I Will Not Suffer In Silence

Today I slept in til 10:30am, but when I got up, immediately the pain and bleeding resumed.

I ate a breakfast bar and the last quarter of a protein bar I didn’t finish yesterday, and washed it down with Almond milk so I could take my medication. I took 600mg Advil gel-caps and half a Tylenol 3.

I heated up two rice pads, and then I could not get comfortable. Standing hurt. Sitting hurt worse. Laying on my back hurt. Laying on my side hurt worse. So for awhile I was okay as long as I laid on my belly on the bed with the heating pads on my lower back. I tried propping up on my elbows so I could be on the laptop, but typing on the laptop meant ‘moving around too much’. :(

I’d say I’m at a 7 on the pain scale.

After a short while, my neck and shoulders had enough of that, whether propped up or laying face down, and of course I developed a headache (thanks bulging disks in the neck).

Now I have reheated the rice pads and I’m reclined against two pillows and a pillow chair. The drugs have kicked in enough for the pain to begin easing off. Sleep will follow soon.

Side note: I’m still having crazy/bad dreams. Could be from the meds, not sure at this point cuz the dreams have been ongoing since a week or so before my period.

Currently it is 65°F outside, bright and sunny. Today I am feeling bad for not being out in it, and yet the brightness is hurting my eyes, even through the windows.

Yesterday I consumed over 1,600mg of Advil gel-caps and I think a total of 2 Tylenol 3. I sometimes forget.

…counts remaining pills…

Yeah, that’s correct.

Today I have taken a total of 2 Tylenol 3 and I have consumed 1,000mg of Advil gel-caps.

*** TMI ALERT ***

My day started at a 7 on the Mankoski pain scale and when I sat up in bed, blood just gushed forth. I am so glad that I wore my super giant fabric pad to bed last night. When I got to the bathroom, I was amazed at how soaked the pad was in just that instant. When I had cleaned myself up and got up to flush the toilet, I was amazed to see freshly clotted blood on the lid of the toilet behind me. I tried to wipe it up with a quick motion, but it still smeared. Shock set in at that point, I swear. I can only handle so much blood.
My husband came home from the gym about that time, and I emerged from the bathroom, wide-eyed, and told him all about it, the poor thing.

He takes it in stride, I think. Poor guy has been seeing me in pain and with abnormal periods for the last ten years, now. Hopefully he’s used to the TMI. We’ve both seen each other through surgeries and worse, anyway. We’re young veterans, heh.

In other news, I forgot to take my supplements so far today. It’s been hard, since yesterday and today I have suffered moderate nausea and low appetite.
Last night, my husband brought home sugar-free, dairy-free Coconut Bliss ice cream, and I ate that for dinner, heh.

I noticed that when I’m bedridden, I’m pretty much on a cereal diet, or a diet similar to one who has the flu. Sometimes there’s a load of comfort food / junk food thrown in, but not always.

Today I got so nauseous that I had to stop reading my homework, and I could not look at the computer for very long. I’d type something in chat and then look away for minutes. Still, I forced myself to make some lunch around 2:30pm or so. I cooked up some chicken and made a ‘Thai’ broth; a cup of chicken broth with half a can of coconut milk, 1tbsp chili paste, 2tbsp fish sauce, and some other seasonings. I added broccoli and mushrooms, onions and garlic, and some baked chicken. I put it all over some Basmati rice. It was pretty good. Needs to be spicier next time, and less salty.

After lunch, I read some more homework for a bit, then took a shower. The bleeding usually abates when I spend time in the shower or bath. Or at least it used to. For the last several menstrual cycles, this has not been the case. It’s more like a scene out of Stephen King’s “Carrie”.

Oh and I’m still having weird dreams and nightmares. Last night I had a doozy - an actual out of body experience from sleep state. It was actually kind of neat, though.

