My last post was Thursday, January 28th, and I began spotting on Friday, January 29th, so I guess I can’t even go by the mucous colouring. Last month it was about 48 hours from the time the mucous turned until menses arrived. This month, it was 16 hours. Well, I dunno though. I was spotting pretty lightly all day - is that day one of menses? Or is Saturday, when the spotting turned to flow the first day of menses?

Traditionally for me, I have held that my first day is when the spotting gets heavier and turns to actual flow. That would make Saturday the first day - which is still three days earlier than my calendar predicted, but right on for what my gut feeling had predicted as early as last Tuesday.

Friday after lunch, around 2pm, I took 2 Harmonizing The Moon Chinese herbal pills, and by 3pm I was a nervous chatterbox, ready to have a manic fit. I had a doctor appointment at 4:30pm and when my pulse was taken it was 88. For me, that is high.

By Friday night I was sobbing, and again Saturday morning I was a crying basketcase because it was 60°F and the sun was out…and I couldn’t be out in it to enjoy it. Again. I told my husband I would count how many warm sunny days I miss in one year to further let people know how this illness impacts my life.

This manic-depressive stuff is very unusual for me. The last time I acted this way was when I was on Yasmin in February 2007.

Saturday morning, the pain was bad enough that I was doing the pressure points and breathing exercises. Around 2:30pm, I took 600mg Advil, half a Tylenol 3, and two Harmonizing pills. No relief half an hour later, and then finally the Tylenol 3 kicked in, but the pain didn’t seem to want to go away. I decided not to take any more Tylenol 3, and instead asked if we could go to a medical marijuana dispensary. My husband was fine with this, so he drove me there.

This is the first time I’ve ever been to a dispensary. I had read what it would be like to enter one, and so I was not surprised by the sight when we drove up to the heavily barbed wire compound in Berkeley. Nor was I surprised about having to show my ID no less than 3 times to enter the front door and each room of the dispensary. I filled out paperwork, added my husband as my caregiver, took a tour, and asked a ton of questions about the various edibles. We came away with some butter and a single serving packet of peppermint mocha mix.

I didn’t want to try out my new groceries right away, since i was still stoned on Tylenol 3, and didn’t know if I’d have any adverse reactions if I also ate something with medical marijuana in it. I’m so extraordinarily sensitive to even over the counter medications, I didn’t want to take any chances. I mean, I’m the one who hallucinates on Tagamet for chrissakes. Check it out, hallucination is listed under rare side effects for that product.
Lucky me. :/

At 7:30pm, I had minimal pain and I took 2 more Harmonizing herbal pills. The pain returned by 8:30pm and was roughly a 6 on the pain scale. I was at a friend’s house when the pain hit, and I stood up and paced for a few minutes, then spent the rest of the time rocking to and fro, trying to do subtle hip circles to work out the pain. It got up to a 7 and fortunately, around 11pm, people began to leave, so I had an out as well. Honestly I didn’t want to leave earlier cuz I was enjoying being around friends. But when everyone suddenly got up to go, I went with.

When I got home, I made a gluten-free waffle and spread some medical butter on it. I believe it was about half an hour before I felt like I could say I was feeling the effects. I didn’t use much butter at all - I didn’t want to chance taking in too much on the first try.

The awesome thing is that my cramps disappeared. Gone.
Not “I was dissociated from the pain” - the cramps effing went away. How awesome is that?
I smiled at my husband and said in a stoned voice, “If I’ve been suffering all these years, and all it took was for me to ingest marijuana by way of food to stop the pain, I’m gonna be real mad.”

Sadly, an hour and a half later, the cramps returned. I’d say I’m about a 3.5 on the pain scale.
Also, about 2 hours after initial ingestion, the high continues to ebb and flow, feeling much stronger at times, making me dizzy.
So the thing is, I need to of course not be at work while on the butter, and I need to keep using as little an amount as I did tonight (I’d say it was a teaspoon or less that I used on the waffle), and I’d need to do this every hour and a half to couple of hours to remain pain-free…but I can’t because the high lasts much longer than the pain relief. I’d get too high and therefore sick on the medication. This presents a problem. Something to think about now is all…

Lastly, my fingers have been splitting open and bleeding, again. I started remembering the 2 Chinese herbal pills twice a day in earnest in the past week. I told my acupuncturist to ask her provider if there is any chance that gluten or yeast could be in the ingredients for both types of pills she has prescribed me.
I am wary of the Chinese herbal pills, and I may decide to stop taking it altogether.

