A patient asked me this week how she could possibly ever mend the pain that she has
inside herself, and pondered what part her IC had in the issues that life has presented her
with. I responded with an empathetic heart, one that too has been broken, many times,
with what has felt like irreparable pain. The involvement of IC on top of such pain
can become a compounding complication to that pain because of the lack of understanding
that one often experiences in this condition and the lack of optimism one may have in ever
getting well.

I am not really speaking from the perspective of faith, because this is a medical site, and not a religious one, so please don't take this that way. But, life often presents a person with
challenged through which one must struggle and succeed.
We cannot change what has happened in the past.
But, we can change what happens today and tomorrow. We cannot change other
people in our lives, but we can change our responses to them. We cannot change 
the events that are outside of our control, but we can change our attitude about them.
Pain comes in different forms. IT comes in the physical. IT comes in the emotional, in
the heart.  
Someone has said to me repeatedly over the years that only pain spurs change. And,
perhaps that is true. I am unsure. I can think of instances that I have created change 
in myself without it, but perhaps, this is a considerably true statement. 
If this is true, then, pain is a vehicle through which we may process different aspects of
ourselves and created change for the better. By the time IC hits, the body has been
slowly becoming unhealthy for a very very long time. Pain is the body exhibiting a sense 
of utter urgency for a change in direction. And the direction of one's life can be dramatically 
altered forever by dietary changes and the transformation in balance in the body through
supplements and holistic therapies. IF not for this kind of pain and consequent change, 
perhaps then cancer would have grown instead of IC, something far more progressed and more serious. IC may be an invitation to changing one's own life so that the rest of it is vastly
more healthy that it would have otherwise been. But, that option would not have appreared
had IC not come. 
The person who asked me this question yesterday had said she was herself very
materialistic  and unfocused on what she now considers to be important things.
I can also empathize with those feelings.
What seems important prior to suffering with chronic illness, compared to things
post are vastly different.
Mending one's broken heart is multifaceted. But, the fact that it is broken in the first place
is relevant. In IC, there are many parts of a person that are broken. I think that is why
so many doctors treating a person with IC may find themselves overwhelmed by the 
condition.
IF you are waiting for an answer to the first question, I don't have a specific one to offer.
However, what I can offer as insight is that to take something that is broken and med it
is life altering. And, in each of us, we have the power to change the directions of our 
life and our health--physical as well as emotional.
the only way to change the pain is to change today and tomorrow. Without change of
mind, body, or soul, that pain will only continue to grow. 
The person who asked me this question is a truly beautiful human being who's
heavy heartedness I can feel as if it were my own. 
To you I want to say that you will find your way slowly through what feels like a dark 
journey because you have a light inside yourself that you have not yet found.