Tonight my husband has a dinner engagement that he’s been looking forward to me attending with him, but I have to pass. I don’t want to be center of attention when the cramps start back up again. I don’t feel like being out in public with this much bleeding going on. I don’t use tampons because I’ve always been prone to yeast infections and urinary tract infections, and on top of it, I have a short vagina and a retroverted uterus, so things hurt when they’re put into the canal. And anyway, I bleed right through a damned tampon. So in case anyone wanted to suggest that in order to get me out of the house, you can forget about it. ;)
I feel bad, but at the same time, I’d rather not move around much and make the pain worse. Even getting out of bed to make lunch earlier set off a new round of cramps, and I had taken 400mg Advil. I should have taken twice that, but I knew I was already at the 1,000mg mark for the day, so I backed off until after I got out of the shower, when I took a half a Tylenol 3 in order to make sure there is constant overlap in my medication dosing. Just don’t wanna chance getting up to 7 or 8 on the pain scale again.

The past two days have been sunny and in the 70s outside, and I have not seen any of it. This time around, I don’t even care.

Today, my own hormones are doing a number on me. I am full on with surging rage.

I was awakened by the recycling truck using its backup sirens for too long, and then idling with its rumbling engine in front of my home. Then the cramps set in - about a 4 on the scale. Then I was journaling and had another flashback to doctors who have pissed me off over the years and that just threw me into a spiral. My heart began racing and I wanted to kill the nearest thing, which happened to be my cat, who was licking plastic bags again. Don’t worry, I didn’t kill her, I just took her bag away. That cat can find any plastic bag or cover in the house. She simply walks away from one confiscated item and finds new plastic to lick. I swear, if she gets tumours, I’ll be sure it’s from all the xenoestrogens she’s licked up off of all the damned plastic bags over the years.

I ate some cereal and took 600mg Ibuprofen, but I’m still restless. Thankfully the pelvic pain has not ramped up, but the pain in general is radiating from my pelvis all the way down my legs to my ankles.
It is rare, but it has done this before. Usually the pain only goes to my knees. It is a dull ache - it feels like I have bicycled for 10+ miles. My hips, thighs, upper legs, knees, calves and ankles feel strained and swollen. My legs are restless, twitchy and painful. I’m drinking water and tea as though I’m trying to ease the dehydration - but I know that it’s not dehydration. It’s just part of what endometriosis puts me through.

I am REALLY tired. I went to bed around 11:30pm last night, but I did not sleep well all night. I kept having more strange dreams and nightmares, and I had to keep getting up to pee (welcome to having a period). The only nightmare I remember was tornado like conditions happening outside. The wind was blowing fiercely and banging things around. The sky outside was dark grey and brown, and the air was brown because of all the dust and dirt flying around. This is California, near the San Francisco Bay, so these conditions are not reality.

According to DreamMoods,

“Tornado

To see a tornado in your dream, suggests that you are experiencing some extreme emotional outbursts and temper tantrums. Is there a situation or relationship in your life that may be potentially destructive?

To dream that you are in a tornado, signifies that you are feeling overwhelmed and out of control. You will be met with a series of disappointments for the next week or so. Your plans will be filled with complications.

To see several tornadoes in your dream, represent people around you who are prone to violent outbursts and shifting mood swings. It may also symbolize a volatile situation or relationship.”

Well, I did get into it with my husband for the past two days over chemicals in the house. His hairspray (Rave) woke me from a dead sleep and rendered me disabled for half the day on Monday. And on Tuesday, he berated me after I began choking when he used the Trader Joe’s lemon scented kitchen hand soap. I thought we agreed to stop using it - I should have thrown it away. I washed my hands with the orange scented dish soap and he said, “And yet you’re okay to use that stuff.”

I read off the short list of natural ingredients to him, had him TRY to read the long list of chemicals in the lemon soap, and then put it in no uncertain terms that he can either accept that I have chemical sensitivity or we can re-evaluate our relationship, because if I have to move out, I will.
That shut him the hell up.

I then informed him that I want this household to be scent free in the next 12 months, which means his hair products especially have to go. I told him I ordered him some unscented hairspray from NationalAllergy.com, and that we’ll have to work on finding scent free hair gel and other stuff. I reordered scent free shampoo and conditioner, and I’ll have him try it out. I already have scent free liquid soap (Dr. Bronner’s) in the bathroom shower, I’m going to make sure that’s available in the kitchen dispenser as well.