Phew. Let’s hope this post makes sense when I wake up. It’s the middle of the night and I’m still stoned silly.
Current pain is a 2 on the scale.
Sweet.

I am so tired and weak. I went to bed after 2am and got up at 8:30am. That’s not bad - I usually sleep about 6.5 - 7 hours per night through the week anyway. I’ve been feeling very sore all day - my hips, thighs, knees and ankles hurt. But I did not walk intensely or exercise a lot yesterday. Maybe I’m so sore *because* I’ve not been running around all day since Friday at work?

More likely it is george. He always makes me feel like I’ve been run over by a mack truck. Then again, I’ve not been eating so well, lately. That will do it, too. I’m still waiting for george to show up. My personal computer calendar says he’s due today. The laptop calendar says he was due yesterday. Who knows anymore. My cycle has been off since February.

I have done nothing physically active all day today. Sunday is usually my day to get all the housework and laundry done before the work week begins again. Today there was so much going on and I totally cleared my schedule.

• There was afternoon tea in the backyard, courtesy the neighbor upstairs.
• There was a sheet rock party at a friend’s house - a work party to help him get his new house in order so he and his wife and infant can move in.
• Another neighbor in the back of the house needed help getting her digital converter box all set up because as of last Thursday, broadcast television as we’ve always known it in the U.S. ceased to be. I called the FCC and we got a guy to come out and wire everything up for my neighbor, because I didn’t know how. I have not had regular TV or cable TV for probably six years now, by choice. We just have DVD and VHS hookup when we want it. We did not purchase the digital converter for our home.
• A neighbor two doors down wanted me to babysit her toddler.
• A neighbor almost three blocks down wanted me to babysit her toddler.

I cleared all of it off the schedule because of george. I even asked my husband to go to the grocery for me because I couldn’t even manage that.

Regarding my diet, I’ve not eaten well for over a month. I spent 18 days in the UK and my fingers were cracked open and bleeding from all the gluten and yeast that kept creeping into my diet. Some of it was accidental, some of it was on purpose. I drank whisky because it’s friggin Scotland for chrissakes. You cannot deny me that experience! I had bandaids on no less than four fingers and my fingers were constantly in pain. I put lotion on several times a day to no avail because well, it’s a dermatitis allergic reaction after all.
I also found out that “glucose syrup” is corn syrup and wheat, because the UK has to explain what it is on all their labeling. I had been eating fudge because the UK apparently is known for its fudge. And it seems all the damned fudge has the glucose syrup in it. I didn’t check the label until I was back home in the states. Stupid me!

I know this month’s cycle is going to be crazy, if not downright brutal, because of the way I’ve eaten and all the alcohol I’ve consumed socially over the past month.

So yeah, I’m starting to record what I eat again, and I’m going to have to do more diet elimination again soon to find out why I’m still getting allergic reactions now that I’m back home eating my ‘usual’ diet again.

The thing that pisses me off the most is that despite all the allergy tests I’ve had, despite all the research related to diet and endometriosis, despite my own findings for my body with regards to food sensitivities - none of it has been proven as a direct link to endometriosis pain. I get so sick of the anxiety I suffer over eating something and then wondering if I’ll have immediate pain while menstruating or if my next cycle will be affected by something I ate days or weeks ago that somehow may still be wreaking havoc on my system. None of it has been scientifically proven for my body. It’s all speculation. I need some solid scientific findings for MY body.

And y’know, with how off kilter my diet was, I actually LOST weight on our honeymoon, because of all the hiking we did. And since I’ve been back to work, I bicycle to and from work every day. While at work, I run around with children all day, literally. And I kneel and bend and stand. I’m constantly going. With all that exercise, plus all the constant walking and hiking and climbing we did in the UK for 18 days, you’d think building up muscles and toning myself would have a beneficial effect on my system.
But no.

Hell, I’d be happy to just know whether or not the endo is growing back again, and where, WITHOUT having to have surgery again. Because if someone can say yes, it’s grown back, then I don’t have to feel like I’m going insane or imagining things.

In the meantime, I can’t focus. I started this journal entry around 3pm and it’s taken all day just to get this far.

