I Will Not Suffer In Silence

My husband had woken me up about two hours after my last journal entry, to say he was going to take off to game night, unless I needed him to stay with me. I pleaded with him to stay. He said he would, but that he just didn’t know what to do if I was going to spend the rest of the day sleeping.
I told him that made me feel guilty - that he should just go to game, then.

It was clear he didn’t want to leave me alone, but he didn’t want to not be with his friends. It took me about 20 minutes or so to rouse myself out of my pain and pain medication stupor, but I told him “why don’t I just go with you to game, then?”

He liked that idea.

We collected my heating pads, my meds, the laptop in case I wanted to blog or attempt any homework, and two books; one for school and one for pleasure.

We got to our friend’s house and to my dismay, it smelled like smoke. I have a smoke allergy/chemical sensitivity. I was grouchy at my friend C - “WHY DID YOU SMOKE IN YOUR HOUSE.”
C replied, “Yeah but that was hours ago.”

I resigned to my fate - I was stuck here. My husband was already setting up the kitchen table for game night.

I was told where I could make myself comfortable, and I was told that a friend J, who lives in that house, was downstairs with a burst ovarian cyst. I didn’t want to disturb her unless I heard her crying out in pain, so I stayed upstairs in my own little world of pain.

I tried to heat up my heating pads, only to be reminded that they do not have a microwave in that house. I was directed to a big heating pad and was allowed to use that.

The offending smoker friend also helped set me up on his wireless network, but the moment I was set up, I was suddenly exhausted again and so I put the laptop away. I couldn’t even keep my eyes open long enough to hold conversation with anyone, watch TV, or read a book.

A third friend, also named J, who lives in that house, was also not feeling well. He sat in the living room on his laptop the entire night. He’s had spinal cord injury and had surgery after surgery to cauterise nerves. He thinks nerves are growing back or something, and is in a lot of pain again. I gave him one of my Tylenol 3 because he did not have any Norco on him.

At one point, around 8pm, the stabbing right side ovarian pain returned. I ended up on the floor, moaning in pain, rocking to and fro, with the heating pad. I was on all fours, then on my back, and then I settled into an arm chair w/ ottoman for the rest of the night. Their crazy cat October decided to be nice for once, and curled up on my tummy and purred all night. I was told she only likes women, and likes women best when they are in pain - that is the ONLY time that cat is nice.
Crazy cat.

So, the pain I had on Sunday lasted through until after 10pm, despite the fact that the bleeding had subsided again. My abs and ribs still felt bruised all that day.

I got home, showered, changed into my bedclothes, and went to bed.

Woke up Monday morning pain-free and got ready for my first day back to work. I was still spotting a little. I decided to try riding my bike to work, but as I went out the door to go to work, the pain set back in, and so I abandoned the bicycling idea and drove the measly one mile to work, instead. Glad I did. I needed my energy at work to move stuff around and help set up for the new school year.
I required a total of 800mg Advil to get through the day.

Got home and was very tired, but went on to my psychology appointment. I’m seeing a shrink again ever since I had a major depressive episode at the end of July. I’m still trying to figure out if it was JUST all the stress I have been under from school and finances, or if the Cannabidiol I tried for pain management set off an even worse episode of pre-existing stress and depression.
I evened out by August 18, but that was three weeks of pure hell from one menstrual cycle right up into this next menstrual cycle, which started on August 19. I am still on anti-anxiety meds (ativan).

I spent the rest of Monday evening hanging out with my husband, making and eating dinner, and watching TV. No homework got done on Monday.

Today is a new day - I start the clock so to speak - I have 21 days til next bedridden. Today I will go to work (not sure if driving or biking yet - it’s supposed to be in the 90s today so I guess biking would be better on the ozone), and when I get home, I will force myself to do some more homework.

In about 8 days, I will have Mittelschmerz - so the middle of next week - the first week the children are back to school. Hopefully it will go easy on me while I navigate my first week in the classroom.

One last thing - about last week sometime, I developed a cough again. So this is the second virus / cough since July 18 that I have caught. And now I’m going to enter a new school year with preschoolers. I expect to be sick continually in one form or another until December. I am pounding Vitamin C and Zinc and all the rest of my supplements, and will be back in the gym by no later than Thursday this week, once the heat wave cools down. Today is Day 2 of the first heat wave of the Northern California Summer.