*big sigh* Yeah I’m just a pretty picture, aren’t I?

Oh, and the bleeding that started off bright red yesterday? It turned into dark, sticky brown discharge, and continued on like that all day. And it went away overnight! It returned this morning, but as a shadow of itself from yesterday. I expect by the end of today, there will be actual flow happening.

In the meantime, I’m distressingly tired (also welcome to having a period), but I cannot go back to sleep because the brain weasels are in full force today. I’ve got unwanted thoughts and memories returning to my head - stuff dating back 9 or more years. It’s totally unnecessary.

I’m going to take a No-flush Niacin, get some housework done, and try to start on my homework.

If the brain noise does not abate, I’m going to take one of my husband’s xanax pills (they’re leftover from the last time we had to get on an airplane).

1pm update: The brain noise abated and I was able to take care of the clothing issue in the bedroom. That occupied me for about 4 hours. There’s just not enough room because two drawers are taken up with framed pictures that I had to put away because the wall space has to keep going away to make way for upward storage in this small place. So my clothes - clean and dirty - have been just being thrown into piles on the floor for weeks, which really irritates me.
I did get creative though, and I did purge some clothes, so it worked out…mostly. Around noon, the menstrual flow became more pronounced, and with that, the cramps began ramping up. I’m at about a 5.5 on the pain scale at the moment. I just ate some leftover pesto chicken and sweet corn so that I can take half a Tylenol 3 with some more ibuprofen.

To make a visual of it, I’m going to use the Allie Brosh Pain Scale - here’s where I’m at on her scale:

I feel like I’m being bum-rushed outta my house by Hades, and I keep pulling back, saying, “Hang on, just one more minute! I’ll be done in a minute! Wait!”

*sigh*

The sooner I acquiesce and go to the underworld, the sooner I can do my time and be done for the month.

Meh. I’m just so tired of this.

1:35pm edit: Hades took me. I’m fully in the underworld, now. OMG it hurts. :(
Six and a half on the Allie Brosh scale, Seven and a half and moving steadily towards 8 on the Mankoski scale. Inner thighs and tops of legs on fire with nerve pain that’s radiating down from the pelvis. I took a full Tylenol 3 and 400mg Ibuprofen. I’m taking another half a Tylenol 3 NOW dammit. OMG.

I remembered that which I’d forgotten in last night’s blog entry - herbal tea.

My acupuncturist had prepared an herbal tea for me to take as part of my treatment through her. I had stopped taking it some months back because I suspected it was making my dermatitis worse. One of the ways my food allergies manifests is through atopic dermatitis - specifically on my left thumb. At my last visit with the acupuncturist, I said I wanted to try the tea again. I said this because I’m freaked the hell out over the endometrioma on my left ovary, and I don’t want the sucker to grow any bigger. I’m willing to take on as many new therapies and treatments as possible - like a hammer to the problem - if it will help.

A dermatologist I saw a year or two ago told me it’s impossible for wheat or any food to cause or agitate the dermatitis on my thumb. He said it is caused by my skin reacting to direct touching of detergents and other chemicals. My argument stands to this day that it is ALSO caused by ingesting allergenic food and drink. I fired that guy after the first visit - I’ve had enough of doctors telling me what they think is going on in my body, when I have repeatedly proven them incorrect. Remember the doctor who wrote off my endometriosis entirely and said I just have IBS? Remember the surgeon who said I don’t have endometriosis - that I only have dysmenorrhea, and so she refused to give me a laparoscopy? Remember all the doctors for years who fought against me asking for antibiotics right off the bat because they didn’t believe I can have an immediate sinus infection? Remember the E.R. doctor who said and wrote in my chart that the only cause for my acute pancreatitis at the age of 21 was because I must be an alcoholic? (the nurse told me the pancreatitis was from doctors giving me Cipro for repeat sinus infections every month for a year). Remember the humiliating experience of having to submit to STD testing because the doctor was sure my husband was running around on me, since that’s the ONLY way I can POSSIBLY have gotten cervicitis? She even tried to counsel me right there in the office about my relationship!!!!
So ah, yeah. Sorry for the lashing out. Guess I’m not ready to forgive people/doctors, yet.