I rarely take Tylenol 3 to quiet an anxiety brain but tonight I did. I’ve taken Tylenol 3 about three times in the past week before bed because of severe joint and low back pain as related to endometriosis symptoms. Tonight it’s just doing double duty.

My husband and I were talking about what to eat for dinner, and I said I was craving Pad Thai. Then I thought for a second… didn’t I get major cramps last time I ate Pad Thai with shrimp?

Why yes. Yes I did.
Noted on January 20, 2009 and also noted on September 16, 2007.

I’m super glad that I now have everything documented on one searchable server.

I’ll be avoiding Pad Thai altogether tonight just to be safe, cuz george is due by Monday, and I’ve already had moderate pelvic pain extending down my legs to my knees all day today as it is. Although, I ate forbidden foods this morning, too — scrambled eggs and bacon.

The PMS cravings lead me to hurt myself. Why does the body do that to itself!?

Today I am feeling better.

Saturday morning, I had a revelation - getting pain two weeks before menses is due IS actually normal for me! It’s how it was for me all those years before I had surgery.

I noted it in May, 2006 and in July, 2006, a year before my surgery.

*big sigh*

So I had two good years, if you can call them good. I never experienced complete pain relief, but the surgery did at least some good: I did gain a week and a half of my life back every month for two years.

After five days of being in moderate pelvic pain, culminating with me taking a total of 1,800mg of ibuprofen on Saturday throughout the day, and capping it off with a Tylenol 3 and a heating pad….

Today I woke up in no pain and stayed that way all day.

And get this - last night I ate like complete crap. I ate gluten-free cookies, I ate Cheetos (first time in many months), I ate chocolate pudding… all that you’d think I’d be in screaming pain. But no. I ate this stuff while already being in pain. And then today - no pain. So it doesn’t matter what I do for dietary management. The pain will happen no matter what I do. This doesn’t mean I’m going to embark on a diet of chocolate cookies and cheetos - it just means I won’t be so hard on myself anymore when I don’t stick to a strict diet in some aspects. And of course with the gluten and yeast allergies anyway, I still do have to keep a strict diet.

I’m eight days away from menses. Will I stay pain-free until then? Will I experience debilitating pain on my last week on the job? Today I feel great, tomorrow I have no idea.

On Friday, the on-call GYN said it is normal with endometriosis as bad as mine to get mid-cycle pain that lasts that long, and she was right. I’d forgotten, is all. I used to get it like this before surgery. I had two good years before the shit started growing back again badly.

Time to start researching Dr. Cook, who is local, Dr. Redwine, who’s up in Oregon, and the Center for Endometriosis Care out in Georgia, because I am NOT going to go through just any OB/GYN surgeon ever again.

…annnd my ears just began stinging and feeling hot to the touch, and looking in the mirror I see they are both beet red.
I know from experience that this is a hormonal or immunological thing with me.
I had sushi for dinner with wheat-free soy sauce. However, soy sauce has phytoestrogens and yeast in it. So I’m likely having a reaction. Better my ears than my gut, I always say.
..ugh..now getting a headache and red itchy upper cheeks. :(

On Friday, as a sort of treat to myself, I went to my favourite coffee shop. I had planned to be up late on Friday and was very tired, so I thought caffination would be my best option. And it might have been had I just came straight home and had Irish tea instead of coffee.

But no, I not only had coffee, I had TRIPLE espresso.

Now here’s the thing - please refer to my No Fly List - I’m not supposed to have caffeine, nor am I supposed to have anything in the bean family. Coffee is made from coffee beans and I DO react to them.

WTF was I thinking? My rationale at the time was:

• Want treat!
• Can’t get my usual mocha because I’m not supposed to have cow’s milk so I know! How about straight up espresso then!
• Wow that’s only a little bit for a single, that won’t do. I’ll take a triple and just sip it over time.

Dumbass.

I wasn’t able to sleep til 3am Saturday and then I was only able to stay asleep for five hours before getting up for the day.

The first thing I noticed Saturday morning was how badly ALL my joints ached and throbbed. I have confirmed osteoarthritis in my cervical spine, my thoracic spine and my knees (with crepitus also present in the knees). All these areas were KILLING me starting Saturday morning.

My blood sugar was wonky for all of Saturday. I didn’t want to eat because my stomach and intestines felt gutted and pock-marked from the coffee. So the hypoglycemia got worse and I got a bad headache. And then my knuckles and cuticle-area of my fingers began to split open and bleed, which happens EVERY TIME I eat anything in the legume family.