Yesterday’s running thought was, “I cannot for the life of me believe that this much blood can keep coming out of me.”

The flow is usually heavy for several hours, then it dies down.

It never died down yesterday.

I turned in for the night after midnight and was still bleeding heavily and whimpering in pain and had nausea. My abdomen and stomach muscles all feel like I’ve been doing situps.

Actually, that may be true…yesterday was the first day I forced bedrest for much of the day, rather than continue sitting in the hard chair in the kitchen. Although it was easier on the pelvic pain to sit in that hard chair, I wanted badly to be under warm blankets and SLEEPING. So I forced the bedrest. Once in bed, I was restless and could not sleep for very long - due to the pain - so I kept sitting up.
Going from prone to sitting up uses the abdominal muscles. Perhaps I strained myself.

Or perhaps I’m bleeding so much that it’s “normal” for my abs to feel all bruised like this. I don’t know which scenario is true, and whether I should be concerned/scared…but the emotional truth is that I am really scared.

I woke up a few times during the night to go to the toilet, and even in the wee hours, I was still filling the bowl with blood - and also big clots. I kept saying to myself, “It’s never this heavy for this long. What is wrong?”

Both my gynecologist office and my local doctor herself called me back yesterday to tell me that all this bleeding is NOT caused by the endometrioma on my left ovary - that the ovary itself does not produce blood - that the bleeding is caused by the shedding lining of the uterus - that it must have just been extra thick lining this month.

And yet, every woman I’ve talked to who has dealt with ovarian cysts and/or endometriomas has said that they have encountered super heavy bleeding. My online friend V said she went through FOUR pads in one hour a few days ago!!! She also has an endometrioma.

Also, Mayo Clinic, the U.S. governmental Women’s Health page, and wikipedia all tell me that abnormal bleeding can be the result of having an ovarian cyst and/or endometrioma. These sites even mention the ‘bruised ribs’ / ‘worked out abs’ feeling I am experiencing - as being ‘normal’ for one who has an ovarian cyst or endometrioma.

So my endo sisters and the Internet ease my panic and fears over all this heavy bleeding, while once again, my doctors dismiss my experience.

I woke in pain at 7am, after emotional dreams. My best friend from high school and my best friend from back in 2002 - both who left me - was morphed into one person in the dream, and she was re-establishing contact with me to introduce me to her wife and show me her toddler son. She had been uneasy about this little reunion, because she thought I’d be mad at her for coming out of the closet, since I’d had a crush on her and she’d spurned me. I just wanted everything to be okay between us again. It was very awkward and emotional.

Anyway, I got out of bed and went and stood in the kitchen eating some food so that I could take more medication without running the risk of a stomach ache. I took an entire Tylenol 3, 600mg Ibuprofen, and .5mg Ativan.

I cannot remember how much medication I consumed yesterday. I think it was a total of three Tylenol 3 pills in a 14 hour period, and 1,200mg Ibuprofen, and .5mg Ativan.

My pain yesterday never got below a 7 on the pain scale, and was often hovering near 8. I need to also note that I’ve had annoying ‘growing pain’ type pain in the left leg all throughout this cycle.

In graphic terms, it would look like this on the Allie Brosh pain scale:

But when I woke at 7am this morning, still bleeding heavily and passing big clots, I became even more scared. I kept saying to myself, “The bleeding is supposed to have tapered off by now.” This put me in the Allie Brosh pain scale graphic of:

The drugs have kicked in, so I’m going back to bed. I lose another productive morning to the pain. I hope I do not lose the entire day like I did yesterday. There’s so much homework still to be done. I return to work on Monday. I had completely hoped I would have all of my homework done by the time I returned to work. Because of my emotional meltdown at the end of July and into the first three weeks of August, and because of the endometriosis pain last cycle and this cycle, I have lost MANY DAYS of productive homework time.

I hate this illness. I hate it. HATE. IT.

I am spotting today. I woke up fine with no low back pain or any back pain. I had no cramps. I was in the kitchen eating breakfast when the cramps and the hypoglycemia hit. This is at least Day 4 or 5 of having hypoglycemia issues. The last time I had to deal with that on a regular basis was when I was eating gluten and yeast.

Okay and sugar.

So I have to cut the sugar addiction once again. Blah.

Anyway, the low back pain is starting to set in. I did not take any ibuprofen yesterday like I said I would. Today - right now - I’m popping 400mg Ibuprofen. I’ve been wearing a panty-liner for the past two days, but now I definitely need it cuz as I said, I’ve begun spotting this morning. Super light pink.

