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.

The pain hit while I was watching and photographing other people’s presentations. I am the class photographer, so I felt I could not rest. I did stretches when I could. I did wide hip circles when I could. I ingested 600mg Advil gel-caps.

During the first presentation right after lunch, I was standing and photographing when I got dizzy. I regrouped. Then a few minutes later, my knees buckled. I steadied myself and lowered myself to the ground. My classmate, who also has endometriosis, was sitting on the floor nearby and rushed over to me, asking if I was alright. I told her I’d almost fallen and she said, “I know, I was ready to spot you.”
That’s when I finally acknowledged to myself, “yes, I really am in bad shape, and now other people can tell.” My face went red with embarrassment, even though no one was looking at me because I was in the back of the group watching the presentation. My classmate took my camera and told me she’d continue photographing for me.

The presentation finished, and that’s when one of the people in my presentation group came up to me and said she was leaving. She suffers from chronic migraines, and she also got her period this week, which has been the worst pain she’s been in, in a long time. She was on day three of killer cramps. I looked up at her all wrapped up in blankies and heating pads, with her sunglasses on because indoor lighting was too bright for her. I said, “I’m right behind you, I might go, too.”

Next thing I know, our team is being called to present the next lesson. I thought I had at least one more presentation before our group, so I called out to a member of my group, saying I was not ready, I need more time. Team member 1 went home already. Team member 2 came to me and asked if I was in pain, I told her yes. She told me that she and Team member 3 would go on without me and Team member 1, and that it is okay, they understand, and they will be fine up there together. I pleaded with her to ask for more time. She told me really, it’s OKAY, and gave me a genuine look that said, “just stay there, rest, it’s okay.”

I burst into tears.

The guilt! The failure! All that preparation! Would I get an incomplete? We abandoned our team mates!

Now other classmates were looking at me. Ugh. I slowly got up, knees still buckling, and staggered into the kitchen to cry alone.
And cry alone I did. I sobbed silently and sniffled a lot. I needed my medication but it was in the other room. I was not comfortable sitting or standing, and I did not want to lay down on the floor. I settled into a cafeteria chair.
I felt trapped. My legs were not working right. Everyone was watching the presentation. My endo buddy was photographing for me. I was alone. I was embarrassed for losing my cool and crying like this. I cried and cried.

When at last I felt I could compose myself, I slowly rose from the chair, and walked slowly out of the kitchen, through the presentation room, where another presentation was going on, and made my way to the public restroom.

After all that pain and suffering, I had nothing to show for it. No bleeding has started, yet.

This has happened to me often enough, but it never fails to make me that much more pissed off at my body. If I’m going to have that much pain, why can’t I already be on my period? Why do I have to have all that pain before my period, then go through the period on such continued pain?

It’s not fair!!!

I emerged from the restroom and went to the classroom, where I was finally able to take a half of a tylenol 3. I sat at my desk and cried some more. Eventually I slowly walked back out and watched the last presentation, then slowly helped my teammates clean up our presentation area, and rejoined the class for the closing presentations/goodbyes. One presentation entailed lighted candles to represent the constellations, while some smoopy song played which talked about how bright we are. I cried AGAIN.

OMG CAN THE PREMENSTRUAL HORMONES PLEASE STOP ALREADY!

I think my problem is that I have been stuck with these women for six weeks. Their pheremones have invaded and disrupted my hormonal system. Even worse, this week I had the migraine/cramp lady sitting on one side of me, and a heavily pregnant woman sitting on the other side of me!

Don’t TELL me that didn’t have anything to do with my pain and emotional state! Women’s bodies are creepy.

After class, a lot of classmates were concerned about me or morbidly curious, and i had to answer the same question probably 10 times. I’d even visually disturbed a male classmate, who said he would pray for my pain to ease up. I got teary eyed AGAIN and thanked him.

SOMEONE OR SOMETHING PLEASE KILL ME. Make it quick.

My endo buddy lugged all my coursework and backpack and shoulder bag down the flight of stairs after school, went and fetched my car, and loaded everything into the car for me.

I stopped off for take-away dinner on the way back to the motel, and now here i am, typing out my saga to you, with puffy, stinging eyes. I’m ready for a bath and bed, and it’s only 8pm.