The depression and anxiety set in today.

I went grocery shopping this afternoon, and became quite bitter over two things:

1. The scarcity and choice of gluten-free, dairy-free, high fructose corn syrup-free products that don’t taste like ass.
2. Why gluten-free, dairy-free etc products must cost an arm and a leg.

I mean, I know WHY such products cost an arm and a leg - it costs a tad more to produce, and the companies realise that by making it a ’specialty’ item, they can also cash in with extra profit because they are greedy assholes.

But for chrissakes people, if you’re going to make a cheese that is lactose-free, WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY DO YOU HAVE TO PUT HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP IN IT?!?!

I found myself exclaiming aloud, “CORN SYRUP?!? Oh you have GOT to be fecking kidding me!” and I threw the cheese back down and walked off. As I walked off, a man looked up from his shopping to see what I was on about, and peered over at the cheese in question. GOOD. I hope he gets on a rant, too.

I was also disturbed to discover that my favourite brand of chunk light tuna fish, which is packed in water, also contains soy. WHY did I never see this before? It’s because I trusted the front of the can - when it says it’s packed in WATER, I trusted that it’s JUST water, not ALSO “vegetable broth (soy)” as listed in the ingredients on the back of the can!

First off, I can’t have soy. Soy can’t be trusted to not be genetically modified. Soy is in the legume family and I am allergic to legumes - I get atopic dermatitis flareups. Soy contains phytoestrogens, which are bad for people with endometriosis.

Secondly, eating tuna packed in water vs. vegetable oil is healthier for you because it contains less calories and fat.

Third, tuna packed in water retains more omega-3 oils than tuna packed in vegetable oil.

This is my life - I constantly have to recheck foods I’ve previously approved because I end up missing something, or there’s been a reduction in quality to save a few bucks and cheaper/dangerous ingredients have been added or substituted.

I had to go through all the cans of tuna on the shelves to find any that might have ONLY TUNA AND WATER and no other added ingredients. I had to literally sit on the floor as if in a library, checking out the books on the bottom shelf. Ugh.
I finally found canned tuna in water and water only, but it was only 4.5oz rather than the usual 6oz can.

Of course, the can of tuna that does not contain additional destructive ingredients but contains roughly ⅙ less amount of tuna is twice the price as the other cans of tuna. It comes in a fancy gold can, and is branded with a heart logo which reads “natural source of OMEGA-3″ and “VERY LOW SODIUM”.
Further, it’s not the tuna I want. It’s not chunk light tuna. It’s albacore tuna, which contains more mercury than light meat tuna.

So let’s get this straight… you’re telling me to choose between SOY added to my tuna, or mercury poisoning?

WTF!!!!!!!

My mental stability began to degrade further at this point. I talked out loud again, cursing the fact that I now have to spend more money even for my tuna, just because of my health issues.

To top it all off, when I got home from the grocery store, I found more ants in the kitchen.

I had a full on crying breakdown at that point.

I’ve spent the past week not eating in the house because the sight of ants takes away my appetite. It’s winter in California, therefore everyone’s house is under attack by tiny ants. It’s just how it goes.
I’ve been grabbing what little food I’ve had left in the fridge and taking it with me to work this past week - eating breakfast on the way or when I get in to work. When I got home from work, I didn’t eat dinner, or I went out to eat instead.
I thought two applications of borax/sugar gel from the exterminator (he showed up for a second time this past week), and all the orange ‘Bugs R Done’ spray I’ve been applying would surely have killed those suckers off by now.
But no.

So I was not eating, and at night I was suffering nightmares of waking up with ants on my face. Then I top off the week with a deadly treat.

Nice going.

So here I am, supposed to be in bed, and I’m not tired, and I have anxiety, and my entire spine from top to bottom is aching.

All because I had coffee on Friday.

I want to stay up all night researching the biology and mechanics of caffeine on the system, so I can blog about it on the main site, but I can’t. It’s one more thing to add to my extensive list of things to research for myself and others, so we have more than “I was told I should stay away from this” and really know WHY we MUST stay away from it.