This is of course just PERFECT, because I’m supposed to make up a missed class for Language Arts tomorrow and possibly Friday.

Great. Perhaps I’ll just go in today at lunchtime and see what all I can talk to the teacher about, and photograph, and illustrate. Yes. That sounds like a plan. Do that now before the horrific pain sets in.

Planning my entire life around the pain - that’s me.

When I woke this morning, it was before my alarm went off, and it was because my lower back hurt so bad that I wanted to cry. This is the same pain I get every month right before george arrives.
I got up and moved around, and the pain eased up, but then the hypoglycemia set in.

So far this morning, I have eaten two bowls of cereal, a homemade 16oz goat-milk yoghurt smoothie with bananas and strawberries, and two gluten free waffles with cinnamon and gluten-free, dairy-free buttery spread. That was two hours ago, and I’m already hungry again.

So far this morning, I have had brain fog due to the hypoglycemia, I am still wrestling with low-grade pelvic pain and the constant need to check to see whether george is here, and I’ve nearly cried three different times.

I have not pre-medicated this week. I should start taking the ibuprofen today. I always have doubts that it does any good, but whatever.

Last night before bed, I tried to do some Tibetan Relaxation, which turned into leg lifts because I have had restless legs and scattered energy and no focus going on…for weeks now (it’s part of the depression and mania I’ve been going through, lately).

About half an hour ago, I spent ten solid minutes jogging in circles around inside the house to let off some energy and clear the brain fog a bit. I think it worked, though my legs are still bouncy.

I have homework to do. I am so woefully behind on endo blogging on the main website and on the youtube and twitter pages related to endo. I need to clone myself, or learn how to better manage my time.

The spotting is very faint, now. There is no cramping today, though I did need a heating pad on my entire back and shoulders last night.

I slept for 11 hours overnight. This is the second time in a week that I’ve done this. I think I’m still catching up on my sleep deficit, acquired over the past six weeks when I was in summer school every weekday from 8am - 5pm. My last class was last Friday.
When commuting, I had to be up at 5am. When staying in a hotel, I did not sleep well and had to be up at 6am. So I think I’m just catching up on my sleep.

Tonight, my husband goes off to yet another game convention. He’s sharing a hotel room with several of his buddies, and says the total cost comes to $50 (minus, of course, food and sundries)…

I plan to stay locked in and working on homework all weekend, and eating whatever is left in the fridge, freezer and cupboards. Ugh. I am so spoiled and not looking forward to grazing or making do with what we have. I did not grow up so spoiled - in my childhood through my teen years, we had to make do, and we ate a lot of canned food and government rations. I am still haunted by the cheese bricks and the giant plastic containers of honey that hardened immediately.
Once I left home, I spent years doing what I wanted, food-wise and expense-wise, because I couldn’t in childhood.

Now I’m forced to look at mac ‘n cheese meals again.

Meh.

Today the pain and bleeding have subsided. I have only had minor pain with the occasional stabbing in both ovaries and the uterus. I’m still constipated. I have not had any pain meds yet today.

I’m still sick with a cough and chest congestion. I have not taken any cough syrup for it yet today, because it has codeine in it, which is constipating. I’m just coughing the junk up. Maybe tonight I’ll take more cough syrup.

Today I had an appointment with the pain management shrink, so I checked our financial status to see where I should pull money for the co-pay and parking fees. This is when I got a huge shock; apparently the school decided to deposit two checks at the same time after having held onto them for a couple of weeks. Apparently I had budgeted the money, assumed the checks were cashed, and continued spending money from the account without looking. This is something I always do. I have created lists and lists. I have printed my account balances out. I have tried spreadsheets and checkbook registers….and STILL I do not keep a tight enough mental handle on my money. STILL it flies out the door unchecked.
This time around, I even went so far as to print out the bank statements nearly every week and set it on my husband’s desk so he could provide the ‘checks and balances’ - the oversight - in case I had failed.

Well, he didn’t look at the balances too closely, or didn’t care. Worse, he didn’t keep the printouts with my side margin maths. He thinks he just glanced at the stuff and threw it away. There goes the oversight!

So we are in the hole - the joint account is completely drained, with bouncing checks and overdraft fees. My personal bank account has less than $300 in it (I need at least $300 in order to not be fined each month for falling below balance).