Back to my thumb:
Within 24 hours of starting the tea again, my left thumb, which had been doing well, split open and started bleeding again. It has to remain fully bandaged when it does this, and looks like I have a broken thumb or something.
And of course, I’m being stubborn and still drinking the tea, because I’m sitting here thinking, “well maybe it’s the dish soap I used - it contains orange oil and I’m allergic to oranges.”
I’m still drinking the tea because yesterday my cramps were minimal, and I want to try to keep it that way by any means necessary - even at the expense of my poor little left thumb.

My current treatment plan:

• 1/4 teaspoon endometriosis blend tea in a cup of hot water, 2-3x/day
• My regimen of vitamins and supplements
• Acupuncture every 2 weeks (I want to increase this to every week)
• Massage when I can (I want to increase this to every week)
• Elimination of refined sugar
• Elimination of all dairy
• Elimination of caffeine
• Resumed elimination of alcohol (I’ve had some to drink every now and then since May 2010 but I’ve stopped again because I don’t like how it makes me feel in the moment anymore)
• Continued adherence to No Fly List (I’m still failing on stuff like butter, salt and chocolate)
• Continue with trusted pain medicine cocktail (Tylenol 3 and Ibuprofen)
• Continue with consciousness to posture, correcting gait, and administering large hip circles and yoga pose.
• Keep getting on my bicycle as often as possible.

And yes, I know, I need to get back into the gym, and I need to ride my bike farther than just running errands or going to/from work.

My current surgeon will not give me another laparoscopy until the pain becomes constant and unbearable. She wants to take a wait and see approach to the endometrioma. She says if she goes in and carves the sucker out, another one will just grow back in its place. She knows I don’t want to remove my ovaries because I don’t want to go on Hormone Replacement Therapy, because synthetic hormones make me suicidal (tried and proven twice!).

Today I started one day early. I woke with mild, annoying pelvic cramps, but they faded by late morning.

I was fine til just after 1pm when I was startled to find bright red blood during a trip to the bathroom. Soon after that, mild cramping began again. I took 600mg Ibuprofen to stop the cramps from getting worse, and it worked! Wheee!

Today I was able to accomplish the following:

• 4 loads of blankets - washed and dried
• Dishwasher was run
• Wooden bed desk was washed again (cat peed on it awhile back and I’ve been washing the sucker repeatedly with Nature’s Miracle, Seventh Generation Wipes, Anti-Icky-Poo®, and more wipes - I think I am finally satisfied that it is no longer contaminated. Talk about OCD and germ/filth phobia!)
• More Montessori homework accomplished
• Bathtub scrubbed with Borax and hot water
• Cat puke scrubbed from runner by front door
• Cat litter exchanged (I accidentally bought the scented version and suffered the chemically sensitive consequences)
• Back of photo album soaked in Anti-Icky-Poo® - this didn’t work out so well - the back of the album held up perfectly, but the stench and filmy residue are still there. There are two or three photo albums that the cat peed on in recent months. They’ll just have to be replaced.
• Blankets folded and put away
• Bed stripped and new sheets/blankets/pillow cases applied

That is a whole HELL of A LOT of stuff to be physically fit and able to do on my first day of my period, let me tell you!

Sometimes it just goes like that. I’ve not been doing anything differently - I still ate a lot of chocolate right before my period. I still ate lots of cow and goat cheese. I still drank lots of caffeinated coffee and tea with lots of sugar.

I did see my acupuncturist on June 24th, and on June 26th, I got a massage from my friend who is now a licensed masseuse. Even so, given my decades-long history with this illness, I don’t think acupuncture and massage are what allowed my cramps to be minimal today. Sorry gals. I truly think my illness behaves as it wants to behave, when it wants to.