This is the second bad pain day this week - Tuesday was also bad. Today was much worse than Tuesday. The shooting pains made me yelp out, and when the pain finally got so bad, it was an 8 on the pain scale.

Oh and the cold I’m fighting is also settling into my lungs. I’ll keep you posted on that, too.

Please, honestly, something - just quickly put me out of my misery. I’m so done with this. It’s not fair. I’m mad. I’m upset. I’m tired of this. It’s just not fair.

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.

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.

…consisted of a bird waking me in the wee hours of the morning, leading me to close the window.

Then it got too warm in the room, so I opened the window again.

Then the bird returned and started chirping again, and I got up again and closed the window.

When I woke up, I looked up the bird call - this bird is called a Vermilion Flycatcher, and I also went outside and had a look - there’s two of them, and they’re female (because they’re brown instead of bright red like the males). This is the horrible sound they make. Just play that on repeat when you’re trying to sleep. You’ll see.

This damned bird chirped all day long on the wires connecting to our house, and on our rooftop.

Sometime around 7pm, the next door neighbor began using a power saw in his garage.
In California, many Victorian homes have the garage right underneath the house - I guess you could say where the first floor would be. Since we live next door in a split Victorian on the ground level, we are ear-level and mere feet away from the neighbor’s garage door/driveway.
The sound of the power saw drove me further insane, and I was paralysed with insanity. I laid there, flopped over the edge of the arm of the couch, trying to stay in that position in order to mitigate my pelvic pain. I began plugging my ears. Then I forced myself off the couch and into the shower.

Ahhhh, a shower. A nice, long, hot shower. It felt very good on my lower back to just stand there in the stream of hot water. After I turned off the water and was toweling off, I felt a tinge of pain and looked down to see a growing puddle of red, and more red streaking down my legs.

Expletives flew from my mouth.

Thankfully I was still standing in the shower, so I was able to just hose myself down again. I was not happy to have to soil my towel, however.

And now the pain is full on again, along with the bleeding. The low back pain is excruciating, and I’m weak as hell. To my detriment, I let the Tylenol 3 lapse, so I just took a whole pill and have to wait up to an hour for it to kick in.

I’m going to go now and arrange for a substitute teacher for tomorrow.

…and right on cue, that goddamned bird has returned at 8:30pm to keep me insane. I’ve grabbed my headphones and will likely sleep with them taped into my ears tonight.

Part of my agitation is that when I am near or on my period, I am hugely sensitive to sights, sounds and smells. I get agitated easily from sensory overload. The other part of the agitation is that being on so much Tylenol 3 makes me very cranky and moody and depressed, which further heightens the sensory agitation.

And now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

So I was right on Friday - I was about to start any second. I began spotting by around 9:30am, and was surprised to see george two days ahead of schedule. I hadn’t had some of the other warning signs, such as change in mucosa or increased cramping.

The spotting was thick, sticky, and really dark reddish brown. Could be a by-product of the ovarian cyst, or it could be due to all the sugar and caffeine I’ve ingested since my trip to Michigan on May 14 - 23. The caffeine addiction was rekindled during the trip, as is often the case when I’m traveling, and so it was hard to break when I got back to California. I was able to transition from coffee to tea within a week, but I was still consuming caffeine. I had also been eating a lot of chocolate again, and my forehead and temples are paying the price as they always do; I look like a teenager again with all the zits. :(

Friday was unusually sunny - I thought it was supposed to rain, but the sun kept poking through the clouds and fog in large doses - enough so that I got sunburned on the face and neck again. I’ve been refusing to wear sunblock because the only tube I can find in the house has been some Neutrogena stuff that dries and flakes within minutes and makes me look nasty. I just read today that sunblock is pretty much useless, anyway.

I thought for sure that once the spotting started, the pain would begin ramping up, but it didn’t. I made it a goal to finish the entire work day, since I’d left early twice this week already (on Tuesday it was because a co-worker’s perfume put me into respiratory distress, and I went to ER, and on Thursday it was because I was running a 99.9°F temp and feeling really severely tired). I had to pop 600mg of Advil on my lunch break when the cramps ramped up to about a 4 on the scale, but I held fast to my goal and made it through the entire day, even working a half hour later than usual because they were short-staffed by one person.