You’d think that after nearly nine years of diet modification and identifying foods that make things worse for me, that I’d have developed enough discipline to stay away from those bad foods. Instead, I’ve just become bitter and resentful, and every now and then I cry out “I deserve a treat dammit! I want that tasty food too!”
And I suffer the consequences. I’m not really saying I deserve a treat after all, am I?

What I’m really saying is that I think it’d be a fine day to punish myself. Wow I’m feeling GREAT, I think I’ll give myself a nasty food reaction. Yeah! Now doesn’t that feel better!

My cousin, who has end stage hepatitis C, is totally right. He was ranting to me about similar in recent months. He said, “We could be dyin’ from a bullet wound and shoot ourselves again. Hey that’s not enough pain, gimme a knife!”

Yep.

When will I learn.

Around 9:30-10pm tonight, I was sitting on the couch watching TV with my husband when the pain set in again. Only this time, it was far worse than the pain I’d had all day.

Going by the Mankoski Pain Scale, I was a 7 all day. But tonight, it reached 8.5.

All day, I’d gotten by with Motrin and half a Tylenol 3 at regular dose intervals. But tonight when the pain reached 8.5, I took a full Tylenol 3, did the ‘child’s pose’ yoga pose, stretched my back, did my breathing exercises… none of it helped.

It wasn’t until I took a second Tylenol 3 that the pain slowly diminished. Normally I’d be passed out by now but I’m left with jaw clenching from all the codeine. Not good for my old TMJ problem (going back to the head injury in the car accident in ‘94).

My husband wondered if I might be developing a tolerance to the Tylenol 3.

How?

I only take it once a month for a few days at a time. And today, I was stoned silly on just half a Tylenol 3 every 4 hours.

I hope he’s not right.

In any case, the pain finally went away. The bleeding ramped up but not by a lot during the pain spike.

I put myself in all my pain moment on video. First time I did that. I’ll post the video tomorrow.

The reason for the pain spike? I am wondering now if it was the eggs that were mixed into the pad thai I had for dinner. I tried to pick the egg bits out but I probably didn’t get them all.

Last time I ate eggs while menstruating - I had them sunny side up and ate them for dinner - this was in April, 2008 - and I ended up on the floor screaming in pain and had to be taken to E.R..

I’ve got an egg allergy that normally leaves me with racing heart and panic feelings. But when combined with endometriosis flareup, it makes for much danger.

That’s all I can think caused the pain spike tonight. Tiny bits of egg.

My ma has been told for years that she has hypoglycemia and is borderline diabetic.
After I had pancreatitis at the young age of 21, I began to also exhibit hypoglycemia. I was told that this was due to the pancreas being forever weakened because it had become acutely inflamed. The cause was never determined, though one doctor speculated I must be an alcoholic because I was 21 years old and in college, so OBVIOUSLY I was a rabid partier (bugger the fact that #1 I commuted to college and also worked full time to help my ma pay off her debt, #2 I was still quite naive and under the influence of my Christian Fundamentalist mother and #3 I was working as a daycare teacher in a Christian daycare).
A nurse speculated that the acute pancreatitis was likely the result of being put on Cipro (very strong antibiotic) for recurrent sinus infections during my first couple years working with children in a daycare setting.

I’ve always gone with the nurse’s idea of how the pancreatitis happened, because I certainly wasn’t a fracking alcoholic.

Many years later, in 2006, I was doing diet elimination to try to see what foods might be making my Endometriosis pain worse. I took out wheat and 2 weeks later, added it back in.
My body let me know wheat was NOT okay.

When people ask me what my reaction is to eating wheat, I always say it feels like hypoglycemia. I get irritated, I get a headache, nausea, eye pain, tunnel vision…these are all the things my ma says she gets with hypoglycemia, so I’d assumed for years that I too had hypoglycemia.

The problem with that theory is that once I cut wheat out of my diet for several months, I stopped getting ‘hypoglycemic’ attacks. So I’ve been trying to convince my ma that she doesn’t have hypoglycemia or borderline diabetes. If she just cuts wheat and yeast out of her diet like I did, she may find that she too recovers from this affliction. But she won’t have it. And other people I’ve talked to can’t seem to see the connection.

In 2006 and again in 2008, I was tested for Celiac, and it came back negative both times. But I’m told I present classic for Celiac. I’ve been urged to do an endoscopy but why go through that when I can just abstain from the foods?
Then again I guess it’s best to know for certain if I have Celiac, cuz of what I’m about to show you.