And there’s my credit cards - both are maxed out; one is at $2K and the other is at $6K. Most of that damage happened in May, 2009 for the honeymoon, and the cards were finished off in May, 2010 when we went to Michigan. Payments on those cards are due in the next week.

So now I owe my own husband over $1,000, and I still owe my employer at least $100 for a hotel stay during summer school, and I still owe the training school $325 for the last class I took.

Then there’s the medical bills - I owe hundreds of dollars in co-pays for the MRI, the ultrasound and the Emergency Room visit I had because of a co-worker wearing Chanel perfume to work - who knew I’d go nearly anaphylactic?

The school costs and the credit cards are due ASAP. The medical bills can wait.

I have ongoing appointments with all kinds of medical professionals - acupuncture, the head of pain management, the pain management shrink, and massage. I can no longer afford any of this unless my husband hands me the cash on the spot.

I’m going to make yet another list for him tonight, because he said he will crunch numbers and see what he can offer me.
He’s already paying all of the rent, most of the groceries, and all of the bills. *sigh*

I am not scheduled to return to work til the end of August. I have so much homework that I NEED that time off, anyway.

The financial mess I’ve gotten us into has wrecked me emotionally. I thought I’d planned well enough to avoid this, and yet here we are. I cried at the pain management shrink today, but not about the finances. I cried about my illness necessitating all of these appointments. I skirted around the financial issue and focused on the quality of life issue. I said I just want to go back to ‘blissful ignorance’ and just stop trying to MANAGE this illness, when it just seems that there’s no managing it.
The truth is that I NEED to learn how to manage my stress and my pain, so I NEED these pain management clinics. I just think however that I can get what I NEED for FREE through the dispensaries, thanks to my Prop. 215 certification. So I’ll make out the list of services I need and see if I can get everything I need from the dispensaries, and sadly I will have to fire UCSF because it’s a huge financial drain.

In other news:
Today I am starting the kidney and liver detox diet. It lasts one month. I am not going to do the gallstone flush at the end of the month, because I do not believe it works. I do however still believe in the detox itself. Here are the details:

DETOX WEEK 1

Night before first day - Make kidney tea.
1 Tbs. Tea mix into 1 cup cold water in non-metal pot (enamel or glass)
Heat to boiling point (do not boil) and then turn down to simmer for 20 minutes. Leave out overnight. Can be made a few days at a time, extra to be refrigerated.
Warm (do not boil) before drinking.

Breakfast: (or at any time of day) Kidney Tea: Strain tea. Warm and drink one cup.

Supplements before meal: 2 clove capsules

Supplements with meal:
1 ginger
1 Uva Ursi

Lunch: Supplements before meal: 2 clove capsules

Supplements with meal: 1 ginger

Dinner: Supplements before meal: 2 clove capsules
7 wormwood capsules

Seven Vegetable Soup OR Parsley Tea 1 cup boiling water, steep a few tbs. chopped parsley for 3 minutes, strain & drink (or at any time of day)

Supplements with meal: 1 ginger
2 Uva Ursi

Before Bed: 3 tsp. Black walnut tincture in 1 cup of water

Make tea for following day if needed

Do not consume caffeine in any form (coffee, sodas, teas, chocolate) as it is counterproductive.

I forgot to make the tea so I’ll do that this afternoon. I forgot to take the 7 Vegetable Soup out of the freezer, so I just did that now and it should be ready for me by tomorrow night.

Yesterday I observed something interesting - I had an aggrivated bladder after drinking less than half a 20oz of Mountain Dew Code Red® (which contains corn syrup).

Usually I get uterine pain after consuming anything with corn syrup, but this time it was simulated UTI/overstimulation of the bladder. I had painful urgency for the rest of the day.

This morning, I woke with actual uterine cramping. I’m about a 2.5 to a 3 on the pain scale.
I checked the calendar and confirmed that this is also about the time I would normally experience Mittelschmerz. I usually get this mid-cycle pain on Day 8 of the new cycle, and Day 8 was on July 13. So I am at Day 9 and 10 when the bladder and uterine pain hit, and of course it was totally instigated by ingesting corn syrup. I might have not had mittelschmerz otherwise. Ah well.

I also don’t normally cave in to corn syrup anymore. I’ve been in summer school for teacher training, and my diet has gone completely to shit. I’ve been eating Wendy’s fast food burgers for chrissakes. Ugh.