On June 20, I noticed that I’d become lax in taking my calcium/magnesium pills, as well as my evening primrose oil pills. I noted the constant back and joint pain I was in, and said I’d resume my supplements. Within 48 hours of writing that, I went out and bought a new bottle of calcium/magnesium, and began taking it twice a day with a Vitamin D3 pill for better absorption, and I resumed my evening primrose oil pills along with the Vitamin C and zinc and other supplements I take.
The back and joint pain eased up immediately and profoundly!

As I got closer to menstruation, my mid back began tightening up, as it always does. This puts strain on the lower back, and then it becomes hard to stand up straight, or even sit up straight, for that matter. My massage was great on Saturday and helped loosen the back, but I messed it all up later that night by wearing a corset too tight, and my back went into spasm.
For the last three days since then, my back has alternated between being fine and wanting to lock up from the mid point down, because it’s going into protective mode like it always does every month before I menstruate.

So today the back pain was moderate. I took 600mg of Ibuprofen tonight when I got out of the shower. As I lay there on the newly made bed to cool down after my hot shower, my mid back began to spasm again. It was more of a twitch but a thickening of the muscles, definitely. Not the charlie horse type back pain I was in on Saturday by a long shot, but I could tell my back is definitely out of sorts.
(fun fact about me: hot showers, hot baths, hot tubs, hot pools - it has to be hot - it’s the best thing next to sex).

Oh - today is the first day I was able to get through the day without the following:

• Coffee
• Caffeinated tea
• Raw sugar to sweeten anything
• Cow or goat cheese

It’s not to say I didn’t suffer - it was a difficult day! I did eat two protein bars which contain chocolate liquor (but no sugar!), but I did not directly eat chocolate candies today. The two bars I can stomach the best are Brownie Crunch and White Chocolate Chip, though they do leave a bad aftertaste - probably because of the Malitol. I eat these things not to lose weight but because they’re the only gluten free protein bars that do anything to keep my energy up and stave off hunger for a bit when I’m at work and my only moment to catch a break is during the kids’ lunch hour. I used to eat Belgian Chocolate Organic Food Bars like nobody’s business, but the stores near me stopped selling the chocolate ones. Nowadays I eat almost as many BumbleBars as I do ThinkThin bars, but the BumbleBars don’t keep my energy up or my appetite at bay long enough.

Before I forget, I have been having a lot of strange dreams, lately. I don’t know if it’s the full moon (it was full on Saturday, June 26) or what, but the dreams are crazy.
…or not… I just looked up my dream about having lice the size of crickets in my hair, and this was the translation I got:

To see lice in your dream, signifies frustrations, distress and feelings of guilt. You may also be feeling emotionally or physically unclean. Alternatively, the lice my represent a person, situation, or relationship that you want to distance yourself from. You may be feeling used or taken advantage of.” DreamMoods.com

Fascinating! I was feeling used and taken advantage of!

Alas, I couldn’t get any insight into my dream about my dad’s right leg having to be amputated - the dream site only discusses the meaning behind the dreamer having her own limbs amputated.

*shiver* at least the lice thing is sussed out. When I woke this morning, I decided I would not continue to be angry with the Chi Nei Tsang lady, and I would not continue to feel taken advantage of by her. I put it right by taking matters into my own hands and ordering the supplements I need. I will do my own cleanses from now on if I deem those detox supplements to be of benefit again. This will only be my second time doing the cleanse, so we’ll see how it goes.

Alrighty, I’ve taken a total of 1,200mg Ibuprofen today and the pelvic cramps were quite minimal (I’d say a 2-3 on the pain scale. Right now is the first time all day that the nerves have begun to start their little dance down my inner thighs, so I’m just gonna high-tail it into bed and hope I wake to another minimal pain day tomorrow.