When I got home from work, my husband, who had been home sick all week with some kind of chest cold, indicated he’d like to get out of the house for a bit. I suggested we take a trip to Costco. I was disappointed to see that they’re still not up on the gluten-free foods thing, yet.
Upon our return home from Costco, we grabbed some dinner at Everett & Jones (eh). When we got home, we were both worn out. I declared crippling fatigue, took a shower, swallowed 600mg of Advil and went to bed by 9pm (1,200mg consumed on Friday).

I woke around 5am with cramps, then went back to sleep til sometime after 7am, until I could sleep no longer. I’d had enough sleep and the pain was ramping up.

I suffered with nausea again this morning. I force fed myself a bowl of cereal with bananas, and the nausea increased.
I didn’t eat again until about 3 hours later.

Today I was able to load the dishwasher and manually wash some dishes that can’t go in the washer, and I was able to reassemble one box fan that I’d taken apart yesterday to clean. I drove us to Berkeley to get my sweetie some gluten-free cupcakes, but before we even got to the freeway, the cramps set in and ramped up. We made it to the bakery and back again, but I had to take half a Tylenol 3 and 600mg of Advil on the road for the pain, and I felt every damned bump in the road. I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth a lot.

When we got back home, I found out that the reason the pain ramped up is because the spotting finally turned into flow. It was still dark reddish brown, with lots of clots.
I took a full Tylenol 3 and spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch. I spent a bit of time today folded over a big pillow and the arm of the couch, as that was the best position for me. Same thing this evening, with heating pads added. Today’s rule has been; Sitting Good, Walking Bad.

I have ingested 2.5 Tylenol 3 pills today and I think 1,600mg Advil. Either 1,200 or 1,600, I’m not sure. I should always remember to write each dose down as I take it.

The pain has been at a 7 for much of today.

My brain is antsy but I’m forced to sit in one place. My joints are aching like hell, possibly from all the ice cream I’ve been consuming. I wonder if that’s contributed to my pain level today. I’m not normally so bad to myself, but the cow’s milk ice cream craving has been out of control this week. I have lactaid pills I take with it. Sure, the lactose intolerance is helped by the pills, but the overall damage done to my body by continuing to consume cow’s milk products is not worth it. By this afternoon, I finally convinced myself to stop eating the ice cream I’d bought.

Tonight, my friends Chase and Jason stopped by to say hello. We’ve not hung out in awhile, so it was good to see them, and they were the first visitors I had right after my laparoscopy, so they know what I look like when drugged and in pain. Plus, their sister suffers with endo (and maybe worse), so we talked about what she’s going through and her upcoming surgery this September. I hope my body cooperates so I can be there for her recovery. I feel terrible that I wasn’t there for my friend Patricia’s last endo surgery, because my body wasn’t cooperating. I was bedridden the week she went to surgery.

We also talked about neurontin, which my new surgeon Dr. Giudice wants to put me on. Jason has been on neurontin for the nerve damage in his neck, and it made him a total zombie. Another ‘NO’ vote. So far it’s been a resounding NO from everyone I’ve talked to. It’s the whole “treatment is worse than the condition” thing again.

I’m stupidly tired from all the medication, and well I’ve been up for 17 hours, so I’m going to bed again. I say ‘again’ because although I’ve been up all day, I haven’t been mobile enough to feel ready to go back to bed. I’m a medicated tired, not a ‘had a full day’ tired. So frustrating. Hence, the ‘wasted weekend’ feeling.

Tomorrow is already Sunday, but it will only be Day 2 of actual flow, and I’ve not even had a heavy flow, yet. I’m assuming I’ll miss Monday and possibly Tuesday unless I bleed like a stuck pig from dawn til 11pm tomorrow. Missing work this week is Not Good™, because it’s the last week of school, which basically is an all hands on deck sort of thing. I want the opportunity to see all my kids go through graduation (there’s one to two class/grade graduations per day this week). I’ve now worked with every single class; the 3-year-old room, the 4-year-old room, the 5-year-old room, the Kindergarteners, the 1st/2nd grade class, and the 3rd/4th/5th grade class.

