I Will Not Suffer In Silence

Today I feel severely tired. I had a rough day at work wherein the students were all spazzed out over ‘wacky hair day’ and the knowledge that they do not have school tomorrow (staff-only day scheduled). I talked til I was out of breath trying to regain control of the classroom on several occasions. I was in charge of the first/second grade classroom today, because the head teacher overslept and didn’t come in til almost 11am.

Still, before leaving work, I thought I’d still make it to the gym. I joined a gym in late January, then spent all of February sick as a dog, so March is the first time I’ve been able to make use of my gym membership. I have been three times, and was supposed to go again today. However, I got home from work and all I wanted to do was cry and go to bed.

I didn’t end up crying, but I did crash on the couch for about 40 minutes, and since waking, I’ve not recovered any energy.

My husband made me dinner, thankfully, but still it did not do anything for my fatigue. Now I must note that I’m really surprised by this - this level of fatigue, where I literally want to just fall down from standing position and start snoring - that is special only to menstrual fatigue. It happens to me a couple days before my period, and happens for up to a few days after my period. I have had no notable pelvic pain in the last couple of days, but I did have pain back on March 6, five days after I’d stopped spotting, and on March 8, on the day I would typically ovulate. What was weird about the pain on those days was that it was not ovarian, so I probably was not ovulating. It was really low on the uterus, and near or on the bladder. I seriously felt like I had a urinary tract infection on March 8, and I had to take 600mg of Ibuprofen gel caps at work to stave the pain.

This bone dragging fatigue - my eyes are drooping even as I type and my whole body feels so very weak - this alarms me and makes me think my period may be sooner than next Friday, March 19.
If my period is early, then I won’t have had 19 days between downtime cycles - I will have had less than three weeks between the bedridden times.

I mean, as it is, I ended my period, then got pain again five days later, then again a couple days after that. So I haven’t had consecutive pain-free days between cycles. And when you look at the calendar, you see that I stopped my period, I got some pain the week after, and then a week after that, I am already due for my period again. That’s not fair, is it?

Here’s hoping it was JUST the kids having wiped me out today.

Hopefully today was what my husband calls The Last Gasp - it’s when the pain and bleeding had gone away overnight, but returns with a vengeance the next day. That day was today.

The bleeding had gone away and hadn’t returned after my walk last night, even though the pain had returned a bit, and my legs were wobbly. I went to bed and slept soundly.

I woke this morning to horrible low back pain - enough to make me whimper. I got up around 8:30am and puttered around the house, doing slow stretches to try to loosen everything up.

I was dismayed to find that Chile had a 8.8 earthquake, which set off tsunami advisories and warnings throughout the Pacific region. While I was searching for live streaming info on the web about my region, as well as internet friends in Hawaii, my legs began to feel weak.

I got up off the couch and began massaging my lower back/kidneys. I did some more slow stretches. Then I needed to go to the bathroom. I had a bowel movement, which thankfully wasn’t too constipated.

I went to the kitchen and microwaved some leftover pancakes for breakfast. I poured some YoBaby apple yoghurt on top of the pancakes. I made some herbal tea from my acupuncturist, but I never got to drink it.

While I was eating the pancakes, the pain and bleeding resumed. All night and all morning, I had been dry - no bleeding, and no pelvic pain. I stood up and began doing slow large hip circles. I began breathing exercises.

The pain ramped up.

I started shoveling the food into my mouth so that I could take my medication. By the time I finished my food and was shoving a whole Tylenol 3 into my mouth, I was shaking from the pain. That’s about the time my husband woke up. I was pacing around the house and talking to him with a high pitch to my voice, teeth clenched. Within minutes, I was on my back on the couch, instructing my husband to help me with pressure points.
We couldn’t find the right points in the inner knees, so he tried my ankles, the bottom of my feet, and I held the points on my ears. The pressure seemed to help when my husband held the bottom of my feet. The points in my ears helped, too, but these didn’t help for very long. I told my husband I felt nauseous, but I needed more Tylenol 3. I took a half a pill on top of the whole pill I’d recently consumed.