I really really wanna do a Steph’s Mythical Underworld photo shoot to illustrate from my mind’s eye my descent into hell each month. Even though I’m in minimal pain, I’m still at the gates to the Underworld. It’s not pessimism by any means. I know what I mean and that’s all that matters. ;)

Ooo - another thing before I forget. A few things…

Tonight I tried pesto instead of cream sauce and the result is that I have indigestion and I’m burping a lot. What’s in the pesto? It’s Trader Joe’s brand and it contains basil, sunflower oil, potatoes, olive oil, grana padano cheese (pasteurized cow’s milk, salt, rennet (animal), egg proteins), pecorino romano cheese (pasteurized sheep’s milk, salt, rennet (animal)), cashews, salt, pine nuts, lactic acid, garlic.

Well dammit, it could be the potatoes or the egg proteins or the cow’s milk or the sheep’s milk. Since I have a renewed war against me courtesy nightshades, which I thought I outgrew in childhood, I’m going to blame the potatoes and the egg proteins for the indigestion and burping. How ’bout that. Glad I only got the 6oz jar.

Another item to mention - I’m trying to consciously correct my gait, my posturing while standing and sitting, and how I move my body when bending forward for anything. I’m trying to stabilise my core region in the hopes of easing up some of the pelvic pain I suffer. I really should be back in the gym - I haven’t gone in well over a month now.

I thought there was one more thing but it’s gone. Good night!

I have spent all day today going back through this blog and digging out information for MyMonthlyCycles.com.

Awhile back, I registered with a bunch of symptom tracking websites to try ‘em all out. So far, MyMonthlyCycles.com works the best for period tracking, but it’s obvious that the site is there for young women who want to breed, and the site has a lot of limitations to women like me with gynecological disorders who are trying to track our periods.

Despite the limitations, it still seems to do the best report output of compiled data.

Because I have spent all day on this, I don’t feel like rehashing my symptoms here in prose, so I’ll just give the straight up info I’d spewed on the symptom tracking website:

Tuesday, June 1, 2010:
Tylenol 3 at bedtime - partially for cramping, partially for joint pain, partially for brain weasels. This is also the day I had to go to E.R. after going into respiratory distress over an assistant teacher’s perfume. I received 3 shots that day: 1 Benadryl, 1 Atavan, 1 Epinephrine. I slept for most of the day and into the night.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010:
Took 600mg advil before bed due to cramping.

Thursday, June 3, 2010:
Some cramping, nausea, 99.9°F fever.

Friday, June 4, 2010:
My Period - First Day? Yes
Flow: Spotting Flow Color: Brown Clots: none
Comments: Mild cramps - intermittent. Nauseous. Pain around a 4 on the scale. Super tired - in bed by 9pm.

Saturday, June 5, 2010:
Flow: Medium Flow Color: Brown Clots: none
Comments: Spotting turned to flow, then got heavy by nighttime. 7 on the pain scale.

Sunday, June 6, 2010:
Flow: Heavy Flow Color: Dark Red Clots: Medium
Comments: Clots began by nighttime, and I passed a medium one - it took from 10:30pm to 12:30am before it was finally out, and I nearly vomited from the pain. The clot was thick, long. Not very wide. Consumed roughly 2.5 Tylenol 3 and about 1,600mg Ibuprofen for the pain. Had heating pads on all day and night.

Monday, June 7, 2010:
Flow: Medium Flow Color: Red Clots: Small
Comments: Heavy flow in the morning, then medium, then heavy, then medium, then light by nighttime. Took the day off work. Consumed roughly 1,200mg Ibuprofen and 2 Tylenol 3.

I’ve also been having crazy weird dreams and nightmares for the past three or so days - even before I took any Tylenol 3.

I’d like to also note that I have in the past week consumed a lot of cow’s milk ice cream, a lot of mint chocolate candies, and a lot of gluten-free ginger cookies due to out of control sugar cravings.

I have been moderately depressed since my trip to Michigan (May 14 - 23 was the trip), because I am triggered by the horrid housing state in which my mother continues to let herself live in.

Lastly, a note about the weather - I missed out on another gorgeous warm and sunny weekend because I’ve been on the couch since Friday night.