My body needs to cooperate, dammit.

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…

Today was Saturday but I had to work, because it was the parent work hour day at the school I work for.

I was asked at the end of the day yesterday to help steer parents to do work on our outdoor classroom.
I said I’d see how my health was holding up.

I got up this morning and needed an hour and a half to make my body work, as opposed to the usual 45 minutes to an hour I do each day.

I popped 600mg of Ibuprofen and went off to work. I got four hours of manual labor in - hand washing shelf jobs, wiping down furniture, clearing away boxes and trays of stuff, and arranging things that could be washed into the middle of the ‘classroom’ to be hosed down with the high pressure water gun.

While at work, I popped 600mg more of Ibuprofen to stave the pain.

I got home and was wiped out, but was told we had a birthday party to go to. So I took a hot shower and then we went to the local diner for a late lunch. I about fell asleep before we got to the diner.

Being that I’m PMSing, I was craving red meat and milkshakes. Yes, I violated major food rules today, and paid for it half-way through my meal. My entire body felt like crap and I wanted to just throw up everything I’d eaten and ask for Thai food instead, heh.

We went off to our friend’s house for his birthday after we ate lunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon/evening there. While there, I popped 600mg more Ibuprofen for the pain.

I think I’m missing a dose in there somewhere. I’m pretty sure I’ve had a total of 2,000mg of Ibuprofen to get through today.
The pain has been the same - low uterine cramps with occasional right and/or left ovarian stabs.

While at our friend’s house, I had to stretch a few times, do large hip circles, and try to prevent my body from going into pill-bug stance. I was pretty unsuccessful. :(

The PMS has had me very irritable even today, but I kept myself totally in check while at work, and again while we were at our friend’s house. In-between, I let my husband know I was a grump due to PMS - that it wasn’t his fault for any of my grouching.

Ugh. I thought for sure I was going to start my period two days early, on Friday. Looks more now like I’ll be on time or late.

I just want this cycle to be over now, please.

I am very happy to have received a teacher appreciation award, a free luncheon, free desserts, and a gift certificate.

I am PMSing fiercely and needed 1,000mg Ibuprofen to get through the workday today. My lower back killed me all day. I had moderate low uterine cramps all day. I burst into tears at the sight of my teacher appreciation gift, startling those around me.

I could not eat the lunch except for the salad because it was all glutenous. I could not eat the desserts I wanted to eat because it was all glutenous, except for the flan and the ultra sugary meringues (well I’m not even supposed to have those cuz I can’t have eggs).

Several teachers and parents were perfumed with toxic chemicals which gave me sore throat, headache, sticky eyes, sudden extreme fatigue, irritability, and made me gag and sneeze a lot.

When I got home from work, there was nothing ready to eat. I hadn’t eaten any protein all day. My husband preferred grocery shopping to dining out so we went to the grocery, where I was assaulted with toxic fragrances from people in the aisles of the store. I became openly irritable and nearly broke down in tears. We got most of what we needed and got out of there. We tried to go to Walgreens to get my prescriptions for Tylenol 3 and Vanicream body lotion but I had to leave cuz a lady who stepped in line next to me (not behind me mind you but next to me) was heavily perfumed and I began choking.

I got home, we made ourselves dinner, we sat down and ate dinner.

And then I had a food reaction.

It started with a headache half-way through dinner.

After I was finished eating, I got up to rinse my plate and got dizzy. I made it to the sink and began washing my plate and I got dizzy again. And again. I slowly made my way to the bathroom and in the mirror I beheld a beet red face and a blotchy red neck and chest. That means food allergy.
My pulse was within normal range but my temperature was 99.7°F.

I took a children’s benadryl tablet (I can’t take adult dosage because I get anxiety/panic/palpitations).

Then I went and changed into my pajamas.

When I took my bra off, my upper chest screamed in pain because the boobs had dropped out of the bra, and the pressure/weight of the hanging breasts makes me want to scream. My nipples too make me want to scream, they’re so tender. This is day three of breast and nipple pain, but today the pain is the worst yet.

So uh, today is fired. I’m going to bed. Good night.