Lube, Phlegm, and Other Weird Health Things

Yet another month has passed since I last wrote, and it was a pretty rough one. It was so rough in fact, that I may have to do multiple posts just to catch you up on everything. This post will focus on my health, and how I keep getting sick (I may even be slightly sick now with a very mild cold, but it also may just be a runny nose). As always, I like to keep it real, so there may be a couple of pieces of information in this blog that may be TMI for the average person, but those things are just normal parts of my life, so therefore I will write about them anyway.

For starters, I ended up with a nasty cold, only a couple weeks after my throat infection. The cold also caused a slight fever, so I had to go to the doctor. I was coughing constantly to the point of gagging, and eventually after a few days I was actually physically sore from coughing so much. Part of the issue for me, is that I still don't have very great lung strength since my paralysis, so it is very hard for me to cough things up, which then causes phlegm to get stuck and make breathing hard, and is completely miserable. I also lost my voice, and I had a huge presentation due the same week. Thankfully my voice came back just in time for the presentation, and by some miracle I didn't have a coughing fit during it.

There was however, a really awkward (and also hilarious for me) moment after my presentation, when people were giving feedback. I should mention that before my partner and I started, our professor said that my partner should sit so that she and I were both at the same level. Afterward, when people were giving feedback, one guy says (I kid you not) that next time we should stand up. Everyone in the room got so quiet, perhaps from utter disbelief, until my professor said something to him about how I couldn't because I'm in a wheelchair and then there was some awkward laughter. I honestly think he was just meaning that my partner should stand, but it just came out so wrong and made him look like a complete asshole. I'm not sure why, but the incident was really funny to me.

Anyway, my cold finally went away, and I was super happy about it because I could actually hang out with my friends, which I really needed because I was starting to get a little bit depressed. I also I had a trip to Berlin with my study abroad program coming up that I was extremely excited about, so things seemed like they were finally going to be getting better. I could not have been more wrong.

Here comes the TMI. I was in the middle of class, when we had a ten minute break. As usual, I used the break to chat with my friends, check social media, and then go pee. What do I notice? I am peeing blood. I don't care how many times I have had it happen, it always scares me when blood comes from places it shouldn't. I immediately panicked thinking it was obviously a UTI, and I told my professor that I had to leave to go to the doctor.

I must say, I am proud of myself, because I got myself, terrified and alone, on the bus, all the way to the emergency room. It was dark and freezing cold, and for some reason there weren't really any clear signs for how to actually figure out which building I needed to go to, but eventually after following some ambulance lights I found my way. It was a four hour wait for some antibiotics and testing, and all I could do was hope that whatever bacteria it was, was not super resistant to antibiotics like previous UTI's I had had. I would hear back in three days if I needed to change antibiotics, and my Berlin trip was in two. For some reason, even with the antibiotics, the bleeding kept coming back. I finally realized that Berlin was not going to happen for me, and I cried possibly more than I ever had before. I was not only upset about the trip, but about my body and my paralysis, and I really hit a low point.

Flash forward to now, a little over a week later. The bleeding continued day after day, so I went back to the doctor. They are running more tests, but I think we finally found out the issue. It may have not been a UTI at all, but rather the new brand of catheters that I have been using here. The ones I use in the U.S. are polished, so I don't use lubricant with them, but the ones here are not polished. The idea is that the catheters may have irritated my bladder or somehow caused a cut or something. The issue is, how do you let it heal when you have to keep catheterizing? Well, what seems to be working right now, was a simple fix- lubricant. The only issue was that they didn't have any on hand, so the doctor said I could use pretty much any basic kind, so I had to buy it from the ~intimate section~ if you know what I mean. I am pretty comfortable with my body and talking about it (I mean obviously you can see that with this post), but I have to say I was a little bit uncomfortable asking where the lube was, especially in german.

I am still recovering mentally from all of the stress, and also there have been some lingering feelings of depression that have come and gone, but overall things are looking up. I just try to remind myself that there is always a bright side to even the darkest of situations. Also, I think it helps a lot to be able to laugh at yourself (I had to buy freaking lube!!), and to know that things will always get better. Plus, I have some pretty great friends here who are super supportive, so they help me stay positive too.