Here comes the HA! I TOLD YOU SO part…

Researchers believe Diabetes and Celiac disease linked
LONDON, U.K.– Scientists at the University of Cambridge and Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry confirmed Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes and celiac disease appear to share a common genetic origin.

Their findings, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, identified seven chromosome regions which are shared between the two diseases.
The research suggests that type 1 diabetes and celiac disease may be caused by common underlying mechanisms such as autoimmunity-related tissue damage and intolerance to dietary antigens (foreign substances which prompt an immune response).
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder which causes the body to attack the beta cells of the pancreas, limiting its ability to produce the insulin necessary to regulate blood sugar levels.
Celiac disease, also an autoimmune disorder, attacks the small intestine and is triggered by the consumption of gluten (a protein found in wheat, barley and rye) and cereals. The development and anatomy of the small intestine and pancreas are closely related, and the gut immune system shares connections with pancreatic lymph nodes, which have been linked to an inflammation of the pancreas and the destruction of beta cells.
The researchers, were funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and Coeliac UK, believe that these regions of the chromosomes regulate the mechanisms that cause the body’s own immune system to attack both the beta cells in the pancreas and the small intestine.
Their results suggest that type 1 diabetes and celiac disease not only share genetic causes but could have similar environmental triggers as well.
Type 1 diabetes and celiac disease together affect about 1% of the population.

Good times.

Well I’ve gone and done it again. I’ve eaten a forbidden food and now I’m paying for it. My entire body feels like fleas are crawling and biting me.

I had 3/4 cup of Thai Kitchen brand boxed Spicy Thai Chili Jasmine Rice.

Within half an hour of eating the rice, my whole body got itchy, I felt light-headed, headachey and sleepy, and then the anxiety and heart racing began.

The food is billed as gluten free, which is why I bought it. However, it also contains MSG in the forms of Hydrolyzed Soy Protein and Autolyzed yeast extract. I saw this on the label when I bought the food, but I ignored it, thinking I’d be alright, because I didn’t remember having a reaction to this rice before.

Well, now I’ve learned my lesson. No MSG in any form, under any relabeling. It’s a neurotoxin, it’s dangerous, it’s already on my NO FLY list, and it will kill me.

The worst part is waiting to get this crap out of my system. *itch itch itch*

Tonight my man took me out to sushi. I brought along my wheat-free tamari.

We tried two new items; king oyster mushrooms, and the waiter’s special tea that he’d gotten from a friend touring in Taiwan. He wasn’t sure what kind of tea it was, but said the loose translation of the Chinese meant ‘mountain tea’, and that it was a famous brand in Taiwan. I peeked inside the cup as the tea was brewing, and saw that the leaves were tiny rolled up balls. As the tea steeped, the balls opened up to lovely green leaves and stems, and tinted the water a greenish-yellow
When I got home, I researched the tea - I think it was an oolong tea, because it had a lovely perfumey scent/flavour and matched the physical description of what I saw in my cup. I highly doubt either of the mushrooms or the tea caused the GI reaction that I had about an hour after eating. I only had one episode of diarrhea, and barely any cramping leading up to it, so it was a mild reaction by my body’s standards.

That leads me to believe that either the rice was glutinous or that the gluten-free tamari somehow had some gluten in it. I researched the tamari on the web and found out that other people had complained about getting sick after using the wheat-free tamari.

Person #1 (although the people on the forum were of no help whatsoever to her).

Person #2 (2nd reply in the thread)

Within that second link, I saw the term ‘histamine toxicity’, so I looked it up and found this educational article.
Also in that second link, people talked about the possibility of mold being in the soy sauce.

So the possibilities I have are:

• Soy allergy
• Gluten was in the rice
• Mouldy soy
• Yeast contamination somehow

Then again, one of the dishes I had contained a sauce on top of the sushi roll. I wonder if there was any gluten in the mayonnaise-based sauce? It’s difficult to find these things out when the people at the sushi joints we frequent do not speak much English.

This is why I gave up eating Chinese food. First they told me “oh yes - vegetarian” when I would ask if a meal was veggie only, no meat, come to find out that it had pork in it (back when I was vegetarian) … and then they told me “no, no wheat, no gluten” when I’d ask, only to have a fried batter dish served to me. This happened at too many Chinese restaurants to mention over the years. I just got to the breaking point and fired Chinese food from my diet rather than continue risking getting sick.