Yesterday and today I’ve been experiencing mild uterine and vaginal cramping. I’ve been “checking” a lot.
I came home from work around 2:30pm with a 99.9°F fever, and it hovered around 99.7 for the rest of the day. I was not able to get a last minute appointment with my acupuncturist.

Despite the low grade fever and cramps, and being a bit sunburned from lunchtime recess at work (I’d forgotten my hat and sunblock again), I still got a burst of energy yesterday evening, as my body went into what I call XXTREME NESTING mode.

My body does this every month right before I bleed. Sometimes I have the energy to act upon the XXTREME NESTING pull, and sometimes I just spin my brain meats and go stir crazy because I’m in too much pain to act on said pull.

Last night I took out recyclables, composting, did a load of laundry, loaded up and ran the dishwasher, got some more grocery shopping done to prepare for being homebound, mailed some bills, and scrubbed the bathtub twice. To my horror, neither the Borax nor the straight vinegar could fully clean the tub. We’d been using novelty Halloween soaps given to us for our wedding, and I’m convinced the soaps contained permanent black dye and wax. Ugh! On top of that, my husband has dyed his hair black twice in the past month and a half, and has not bothered to rinse the residue after his showers. So the tub is to me a horror story. But then, it’s nowhere near my mother’s bathtub. I went to visit my mother a few weeks ago in Michigan - it was my first trip home in six years. She has really let her house go down hill. It made me figuratively and literally sick to be in that house for more than a few minutes. My allergies exploded after 8 minutes in the place.

*shudder*

ANYWAY, after my attempts at cleaning the tub, I was sickened by the vinegar smell and just rinsed the damned tub and called it a night. I took 600mg Advil and went to bed.

I had even more crazy dreams. The dreams this morning entailed not being able to find a cab ride out of Detroit after a night at Cityclub, because the cabbies were taking furlough days on Sundays. We ended up walking all over the city around 4am trying to find a cab before we found out about the furlough issue. Then we ended up at our friend Bronica and Monkey’s place (but in real life, they live in Oakland, CA, not Detroit, MI. I guess it’s similar enough though). Then we took off for food at daylight, and I stopped at a street vendor who was selling broccoli cheese soup in a bread bowl. I convinced her to put the soup in a to-go bowl and put that bowl into the bread bowl so I could enjoy the soup without the gluten, and my husband could share the soup and also eat the glutenous bread. I was also trying to reach a friend or a cousin on my cell phone. I think I was trying to reach my childhood friend Rain, and I told her we were near the intersection of Aricka and Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard.
There is no Aricka street - Aricka is my cousin’s daughter.

Why all these strange dreams?

This morning, I’m registering at 99.4°F temp, and I’m uncomfortably nauseous after one bowl of cereal.

The nausea really pisses me off and usually means I still have an ovarian cyst going on. I’m convinced I’m either going to puke or start bleeding or both before I can get out the door to work. Part of me wants to call in sick, but I’ve already left work early twice this week, and it’s only been a four day work week.

We’ll see what happens next…

I’m due on Sunday, June 6 but this morning the cramps are setting in, along with low grade nausea and the hormonal whack which causes hypoglycemia-like symptoms.

The night before last, I took a Tylenol 3 before bed.

Last night, I took 600mg Advil before bed.

For the last two nights, I’ve had really effing strange dreams. Last night’s dream involved stuff coming out of my vagina the consistency of white poster paint, and getting all over my clothes. NASTY! WTF!!!

I’ve been seriously depressed since returning home from Michigan - still unable to fully process my experiences there.

And I have forgotten to make another appointment with my acupuncturist. I wonder if she still has an opening for tonight.

We’ll see if I can even make it in to work today, and for how long.

This morning before waking, I had a dream that I was back in time, working at the daycare in Michigan. I had been off work bedridden with endometriosis when a friend stopped by to chat.

I realised that this friend had also been grade school buddies with another friend of mine, whom I happened to work with, and who was filling in for me at work that day, so I convinced my visiting friend to drive me to the daycare so she could see where I worked.

