I’ll remember the fun I had…
…as I descend further into the underworld on my monthly journey of chronic pain.
Tuesday night, I was sure that the pain was ramping up, and that by Wednesday morning, I would be in severe pain. The only co-worker I could line up to sub for me said it would be best to let him know Tuesday night as opposed to early Wednesday morning. So after 11pm Tuesday night, I made the decision and my co-worker confirmed he’d be in for me.
Wouldn’t you know it, on Wednesday I wasn’t in a lot of pain. But I’d already sent someone in to work for me. The guilt came and went, back and forth, all day. And still no outward presense of george.
Throughout the day, I had severe low back pain when attempting to do anything other than recline on the couch. I could not lay down, I could not sit at my desk, I could not stand for any length of time. The only comfortable position for me was sitting on the edge of the couch cushion or leaning all the way back on the couch.
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I had mild to moderate nausea all day yesterday, and was weak and shaky upon standing/walking. Despite this, I was experiencing XXTREME NESTING, which meant I wanted to bleach the walls and floors, vacuum the cats, and shake out the mattresses.
Over a three hour period, I was able to wash four small walls in the bathroom, using warm water and borax mixture. Our bathroom is crazy-shaped, and has eight walls. I also washed a few dishes and scooped the catbox. That is a lot of activity for someone who is nauseous, weak and shaky. But I am stubborn and had to do something with my guilt complex.
I did not take any medication until bedtime last night, when I took 600mg Ibuprofen and a half of a Tylenol 3. I had begun spotting by midnight, but when I got up this morning, I was no longer spotting, and I wasn’t in pain. So I went to work.
By 11am, the pain was making itself known, and I’d begun spotting again. It was thick, dark, sticky.
My pain on the Allie Brosh pain scale was at:
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…which is actually a 4.5 to 5 on the Mankoski Pain Scale.
By the time the kids were dismissed to lunch, my pain was reaching a 5 on the Allie Brosh scale:
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…which is actually a 7 on the Mankoski Pain Scale.
I promised myself I would leave work right after the childrens’ lunch hour. There was no one to take my place during that critical hour, so I pushed through it.
When I left work for the day, it had become almost too difficult to walk to my car, which was parked a block and a half away. Every single step was jarring to my pelvic region. The nerve pain seared from my pelvis down the insides of both legs to my knees. It’s so difficult to describe the leg nerve pain that comes with endometriosis - people aren’t usually able to comprehend that one would have leg pain associated with pelvic pain - but it makes total sense if you look at the nervous system. The pelvic area is rich with nerves (as seen in yellow in the image below), which extend down the legs.
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If you look at a full body nerve diagram, you can see a bit better that any nerve inflammation in the pelvic region would of course touch on surrounding nerves and radiate down the legs.
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All this is actually in line with what Dr. Ian Fraser is saying in his Mysteries Of Endometriosis Pain lecture last year. He had found in his research that “Sometimes sizeable nerve trunks were identified passing though peritoneal lesions, something never seen in normal peritoneum”, and had commented that “It seems probable that the invading endometriosis bringing its own nerve supply links up with the intrinsic (enteric) nerve plexus of [for example, the bowel], resulting in excessive branching and proliferation of multiple nerve fibers.”
When I got to my car, it was difficult and painful to get into my car. I drive a Dodge Neon, which sits low to the ground. On top of that, the seats also sit low inside the car, so it nearly feels like I’m getting into a go-kart or bumper car.
I curse myself as my illness worsens through the years, saying I really need a Volkswagon or maybe even a Jeep - something which sits higher up both outside and inside.
When I got home, I sat in my car for several minutes, trying to work up the courage to draw up my knees, turn and push myself out of my car. The prospect of that seemed traumatising to me, considering the level of pain I was in.
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I let all my breath out and slowly, methodically got out of my car, one muscle group, one body part at a time. Bending forward to get to my belongings behind my chair was painful task #2, and then stepping up onto the high curb was painful task #3. Then I was home. Thankfully I was able to have parked directly in front of my home.
What sucked was that it was my lunch hour, and I was starving. As is usual with the pain, I was very picky with what I wanted to eat. I didn’t want the fresh vegetable soup I just made, noooooo. So I popped a Tylenol 3, made some gluten-free pizza and a chocolate cake, and after eating my pizza, took a drug-addled nap.
To describe this month’s cycle in two words, I would say HIGHLY AGITATED.
I don’t want to be in my own body or mind. The brain weasels are bad enough on a New Moon without the hormonal whack of endometriosis adding to it. Can’t wait for this month to be over.