIgOL21S98o

Now, Ms Braxton is beautiful with a beautiful voice but I find myself unsettled by the directness of that stare! And it remains, it hangs in the air, like the Cheshire cat's grin, after the video has ended, even after I walked away from the computer, and it follows me into my feverish dreams and imaginings. Beyond the veil of appearances, beyond time and space, curtained by what looks like a tacky wig, hangs the eternal STARE ... peering into my mind, judging my every inner thought and impulse.

And funnily the *music* that comes drifting and sticking itself to this image, is not Ms Braxton's song, but this one by Madonna:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJV29ZQIUhs

But the lyrics go: "I can't help falling ILL, I fall deeper and deeper the further I go"...

Aha, I hear you. A lot of people don't know that your intestines can do that to your brain...

Take care!

Keep your cell phone always within an easy arms reach and don't hesitate to call an ambulance if you find you cannot care for yourself.

Usually takes 3 or 4 days for antibiotics to kick in and start working, sometimes with an allergic response to the microbial die-off.

If no improvement by the end of the 5th day, you probably will need to see the Doctor again.

Hi ITIWBS and everyone else! I'm keeping my phone close indeed. Things are better today ... I think I'm beyond the worst, maybe. Tomorrow I'm going to the radiologist for a scan and I'm going to my doctor immediately after that.

and with your appointments.

Sending good vibes your way

Hi folks! The abdominal x-ray shows no damage or diverticules in my colon ... whew! Still I wonder what the problem is? My doctor thinks it is basically a problem caused by fecal compaction caused by constipation, and constipation is caused by my anti-psychotic medication. Whatever the case the constipation issue needs to be solved. She also gave me some reading material on Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Since this is the first 'instance' I don't think we can talk of a syndrome yet. But there are interesting things. IBS can be precipitated or worsened by stress ... and I'd been under enormous stress in the few days before the problems started, as Dmitri can attest. So maybe this is one of those stress-precipitated pains like the fibromyalgia, and is connected with my mental illness ... the mind-body link seems to feature strongly, but the pain is pretty darn real.

There's still a thing we need to look at, I've been coughing up blood since Saturday. So I'm going back for x-rays of my lungs this time.

Keeping fingers crossed.

Any grainy material, like sand coming up as you cough?

At any rate, like Dmitri, hoping for the best!

Good news that your abdominal x-ray came back clear.

Yes, stress could be something indeed... I had some sort of 'cramp' in my abdomen a couple of years ago and didn't realise it was stress at the time - the doctor pressed the intestine quadrant rather firmly, but didn't cause anything like the pain you described, and the relief from knowing that there wasn't anything particular the matter did help the cramp to ease off quite quickly...

Sorry to hear about your lungs, now - hopefully that is soon diagnosed and treated for you as well