Let's start from the beginning.

Late one night in 2007, my senior year in high school, I thought I was having an appendicitis attack. We rushed to the Emergency Room thinking I was dying. They did test after test and sent me home telling me nothing was wrong. The next few days I was still hurting in my lower right side, I went to my family doctor and he decided to admit me into the hospital to figure things out. I stayed in the hospital for over a week, possibly longer, I saw every gynecologist, gastroenterologist and every other doctor that was there. No one could find anything wrong with me, but we all knew something was very wrong. I was discharged with no answers and sent home to deal with it on my own.

I saw doctor after doctor over the next 14 months, some doctors thought it was my female organs causing me problems since I have a history of ovarian cysts, they wanted to stop me from having my period all together and send me through early menopause with injections, I was NOT willing to do this at 17 years old.

Then other doctors wanted to take my ovaries out, I knew it wasn't my female parts so I wouldn't let them touch me.

I finally found a doctor that said, "hey, let's look in your bladder, I think you may have interstitial cystitis" and sure enough, in February 2008, I was diagnosed with interstitial cystitis.

Since then, I have had elmiron instills, DMSO instills, silver nitrate instills, been on 23 different medications, went into retention for 9 days, and had 11 hydrodestentions/cystoscopies.

Ten of the doctors I saw gave up me and stopped fighting, I had never felt so alone and scared. I found a new doctor here in my small town who know's all about IC. He is the third doctor to recommend interstim and the ONLY one to offer to do it for me.

I was scheduled for a hydrodestention this past Wednesday, and I found out they didn't plan on putting me under anesthesia, so I called and told them I had to be put under in order for them to do it. So we rescheduled for tomorrow.

I had to go "pre-register" today, which I've never had to do before. As we were going through paperwork, the nurse said, we have you down for a hydrodestention and your FIRST STAGE INTERSTIM IMPLANT SURGERY! I said no, no, no, somethings wrong, we were scheduling that AFTER he looks in my bladder, but sure enough, the orders were there for my first stage interstim implant to happen tomorrow at noon. I cried and threw a mini fit in front of the nurses, I'm not prepared, I'm twenty years old and I don't want a permanent nerve stimulator in my body! I'm going to set off metal detectors everywhere I go and have to explain to people why I have a "remote control" I guess it's something that you can't really prepare for. I am relieved that I only have one day to stress over it instead of knowing weeks ahead of time. If it helps though, everything will be worth it.

Now I am off to find a medical alert bracelet, and fix it up so it won't look like something a 90 year old lady would wear, and prepare for the days to come.

I wanted to post my story on here and keep a daily journal of my journey with this because I know how helpful it is for others out there considering the interstim or anyone who needs my support while dealing with their IC, I am not a medical professional and what I post is all opinion or what my doctors have suggested that I do as their patient.