The pain was so bad, but when I cried, tears didn’t come out. I went and sat on the toilet, and began moaning through gritted teeth. My eyes went vacant. At this point, I realised I’d hit a 9 on the pain scale.

I came back from the bathroom and tried to engage my husband in conversation to keep me from going mad from the pain. We talked about the tsunami warnings and other stuff. I yelped in pain pretty often, but carried on conversation so I wouldn’t go crazy. I had the heating pads on me, but I couldn’t get comfortable on the couch. I leaned over the arm of the couch with the heating pads on my lower back, until my calves felt like they were going to give out from the standing.

Finally, the drugs kicked in, and I became very tired. I settled onto the couch and my husband sat with me until I fell asleep. Then he went to work on stuff for his band, and eventually had to go to the studio to confer with the rest of the band on the tracks they’ve recorded.

I have spent the day continually drugged on Tylenol 3. The bleeding subsided again around 7pm, and so I decided to take a hot epsom salt bath. But first, I had to scrub out the tub, and I was still in pain, and my husband still wasn’t home.

This is a problem. But yet, I fought through the pain and scrubbed the damned tub, the shower doors and the shower walls, still streaked with husband’s hair dye. Once it was all clean, I was able to take a nice half-hour bath.

After the bath, the bleeding did not ramp up again, thankfully. I’m hoping today was the last of the cycle.

The pain has been really severe this cycle. Two things happened:
#1: Last Sunday night, I took a Monistat-1 treatment for a yeast infection caused by taking antibiotics for the sinus infection. By Monday morning my inner labia had swelled up really badly, and everything in that area burned. I showered and saw a doctor who examined me externally and said I’d have to ride it out. He suggested I soak in the tub. I came home that afternoon and told my husband I needed to soak in the tub, but did not have the energy to do a massive scrubbing of said tub.
Uh, apparently neither did he, and he didn’t care, because the tub did not get scrubbed. I did not ask him directly, “could you be a dear and scrub the tub for me?” - I just assumed he’d be a gent and see that I needed help and do this for me. But after nine years with this man, I should know better than that. I have to ask. Asking hurts my pride. It’s a cycle I need to break out of.

Late Monday afternoon, I began bleeding. At first I thought it was my period, but I had no cramps, and the bleeding and debris was light in flow and colour.

#2: I began taking the specially prepared tea from my acupuncturist - 1tsp up to three times a day. I saw her last Thursday, and she did treatment mainly for my sinus infection, but had also done some cupping on my lower back, which I’m convinced brought on some minor cramping Thursday night and into Friday.

Anyway, the light bleeding and debris lasted until Wednesday, when my actual period, complete with heavy bleeding, clotting and cramping started. I continued taking the tea.

I noticed that the pain this time around feels like a bladder infection. I stopped taking the tea last night and took 600mg ibuprofen on top of the Tylenol 3, and the bladder pain eased.

I resumed the tea this afternoon AFTER I had gone through a really bad spell of cramps this morning, and the bladder pain resumed. Could it be the cattail in the tea?

I cannot say for sure if it’s the tea or lingering side effects/damage from the Monistat.

I still feel gutted. I’m still getting sharp pelvic and bladder pains. I’m worried the Monistat did some damage. I’ll need to hire a new gynecologist this week, because Dr. Lisa Bernard-Pearl just retired from the practice this month, and I’ve not been able to see a new gyn, yet. I’ll just phone up anyone in that office and ask to be seen ASAP.

I keep feeling like today is Sunday. I’m so glad I have another day to recover before the work week begins again.

So far this weekend I missed a mostly sunny day today and two parties tonight because of the endometriosis.

Sour grapes - I didn’t wanna go out, anyway.

I woke Tuesday morning with no cramps! I checked to be sure my period had actually started. Well, there was bright blood, and it was within a few days of the start date, so it had to be my period, right? I got ready for work, marveling at my body. I have to admit, I had a little smile on my face. I was truly enjoying this no-pain thing.