I’m also not getting enough sleep - about 4-5 hours a night, and the homework load is a large part of it. Being in a room with 25 women (including the teacher) is also part of the stress load, because this group is the worst classroom dynamic I’ve seen in a long time. I actively only talk to one person in this group. It would have been 2 people but the other person I met last week was only there for last week it seemed. I’ve already had to have a stern talk with one of the women in the class, due to the fact that she’s behaving like a grade schooler. She was actively talking shit about other classmates (including for a large part me and my co-worker) and had the gall to believe no one could overhear her constant string of negativity. She was beside herself with shame when I confronted her quietly after class the other day.

Anyway, the stress level. UGH. The diet is out of control with red meat, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, and chocolate.

I’ve gotten drunk twice this month (manageably drunk - nowhere near staggering or blackout drunk).

I’ve been having IBS-like symptoms all month, because of how much stress I’m under.

I have had several near-panic attacks (the throat feeling like the fluttering/closing up, and the chest pains/tightness, and the nausea and dizziness), which have hit while driving to and from school as well as at home, and I have had one full on panic attack which woke me from sleep. I thought I was having a heart attack until I googled the symptoms and realised this is what I used to regularly experience back in 2000-2002 and was on Xanax for.
Thankfully, my husband has some Xanax leftover from when he had to fly to Michigan (he hates flying). I took one full milligram of it under the tongue that night of the big panic attack, and it calmed me down within 10 minutes.

The next bedridden time is next Saturday, July 24. It’s probably going to be a bad one.

The good news I guess is that after next week, I’ll be done with the summer intensive school program.

Oh - one last thing - on the chemical sensitivity front, I have only been using Dr. Bronner’s soap, and so my fingers have NOT been splitting open! They’ve healed quite nicely, including my thumb! I carry a wee container in my pocket and use it when I’m at school or anywhere that I have to use a public restroom. My husband filled the soap containers at home with the Dr. Bronners, too. So we have no more of that Softsoap in the house. I’m convinced the Triclosan in it has been aggravating my dermatitis.
I also took care of the chemical attacks at school - I bought Trader Joe’s cleaning liquid, which contains clary sage oil, instead of harsh fragrances and chemicals. I filled up the dispensers with it and the women have been using it without complaint, and I don’t have to run from the classroom at quarter to five in the afternoon anymore.

In the stress department, I have sacrificed eating breakfast and getting dressed just to make time for this blog entry on the state of my health, for my own posterity. I have to leave for school in 18 minutes. :(

I had it in my head that I have been experiencing nausea for the past month, even when I am not on my menstrual cycle, and that this must somehow be a new development.

Then I got word of the MRI results, saying I have cysts in my liver, kidney, cervix, and I have an endometrioma on my left ovary. I thought for sure the nausea had to be tied to one or more of those, but fixated on the endometrioma, because I recalled being pretty nauseated in the past when dealing with ‘regular’ ovarian cysts.

So yesterday I’d had enough of the nausea - it got so debilitating that I could not read my homework anymore. Friends on facebook asked if I’d contacted a doctor about this. Uh..no, I haven’t, heh! So I did.

My local doctor’s office - the on-call doctor of the day - called me back after 9pm last night, and I asked him if he could prescribe Cesamet, which I heard about through a Canadian endometriosis buddy a couple of years ago.
He said no, his office doesn’t touch the stuff. He went on to say he did not think my nausea is being caused by the endometrioma or the liver or kidney cysts. He said he has never heard of nausea being brought on by an ovarian cyst, and says he’s been practicing medicine for many years. He was condescending and talked down to me and was authoritative, and suggested something else is going on that I should get checked out for. He said I should come in for a checkup. In the meantime, he suggested I try taking peppermint tea or ginger tea for the nausea. I told him I’ve already done that to no avail. He then sent in a prescription for Phenergan. I looked it up and decided the side effects were once again worse than the problem, and so I will not chance taking the stuff. Remember that I am the person who hallucinates on Tagamet and could only handle 6-8mg of any SSRI medication at a time without severe side effects, and over the long term, I am *still* trying to recover from the two years I spent on SSRIs.

ANYWAY, so Phenergan is out.

