When is the last time that you have experienced agony?

Um.. a few minutes ago. Because I really want to say something but I sure have no idea where those words are, or who they could be addressed to. It’s more like wanting to scream at the top of my lungs, while in a house full of sleeping people I must not disturb.

Last few years have been good for me. No agony since my last small bowel obstruction, in 2013.

I’ve had kidney stones, I’ve gone into septic shock, pleurisy….all of these things hurt really bad. Small bowel obstruction dwarfs them all.

About 5 or 6 nights ago when I left the windows open all night and woke gagging on forest fire smoke at 1a.m. when the winds shifted and blew in smoke from a raging fire burning about 30 miles south of me. It was horrible, I could hardly breathe and my eyes and sinuses are still screwed up.

I started passing sharp-edged boulders out of my dick the morning after my arrival in Cuba last year. It was like pissing red-hot razorblades through myriatic acid. Lots of blood and 1 to 2mm rocks. No exaggeration. I get this every few years, but nothing like this episode.

Finally, there was this huge mutha that wouldn’t pass and my urethra was blocked. No matter what I did, nothing would pass. I had been drinking water all morning to help get the stones out, but now that strategy worked against me. Within an hour I was up to my nephrons in searing pain. Bursting bladder I felt like a horse was kicking me in the kidneys. Like someone had rammed a white-poker up my urethra. I couldn’t walk. I was doubled over. A cabby and my first mate had to carry me into the hospital ER. Out of the blue, my left nut swelled up the size of a mango and the horses were now working on that. This was morphine-level pain and they loaded me up immediately while they prepped me for the procedure.

Everything was fine when I woke up and I spent a delightful 2 weeks recuperating in a very nice, old Spanish colonial mansion, a B&B from the pre-Castro era being visited regularly by two of the best nurses I’ve ever met. The family who ran the place were incredibly nice and the mamacita and abuela prepared the best homestyle Cuban food I’ve ever tasted. Heaven. It worked out alright.

That was real pain.

I have been lucky to not really experience a lot of physical pain in my life. Emotional agony however, I am no stranger to. It’s hard for me to think back and find which things really cross that line into “agony” though.
I’m gonna have to say when my 20+ year old kitty died 2 years ago. She had been my mother’s. I adopted her when my mom went into a nursing home 8 years ago.

About 8 yeas ago I was jogging on an icy road early in the morning in the dark. I slipped, feel and ripped 2 of my hamstring muscles. It was a number 10 pain. Suddenly I was rolling around on the ground screaming. Tried get up. Started dry heaving and passed out. Woke up to hear school kids talking about me. They must have called their mother. A car drove up and a woman that I had never seen before told me, “Get in” and she drove me home. Tried to go to work (a health clinic) with my leg totally swollen and passed out at work. Woke up to see several doctors standing over me. Worst thing that ever happened to me.

A few days ago when I thought I might be having a stroke.

A year ago when my husband almost died.

Two years ago when my mother died.

Have no idea what physical agony feels like. Emotional agony however, when my Dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Think the worst day emotionally was being asked to sign a DNR, and then obviously seeing him pass away.
I’ve been lucky to never experience serious physical pain.

June of 2015.

Today, trying to find a door mat that didn’t say “Welcome!”
WTF!
How hard is it to just find a freaking door mat, a plain, wipe your feet, no greetings, no cutesy little kitty cats or bluebirds or sea shells or flower pots, just a flippin’ door mat!
On the agony scale of shopping it was a solid 5. lol

I would have to say back in May when I had to make the decision whether to euthanize my border collie who had been my companion for sixteen years. To make the decision even more difficult, it was his birthday. FML

I’m so sorry @rojo. ;(

I lost a child. I experience agony each day. Not all day, but for some period of time each day I agonize with the reality that my life will never again be complete; part of me is gone. I know there are many others who have learned to continue through life as an incomplete person too.

Oh, I am so, so sorry @MollyMcGuire. I just can’t even imagine…..