At work Tuesday morning, I only got the slightest of cramps. As soon as I began to think, “oh no, I feel a tinge of pain, the cramps could get worse any second…” I immediately quashed that thought and replaced it with, “Oh wow, that’s SUCH a tiny pain, I am so happy I can function!” And I’d smile again. I started thinking, “This must be what it’s like to have a ‘normal’ period!”

All day Tuesday, nothing - just teeny tiny rumbles of pain every now and again. The most pain I felt was while having to rub a child’s back for naptime at work - I have to sit on the floor, and the child is on a thin nap mat on the floor. I used a pillow chair but it was still uncomfortable. So the pelvic pain did make itself known while sitting low on the floor.

You have to realise though that it wasn’t just the lack of pelvic pain through most of Tuesday - I also was not feeling the usual joint pain or the extreme fatigue that I always get with each endometriosis cycle or ‘flare’. This definitely was not starting off as one of my ‘normal’ periods. Since I have been in debilitating pain from endometriosis for about the last 24 years now, I know full well what the behaviour of my illness is. So I began to wonder if the blood wasn’t from menstruation/endometriosis at all - I wondered if it was instead from the yeast infection and having taken a Monistat treatment two nights prior, which I’d had really bad side effects to. The swelling in my labia had gone down quite a bit by Tuesday, but what if the blood meant there was internal damage from the Monistat? Every time I used the bathroom on Tuesday, I’d notice that the bleeding wasn’t getting any darker, nor was it becoming more of a flow. It was still bright red/pink, and there were long, stringy clots - also not the usual for me. Blood clots during menses for me are usually really dark red, squat and thick.

Tuesday night, when my husband got home, we went out into the pouring rain to get some groceries, so that we’d be well stocked in case I did become bedridden. While out grocery shopping, my blood sugar took a dive. I’d spent Monday and Tuesday eating and either still being hungry, or becoming hungry again within an hour of eating. That is ‘normal’ premenstrual behaviour for me, as is becoming hypoglycemic.
Eating dinner when we got home brought my blood sugar levels and thusly my mood back up again.

When I woke on Wednesday morning, I had minor cramps. Since I count the day the blood shows up as Day 1 of each menstrual cycle, I was now on Day 3, and I still was not experiencing debilitating pain. Again, I wondered if the bleeding wasn’t from the infection and/or the treatment. I wondered if I’d know if my period really did show up, and would it show up Wednesday, as originally thought?

Around 11:30am on Wednesday, the bleeding and pain began to ramp up a bit. I checked myself in the bathroom and saw that the blood had begun to darken. My legs felt funny - they were weak, especially at the top of the thighs. For me, this usually means really bad cramps are coming soon. I hadn’t had the leg pain or weakness until now, so I took this to mean that my menstrual cycle had officially hit the green light.
By 1pm when I took my lunch break, I required 600mg of Ibuprofen gel-caps, and it didn’t really help all that much. I notified the teacher I was working with that day that I was in pain and might not make it through the day. I asked if she knew what endometriosis was, and she said yes, and showed sympathy for me. She told me to sit down and take it easy. The class (I was working with the 1st and 2nd graders that day) was watching a marine life documentary, so thankfully all I had to do was sit there, or stand there as the actual case may be (sitting was too painful) for the next hour, until class was dismissed. After the first half-hour documentary, the children began to get restless, so I had them all stand up, shake their bodies, stretch way up high, and then sit back down to watch the second and last documentary on ocean life.
The stretching up high thing…I should not have done that. It spiked my cramps to a 7 on the pain scale for a few minutes. Ouch. I stretched slow, like one does in the morning when getting out of bed, yawning. But george didn’t like that.
At 3pm, I organised the children who were to be picked up by their parents and herded them out the door. After parents picked up their children, I headed to the playground to see if I’d be needed for after school daycare. Thankfully, I was not needed, and I went home.