We got there and found the teacher assisting some children. I walked slowly and with difficulty up to the teacher to introduce her to my other friend. As soon as she turned and saw my friend, they both lit up and hugged and it was a reunion of grade school buddies again. The teacher filling in for me was my friend Rain. I don’t know who the other woman was.

While the two old friends chatted, I went to the back of the class and sat down uncomfortably due to the endometriosis pain, holding onto my pelvis the entire time. I was on medication and a bit fuzzy. Children and co-workers alike began asking what I was doing there. The director and/or assistant director saw me and made offhand commentary about how I didn’t look sick, and wondered aloud why I came in at all, after I had earlier called in sick. They were not discreet at all in their accusatory tones that I was faking my illness.

This of course pissed me off, and I found myself trying to explain to co-workers what endometriosis is and how it affects each woman differently. I tried to defend myself by my glassy eyes and told them I was on too many pain meds to be able to work, but I really wanted to reunite two friends that day.

Talk about bad timing - I could have waited to do this and not jeopardized my employment.

I think at one point the children were at recess and I finally had to tell my friend to take me back home, because I could no longer handle all the accusing glares I was getting. I shuffled out of the workplace, still holding my pelvic region, the pain having subsided, but still on pain medication. I felt completely like a liar and a fake, despite how very real my situation is, because I had no VISIBLE way to defend myself other than this shambling and holding that I was doing.

I got back home and sat down on my couch, clearing some of the clutter from my coffee table, and said aloud what I had been thinking the whole time I was at work that day - “I need to create some sort of picture book to show people exactly what a woman with endometriosis goes through.”

And then I woke up, and I was in pain - low back pain and minor pelvic pain - a combination from sitting on the couch for long hours doing homework yesterday, and having been intimate that night.

I don’t have enough shit on my plate right now, so why not add a picture book to the queue?

Here is my call out to anyone with endometriosis reading this blog entry - CREATE YOUR OWN PICTURE BOOK and add it to my eventual voice. The more books and the more personal stories out there - published and in book stores - tangible rather than web logs - the better.

Go!

I still can’t figure out why this blog has the time set an hour earlier - it doesn’t account for daylight saving time I guess.

Anyway, I went to bed around 9:30pm last night, right after finishing my last entry. It’s so weird to say this but… last night was the longest night I’ve had in awhile. I had very strange dreams involving scoring magic mushrooms on a pizza from both my ex boyfriend and my Qigong practitioner. Whaaaat?

My husband came in to kiss me goodnight probably sometime after 11pm, and then I woke with a start from the mushroom dream sometime after 3am, thinking I’d slept in and would be late for work. Imagine my confusion when I sat up in bed and saw that it was still pitch dark in the house! I thought, “Okay I’m ready for it to be morning now…”

When my alarm finally did go off, my body decided it was still too tired to want to get up.

Stupid body!

Ever since I got out of bed this morning, I’ve had the same painful eyes that I did when I went to bed last night, with a pounding headache thrown in. My right leg has started hurting me again in the spot where I crushed it in a slipping accident on a boat one or two summers ago.
And of course I still have full body muscle fatigue and I just want to go back to bed, and I’m still checking myself every 20 minutes or so (since yesterday afternoon) to see if george is here yet, because it keeps feeling like he is.

For the past three days, I’ve been doing a little bit of Qigong when I remember, and I am also doing the figure eight hip movement whenever I remember, to keep everything loose. The one thing with endometriosis is that the entire pelvic region wants to freeze up while the top part of the body wants to fold over the lower half in protective stance. I’ll get up out of my computer chair when at home, or get up off the floor when at work with the kids, and suddenly my back won’t straighten and I’m hobbling around like a little old lady for a few minutes, hunched and broken, trying to straighten myself out.
So swaying back and forth, to and fro, and doing the belly dance figure eight hip thang helps a little with that, painful as it is to do that.

Last night I took 600mg Ibuprofen before bed but when I woke this morning I was in pain all over again.

I’m wolfing down some food so I can take more Ibuprofen before work this morning. I’m gonna be late… gotta go. Don’t wanna go in. Gotta go.