This morning, one of my gynecologist’s minions assistants called me back, and I talked to him about the nausea. He was MUCH more diplomatic than the local asshat doctor. He said that their office does not have experience with prescribing Cesamet, and so he unfortunately could not help me with that. He also said it seemed unusual that I should be experiencing nausea with an ovarian cyst. He told me that he felt the endometrioma was way too small to be causing problems for me at this stage. He also doubted that the liver and kidney cysts could be stirring up nausea, but he suggested I speak with a gastroenterologist if I am still concerned. I thanked him for his time and we hung up.

Gastroenterology, eh? Well I’ve already ordered the liver and kidney detox supplements, and they’re on their way. So I’ll try that first, before hiring on yet another specialist.

Today, just to say I have covered all my bases, I contacted one of the two Cannabis dispensaries I am registered with under Prop 215, but they would not speak to me by phone, and said I’d have to visit in person or send an email. So I emailed both dispensaries to ask if they carry or can get Cesamet. No one is available to take me to the dispensaries today, and I’m in no shape to go out on my own.

I do not have confidence that the dispensaries can get Cesamet.

This leaves me wondering about the nausea. So I searched my own blog, and was frustrated to find that I had posted about this 98 times throughout the life of my journal! I went back and made a category for this one keyword, to make it easier for me to search next time. Ugh.

So what does this mean?

This means that the nausea is nothing to be alarmed by, whether it’s on cycle or off. I usually had this only on cycle, but apparently having nausea between cycles - it’s just part of living with endometriosis.

Go me.

I am truly frustrated and feeling at my wits’ end by having to continue residing in this meatsack. I feel I am reaching the bottom of the emotional pit this month. I hope that means that after today, the pain and bleeding will ease up, and I will be able to emerge once again from the Underworld.

Each month that I must pass through the Underworld, I grow weary of ever making it back out alive again. I fear that one of these days, I’m just going to give up and make it my permanent home out of sheer exhaustion with having to battle this illness.

I had my little three-day pity party, and now I’m ready to formulate a new battle plan.

Friday night I hung out with my husband and our friends, and we had game night. I drank two vodka drinks that night. I got a buzz but did not get drunk. I ate a lot of chocolate covered espresso beans and cheese. I was in ’screw it’ mode with regards to my diet. I felt like nothing I do makes any difference - my body is going to continue to be diseased - so why not just live my life the way I want to, and eat the junk I want to eat?

Well, Saturday morning I found out why I can’t do that.

When I woke up, all my joints were aching, and I had a new round of pelvic pain going on, and my breasts were so tender that I wanted to cry. I knew the culprit was firstly all the caffeine and secondly, the booze. I know this because Tyler knows this I have direct experience with noting how my body reacts to caffeine and to alcohol.

However, the brain weasels were still invading en force on Saturday (yesterday).

I went to my friend for a massage (she is trained!) and had a lovely session with her. I started out wanting to cry my eyes out, and my voice was very shaky. I ended up with a lovely state of relaxation that carried me through the next five hours. Alas, the brain weasels are a strong lot.
However, as I was going out the door last night, a co-worker called and asked me if I’d like to share a hotel room with her for the next training class on July 5. I was confused as to the dates, and so she called her mom (who runs the school I work at).

Get this - I thought my next class was this coming week, but it’s not! It’s not until NEXT week! Hooray! I was soooo stressed out about getting all my homework done from the last class, and now I have another week to do it. My co-worker told me not to stress, that I actually have all summer to get my homework done. This jives with what two other co-workers have told me. But the teacher I had for this last class was telling everyone the homework was due June 21, and I was all stressed to hell that it was late already. So glad I have more time. And on top of it, now I have a room to share instead of footing the entire bill for a room myself. Commuting down to Sunnyvale had been quite a bitch last time. Getting a hotel room is much more preferable.

As I was saying, I was on my way out the door. I went with my husband and two friends to see Concrete Blonde’s 20th Anniversary Reunion concert last night (OMG it was so awesome!!), but I was still such a spaz that I felt I needed a drink. I would have taken a half a Tylenol 3 were it not for the fact that I’d left my medication in the car. So I drank to quell the brain weasels, instead. I only had one drink - Mount Gay rum with club soda and some lime. It was godawful but that’s the best the bartender could come up with outside of corn syrup-infested alternatives. I should have just had the rum neat. Ah well. It did its job in the end.

I wore a corset to the show last night, hoping it would stabilise my back, because I always get bad back pain when standing at concerts.