Wednesday afternoon/evening at home, I took it easy on the couch. Around 7pm, I ate another 600mg Ibuprofen gel-caps, and slept on the couch, and for a little while I even went to the bedroom to nap. My fatigue had grown infinitely between noon and 7pm Wednesday - pain takes a lot out of a person and makes one very tired. Ibuprofen also makes one a bit tired, and I had consumed 1,200mg of it within a six hour period.

And that’s where I’ll leave it for now, cuz the next part of my story requires some background info, and this post is already too long. I’m working on making shorter journal entries from now on…

Hoo boy. I need to do a sum-up. I’ve been noting all the details of my health in another diary that I keep. It hasn’t had anything to do with endometriosis, so I’ve not been spewing it, here. However, I’m in full on pity-party mode, so I’ll share some details here. The best way to get across how I’m feeling will be in visual format (click image to make bigger):

I’ve not had a day where I’ve felt alive and well since January 22 - a full month ago.

The red dashes through calendar dates means I missed work that day.
Anything in purple text denotes multiple chemical sensitivity reaction or danger of reaction. The oil spill remains a ‘danger of reaction’ since I have not had anything immediate happen. I went to the doctor’s office on Wednesday, February 17, because when I’d tried to go back to work that morning, it felt like my lung was collapsing. The chilly morning air and the thick fog made my lungs ache badly and it became hard for me to breathe. I looked pasty white. I barely fixed my hair to go to work, I was so sick. I turned right around and came back home because my lungs hurt so bad and I was having trouble breathing. I was able to get into the doctor’s office at noon that day, and saw a different doctor. She listened to my heart and lungs. She said I have ‘junk’ in my lungs, and that I was wheezing. She gave me my first ever albuterol treatment (nebulizer delivery).
Although it cleared my lungs and made for velvety smooth breathing for the next six and a half hours, the ingredients in the albuterol treatment also made me very light headed, gave me tremors, and removed my ability to concentrate. I darted my eyes and head around and had anxiety all day long. I told the doctor I can’t work in that state, and that the treatment is no better than the illness itself. I opted to stay home another day.

When I got back home, I found Alameda County Industries vehicles all over the intersection near my home. They were shoveling a sand like material onto a spill of some sort, which was all up and down two streets and filled the intersection. I saw a garbage or recycle truck with its hazard lights on. I went over to the working men and asked if it was hydraulic fluid that had spilled. They said it was. They assured me that the sand they were putting down was harmless, and was like ‘kitty litter’.

Please google hydraulic fluid toxicity to learn more, and also check out a news story about a woman who died after a similar accident.

I have also uploaded photos here. My lips were stinging when I got back into the house last night after taking pictures. I should have worn a mask of course. Of course.

I shed all my clothes in the kitchen and put them in a garbage bag. I took a shower immediately. Thankfully I did not have any immediate chemical sensitivity reaction to the spill. Only time will tell if I will become sick from the spill.

On top of all the viruses and multiple chemical sensitivity crap, now my period is two days early after I’d declared to my husband that I was sure it would be late, since I was not feeling any premenstrual pain. Nothing - no warning cramps, no having to check myself because it ‘feels’ like I could be bleeding. No ovarian stabby. Just HELLO! an hour after I got home from the doctor’s office.

The thing is, I *did* have some premenstrual cramping last Thursday - after my acupuncture appointment. I’d seen the acupuncturist for the sinus infection, but while there, she did some lower back work on me, cuz she knew my period was coming. That night, I felt low, dull pain in the lower back and at the back of the uterus. It was barely registered on the pain scale though - just faint rustlings.
On Friday, I had some slightly more annoying rustlings, but still, I did not need medication. Then on Saturday and Sunday I had no pre-menstrual cramping at all, most likely because my body was busy dealing with a yeast infection, which I get every single time I take antibiotics.
Please don’t tell me to try eating yoghurt or probiotics when on antibiotics, I already do that. Please don’t tell me to keep hydrated when on antibiotics, I certainly do that. I still get yeast infections, every time.