I really really don’t want to have to give up Japanese food, too.

My next steps:

• Go back to the same restaurant
• …with a new bottle of wheat-free tamari
• Ask for the dish I got again, sans the sauce
• Try the mushroom dish again

And Wait For It.

November 5, 2008 edit: Sorry it took so long to update. The culprit was the sauce they put on top of the roll.

I didn’t have pain on Friday morning, though I was still bleeding. So I had really bad pain and bleeding for three days - on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - this time around. That for me is about right. A five-day cycle overall, with three really bad days.

I did go in to work at the new assignment on Friday. This place is a government-run facility, I’m told. There was order, stability, curriculum, and professional staff. I asked if they’d need me again soon. By lunchtime, they asked me if I really did want to come back, because they saw how well the kids responded to me, and said they liked my work.
Even though I have social phobia with other adults, and even though I felt extremely awkward, I really liked that center so much better than the first one I was assigned to.

By the end of the workday on Friday, I’d had a child plop down in my lap during story time, and another child drew me a card with flowers on it, and yet another child grabbed hold of the back of my shirt and decided to be my shadow during recess. Mad giggling ensued when I turned around and asked who was behind me - she moved with me every time I twisted and turned - obscuring her identity. I figured the only way to get her to let go of my shirt was to climb the monkey bars and go down the slide. It worked - and I “ran” to get away from her again, but she’d catch me every time and we’d have to repeat the scenario. ;) After the second time around, I had upwards of six or seven children playing this game, running after me, giggling like crazy. :)

George went away by Friday evening, and just in time for a cold to settle in. I woke up in the middle of the night with phlegm and a very sore throat. Ugh. I began taking 1,000mg vitamin C and popping the Cold-Eze cough drops again (this cold tried to settle in a week or two ago and I thought I’d fought it off).
I’ve had this sore throat on and off since Friday, and today it turned into a cough. Great. Good thing I have leftover codeine cough syrup from a year or so ago when I was sick. Hopefully I can fend the cold off again.

That’s the risk you take when working with children. Their germs are evil little mutating bastards. I have this saying - “children will kill ya!”

Friday night, my man took me out to dinner at our favourite Thai restaurant, and afterwards, we walked around town a bit.

On Saturday, I attended a friend’s birthday party *and* another friend’s wedding.
Today, we gathered at the bride and groom’s house for brunch, and watched them do the official signing of all the documents. I got to hear funny stories about the groom - I always like to hear families tell such stories. I’m a huge genealogy fan, so hearing anyone’s history, no matter how embarrassing or not, holds a lot of interest for me. I am fond of seeing families together, chatting, hanging out - doing what our family used to do before gramma and grampa moved back to Kentucky and the family fell apart without their parents as a solid rock and anchor nearby.

Bah, but I digress.

It was when we were on our way home from our friends’ house that my cough set in. And now I’m back home again, and I’m depressed all over again. I have our own wedding to continue planning. I feel alone in this planning.

Bleh. I’m so glad I don’t work tomorrow. I’m so glad I insisted on a 32-hour work week. I need tomorrow as a mental health day, and actually, I wonder how much sicker I’ll get with this cold. It’s definitely not helping with my depression. I’ve been depressed since the beginning of June - at least, that’s what my diary says.

I don’t know what else to say. Journaling got a lot off my chest, but I’ve not solved anything and I don’t feel any better emotionally like I usually do through journaling. I don’t know what else I can say or rant about in an attempt to make myself feel better.

Hmmm.

Maybe drinking a lot of alcohol socially over the past two weeks hasn’t helped my depression, either. :p

I know what would make me feel better. Winning the friggin’ lottery would make me feel better. I don’t want to work anymore. I don’t want to worry about rent and bills anymore. I don’t want to stress over wedding finances anymore.

One last thing, just so I have it preserved here - my thumb is doing much better. Ever since yesterday morning, or was it Friday night?… I’ve been constantly applying Curel lotion to my thumb. It’s healing up nicely, and much faster than applying that stupid steroidal ointment I was given from my doctor. I wonder if I’m also allergic to that. Wouldn’t surprise me. My ma is allergic to cortisone, and only found out when she had it injected for back pain. She can’t even have it topically - it makes her rash out and also look like some kind of leper.

Righto, that’s all I got.