The corset didn’t help. So there I was, in moderate back pain by the middle of the show, and I didn’t have any meds on me, and I didn’t want to drink any more booze in case the back pain got worse, or even worse, in case the pelvic pain returned.

On the drive home from the concert, my mid back began to spasm. I laughed hysterically and kept saying, “at least it’s not pelvic pain, this is actually manageable!” I tore at the corset strings and ripped the thing off, and dug my hands into my back to try to work out the spasm. Things didn’t calm down until I got home and smooshed my back to a tennis ball to the wall and rolled on it to try to work the blood flow in the back.

A TMI note - I was intimate with my husband and right afterwards, the pelvic pain kicked up. I need to note this because I am clinically diagnosed with dyspaneuria, and now I’m ever aware of the cysts on my cervix thanks to the latest MRI report. There was a tiny bit of blood in the vaginal discharge after intimacy. The nerve pain began immediately - first a tiny tickle near my cervix, then fringing out slowly to a burning sensation inwards, radiating throughout my entire pelvis. I reached about a 4 on the pain scale, but I did not take meds because I’d had one rum drink earlier in the night.

Today I’m going to review the list of inflammatory foods, and resolve to cut out sugar and ALL dairy (including goat milk) from my diet. The Budwig diet however calls for yoghurt, so I dunno what to do with that, yet. Maybe I’ll make an exception and just have goat milk yoghurt in the diet and keep the restriction to no cow’s milk anything, no bottled goat milk, no cheese, etc.

The point to the new battle plan is that I want to try to stave the growth of the endometrioma on my left ovary.

Wish me luck. The last time I cut sugar out of my diet, I had an emotional meltdown from the withdrawals.

First the catchup stuff:

June 20 was the worst pain day for shoulder, back and neck strain, then it became at least bearable for the rest of the week in through today.

June 22 - I was at Costco around 8pm when suddenly I was doubled over with right side stabbing ovarian pain. The intermittent stabbing lasted for over an hour and made me double over several times. It took the breath away from me. I did not medicate though. Also, I had low back pain all day - I felt very stiff.

I’d like to mention that I’ve also been having diarrhea after meals, lately. Even and especially with safe foods. It could be stress from everything. I dunno. I just need to note it, because normally I’m a very constipated person. I wish I could remember when it started, but it’s been going on for at least two weeks - usually one or two episodes a day.

Within the past five days, I have resumed taking two to four calcium/magnesium pills per day. This of course is not helping with the diarrhea.

June 23 - Yesterday - I was still experiencing left and right side ovarian stabby pain. It was still intermittent. My lower back was hurting a lot. It was hard to straighten after sitting or bending. Still having diarrhea. Also, I had my followup appointment with my new GYN (Giudice), and we went over the MRI results.

The appointment was about a half hour and was rushed because my GYN needed to be on a plane to some conference. I was originally scheduled to come in at 11am, then the day before, it was moved to 10am, then to 9am.

She quickly went over the MRI results with me and hit the big point - adenomyosis. She told me that based on the image, there is not any thickening of the inner uterine walls, so that rules out adenomyosis. YAY!

She told me I still have the chocolate cyst on my ovary, and said it is indeed an endometrioma, but she totally acted nonchalant about it, and said we’d continue to just watch it. She said she has no intention of going in and doing surgery just to remove that chocolate cyst, and she doesn’t see why I need another endometriosis surgery, either. She urged me to keep trying physical therapy and alternative health remedies and pain management instead of going the other three routes: hormone therapy, seizure medication, surgery. She referred me to the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, across the street from her UCSF campus. I went and checked it out - they have a bunch of services I can get where I live and not stress the hell out by being stuck in traffic across the Bay Bridge, and then navigating the crazed lunatic streets of San Francisco. Thanks, I’ll pass on your lovely center.

I got home yesterday afternoon and before scanning my MRI results into the computer, I read over the report.

This is where the emotional wall collapsed.

The GYN didn’t think it necessary to mention that the chocolate cyst on my ovary GREW by .5cm within 36 days. I wasn’t sure how fast or slow endometriomas can grow, so I looked it up and it seems that endometriomas can grow very fast within a short period of time. In that regard, I think .5cm might be considered slow growth.

Fast or slow - it doesn’t matter - the sucker is growing.

I’m not used to dealing with an endometrioma. I have experience with ovarian cysts. This is new territory for me. It’s scary.