I decided to get a one-day Monistat™ treatment. I did that Sunday night right before bed.

I woke in the early hours Monday morning to use the bathroom. I wiped and … something wasn’t right.
My inner labia were hanging way down past my outer labia, and they were thick; puffed out, and stiff as boards. My heart jumped. WTF is going on!?!?
I wiped again, and the labia let me know they weren’t happy. It stung - it burned. I could feel my pulse in my labia.

I phoned up my family doctor and my gynecologist and left messages. I decided to not outright openly panic, so I got ready for work. It hurt to wear slacks, or tights, or even underwear for that matter. It hurt to sit down of course.

I went to work anyway. The doctors offices called back - the gynecologist wholly misunderstood my voicemail and told me I should try Monistat or Diflucan for my yeast infection. The family doctor got me an appointment after work.

By the time I got out of work, the swelling in my labia had gone down considerably, but it still hurt and pulsed with discomfort, so I went to the doctor. He did an external exam - not a pelvic - to examine the labia. There’s nothing he can do - just have to wait for the swelling to go down. I told him I discontinued use of the antibiotics. He said that was fine.

I got home from the doctor, and before dinnertime, discovered that my period had arrived without warning.

So now that george is here, I will go to bed and see what tomorrow brings - will I be able to go to work, or will the pain leave me bedridden?

Stay tuned…

Wow, déjà vu.

Just like last month, I went from being bedridden with endometriosis to being sick with a virus.

Once again, I’m kicked when I’m down, thanks to my immune system being deficient, thanks to endometriosis and allergies and lord knows what else I have going on immunologically.

Friday night I was at a taqueria eating dinner with my husband when suddenly I didn’t feel well.
That night, I had 3 episodes of diarrhea. I was uncertain whether it was a food reaction or food poisoning.

On Saturday, I had 17 episodes of diarrhea. I was more certain that it had to be food poisoning, since I’ve never had an allergic reaction this bad before. I barely ate a thing that day, and it was a struggle to even take water.
My entire trunk region was sore. I felt like I’d been doing too many situps - the stomach muscles were strained.
My husband took me to the store, and I am not kidding - I bought baby wipes and diaper rash cream for myself.

On Sunday, I began eating Cream of Rice with mashed banana. However, Sunday evening, we were at a friend’s house and he’d made some wonderful food, as did his other guests. I partook of a thin slice of steak, some kielbasa and onions, and some cole slaw. I drank a Vernors soda, even though it has corn syrup in it, because where I grew up, Vernors is what you drank to soothe an upset tummy.
Within an hour and a half, I had moderate to severe stabbing stomach cramps. I had to steel myself from the pain. When we got home at 9pm Sunday night, the diarrhea began - 8 episodes of it.

Today is the second day in a row that I did not have diarrhea upon waking. Today is the second day in a row that my stomach and intestines tried to stabilise - until I fed myself something other than Cream of Rice with mashed banana. This afternoon it resulted in moderate nausea and stomach and intestinal gurgles. I’m worn out. I’m tired as hell. And I worked a full day today on top of it.

I didn’t want to go in to work today, but I was still partially in denial about actually being SICK sick…even though on my way to work, I called to cancel my appointment with a physical trainer. To be fair, I took my temperature at work and it was 99.8°F at 11am. I hinted that I should go home, but the director told me I was fine. The secretary told me I was fine.
What they meant was, “Lunch rush is coming up in the next half hour, and we’re short staffed. You have to stay, we need you.”

I did stay on, but that’s when I called my doctor and scored an appointment after work. The doctor told me that it’s not JUST a food reaction I’ve been having, and it DEFINITELY WASN’T food poisoning.
The doctor is certain that I have an enterovirus. She said it’s going around - she’s seen patients with my exact symptoms for over a week, now.

I know that what’s going on with me IS also a food reaction on top of the enterovirus, because my left thumb is covered in flaky dermatitis, and my thumb is cracked and will probably start bleeding tomorrow.

According to MedScape, I was harbouring the enterovirus for up to a week before the diarrhea hit me on Friday. It says, “The average incubation period is 3-10 days, during which the virus migrates to regional lymphoid tissue and replicates. Minor viremia results, which is associated with the onset of symptoms and viral spread to the reticuloendothelial system (spleen, liver, bone marrow).”

Another MedScape article says, “The enterovirus enters the human host through the GI or respiratory tract. The cell surfaces of the GI tract serve as viral receptors, and initial replication begins in the local lymphatic GI tissue. The virus seeds into the bloodstream, causing a minor viremia on the third day of infection. The virus then invades organ systems, causing a second viremic episode on days 3-7. This second viremic episode is consistent with the biphasic prodromal illness. The infection can progress to CNS involvement during the major viremic phase or at a later time. Antibody production in response to enteroviral infections occurs within the first 7-10 days.”

I could have caught it at my neighbor’s house when we went over there last Tuesday to watch the season premier of the last season of LOST.
I could have caught it from my new psychiatrist’s office on my first visit.
I could have caught it at work.
I could have caught it anywhere.

The bum deal out of all of this is that I went from being bedridden with endometriosis pain right into being laid out flat with massive diarrhea for three days. I lost two weekends of fun out of that deal. I didn’t get to see an old high school acquaintance who was in town for the weekend. Worst of all, I went out on Sunday to a party while still sick with the virus, because I was convinced it was food poisoning and/or food reaction I was still dealing with, and now I may have infected other people.

When I left out of the doctor’s office, it was raining, and I hadn’t brought my raincoat with me. I walked in the rain back to my car, parked a block and a half away. When I got home, I took a blow dryer to my hair, put some dishes in the new dishwasher my husband recently bought, scooped the cat litter, and got into my jammies and crawled into bed. I crawled out of bed to eat some yoghurt while my husband ate dinner - we sat on the couch and watched TV. Well actually I laid on the couch wrapped in blankets. Viruses make me feel like I’m freezing. The house is 71°F right now…

I’ll be staying home tomorrow - I made sure to get a doctor’s note the moment the doctor suggested I stay home. I called work the moment I left the doctor’s office to let everyone know I won’t be in.

Stupid immune system.

I guess if one can find a silver lining… I lost 6 pounds in 3 days. I’m down to 158lbs.

Today was my first day back to work, after having missed Monday and Tuesday.

It is my intent each month to give a “postmortem” or summary of what I went through, and my thoughts on what I went through. I don’t always remember to do this - let 2010 be the year I begin remembering this crucial type of blog entry.

The bleeding subsided by yesterday evening. Residual cramps pestered me throughout the night and into today, but it was minor enough that last night I was able to go to a friend’s house and watch the season premier of LOST, and today I was able to work a full day with minimal to moderate pain. I did have to take 400mg Advil gelcaps once today.

I cannot recall if I have laid out exactly what my job entails, so let’s do that now - I just created a page called A Work Day In The Life Of Steph.

When I got home from work, I threw off my work clothes and got into my pajamas, and tucked myself in bed with the laptop and some heating pads for the rest of the evening. I so need the extra rest.

Reflecting back on this past weekend, it was pretty scaring emotionally. If I had my way, I’d never touch marijuana again. I had gone into the weekend expecting that my new medical marijuana ‘card’ would bring some sort of good alternative treatment into my life.
Although I have misgivings about the last two times I tried marijuana (I smoked it and the pain grew worse), and although I’d read one study which showed that in vitro, “THC exerts palliative effects in cancer patients, but produces adverse effects on the endocrine and reproductive systems“, I was still hopeful that cannabis edibles could still help me relieve some of my pain.

On Saturday, while medicated on Tylenol 3 for the pain, my husband drove me to the local smoke shop, where I priced some vaporizers in case I wanted to try that route again. He then drove me to a medical marijuana dispensary, where we registered ourselves, toured the facility, and checked out some tinctures, powdered mixes and butter. That day, we bought an undetermined cannabis blend put into a peppermint mocha mix, and a blend of butter called “Kush”. A friend had told me to get a strain called Indica to treat pain, but I forgot to ask specifically for that while we were at the dispensary, and it didn’t seem that the labels on the edibles stated directly whether something had indica or not.