The GYN also didn’t find it necessary to tell me that while I don’t have adenomyosis, I DO have several small cysts in the liver, one small cyst in the right kidney, and several cysts covering my cervix.

WELL. I had a brush with high liver enzymes in 2008, and all the Tylenol 3 I consume takes a toll on my liver and kidneys, doesn’t it? I have been experiencing nausea and left flank pain well above the ovary ongoing throughout this month. I have been having diarrhea. I have had ongoing elevated temperature, reaching as high as 99.9°F.
All this time I attributed it to the ovarian cyst, but could it be from the liver cysts?

On top of all that, I have a recent history of cervicitis, and well, my cervix is everted, so why not add some cysts?

I looked it up and found that cysts in the liver and kidneys are not caused by Tylenol or medication, but in fact are often congenital and coincide with autoimmune disease.

Guess who has autoimmune disease?

I called the GYN office back and asked for clarification of the MRI report. Then I called up the Qigong practitioner I thought I wasn’t going to see anymore, and left a message for her. Then I called my local doctor’s office and got an appointment for today.

The GYN office called back after hours, bless their hearts, and the GYN’s assistant told me that the cysts are all nothing to worry about. She told me to follow up with my primary care doctor if I wanted to, though.

Today I did just that, and the primary doctor (Fredian) called up UCSF and spoke with a hepatologist in radiology, who looked at my MRI report, and told my doctor that the cysts in the liver and kidney are nothing to worry about, that they’re so small they won’t cause trouble or show up on a regular ultrasound.

However, Dr. Fredian wanted me to stop referring to the thing on my ovary as an ovarian cyst. She told me it’s much more than that - it has some solidity to it. Despite the common name ‘chocolate cyst’, this is actually a growing MASS on my ovary, and it should be closely watched. She told me the difference between this mass and a ‘regular’ ovarian cyst is that this cannot reabsorb.

This of course did not help my emotional state to make the conscious switch from the idea of a benign cyst to a nefarious growth.

The doctor concluded our appointment, congratulated me on not having adenomyosis, and sent me on my way.

My Qigong practitioner called me back today, and I went over the MRI report with her. She got quiet and pondered her words. She sounded cautious. She said I need to do a cleanse ASAP. She encouraged me to keep seeing the acupuncturist, but to try to go every week. She sounded urgent in addressing my health. This added to my anxiety. I got all apologetic and confessional by saying I hadn’t been eating right for a long time. Her voice still soft, she told me something like, “it’s much more than diet, you can’t feel bad about that.” Again my anxiety. Ugh.

But I came home and resumed my homework - I took another teacher training class last week and I’m still trying to finish the binder from that class this week. Yet another class begins this coming Monday.

Later this evening, I had my first acupuncture visit since about May 6th, and I showed my acupuncturist the MRI report, too. I told her of my fears of the liver and kidney cysts, despite what my GYN and primary care doctor are saying. I have all these symptoms - what if it’s connected?
My acupuncturist says it all IS connected, and that she will continue working on me to keep the blood moving (or as I choose to describe it, to keep flushing the lymphatic system). She’d like to see me every 2 weeks if I can swing it, but says every week is not necessary.
She also seemed to get very quiet after reading my MRI report, and also seemed very careful in choosing her words. I’m just a ball of anxiety over this.
The acupuncturist left the room and I closed my eyes to rest while the needles did their thing. The first visual image I got upon closing my eyes was a rectangular hole in the ground, decorated on the outside edges with a beautiful rectangular autumn leaf arrangement. My eyes welled with tears and I threw open my eyes and stared at the ceiling to try to get ahold of myself.

Funerals! Are you serious? Get a grip, woman!!!

The tears were perhaps a release of pent up emotions, and the acupuncture opening channels.
I’d spent the day matter of fact, blunt, even aggressive at times in demeanor. By early afternoon, I likened myself to Starbuck from the 2004 remake of Battlestar Galactica.

But by the time I was in acupuncture session, I was ready to sob.

I got home and tried to resume my homework, but the tears came. I sat there working at the desk as the tears just streamed down my face. I couldn’t stop them, and I refused to allow myself the time to just cry like a baby, because my husband was home, and I hate crying in front of anyone, even him.

I made myself a horrible vodka drink and sipped at it. It was so bitter, it helped stop the crying, heh.

I told you I wouldn’t be handling things well if the MRI report contained anything other than my usual endo issues.