Saturday night, I tried the butter around 11:30pm. I only had about a teaspoon’s worth on a gluten-free waffle. It took over half an hour to kick in, and the high kicked in first, but what I remember is that for about an hour and a half I was completely pain-free. Now, this could just be as simple as my cramps abated on their own.
Or there was something to the butter. But after an hour and a half, the cramps did return, and I was still uncomfortably high from the butter, so I did not want to consume more.

On Sunday around 1pm, I tried 1tbsp medicated mocha mix to ease the pain, and mixed it with a cup of hot goat milk and 1tbsp Trader Joe’s sipping chocolate. I did not want to gulp it all down at once, because I was unsure of the dosage. The mocha mix was a single serving, but I know my body better than that, and eased way off, only digging out one of the estimated three tablespoons available in the “single serving” pack.
Again, it took too long for the medication to kick in. Once it did, the high hit me and I went on a 7 hour bad drug trip, accompanied by a pathetic pain dissociation attempt. I bled like a stuck pig all day. I experienced maddening gnawing uterine and pelvic pain, which led me to agonising choking sobs twice that day. I could not take any other pain medication for fear of getting even higher than I already was, which was very uncomfortable for me. I did not experience any pain relief until after 7pm - when I consumed 800mg of Advil gel caps.

On Monday and Tuesday, I stuck to Tylenol 3 and Advil all day and was made much more comfortable. As I stated of the Tylenol 3 on Monday, February 1, “I knew when my body was in pain, because the top of my skin would twitch, or my whole body would jump. Then it would take up to three full seconds for my brain to register that the twitch meant huge stabby pain was happening. But by the time it got to my drug addled brain, all my brain had as a message to give to me was a faint recording of a scream, if that makes sense.” The pain dissociation was full and complete compared to the medical marijuana’s lame attempts.

I looked up the word my friend had told me - indica - to find out more about it. According to Urban Dictionary, “Indica is not slang for marijuana, but one of the three species of marijuana; Sativa, Indica, and Reduralis. Sativa is more of a skinny, tall, lanky, and less yielding plant that produces a mind high. Whereas Indica is more of a small, broad, and usually a higher yielding plant that gives you a couchlock body high.”
MarijuanaStrains.com pretty much says the same thing.
I agree with my friend, I need the Indica.

I looked closely at the packaging for the medicated mocha mix and found no info whatsoever as to the blend of medical cannabis in it. LAME.
I examined the package for the butter and could only find the word ‘Kush’, so I looked that up. According to wikipedia, “Kush refers to a subset of strains of indica cannabis”. Over at MarijuanaStrains.com, they say that the Kush blend gives a cerebral high.

Alright, lesson learned. Ask more questions about what can give the best “body high” or dissociation, and make it abundantly clear that I do not want anything that is not Indica.

And then we’ll go for round 2 of medical marijuana treatment. As I said earlier, if I had my way, I’d never try medical marijuana again.
Alas, I am also sick and tired of people constantly asking me, “have you tried…?” down to the finest detail. So my answer for “have you tried medical marijuana?” is incomplete, until I can, with authority, say YES I HAVE TRIED BOTH SATIVA AND INDICA STRAINS.

In the alternative medication department, this coming Sunday, I have a phone appointment with my acupuncturist to discuss further herbal remedies for endometriosis. On Sunday January 31, I stopped taking the herbal pills she’d prescribed for me in early December, because I was upset with the side effects that were manifesting.
Throughout December, I was only taking one pill a day, when I remembered at all.
Starting mid-January, I finally started remembering to take two pills twice a day, and according to which blend I needed to be on during my menstrual cycle. This is when I began to notice the negative side effects - first I started getting manic-depressive. I attributed it to the New Moon. Then I got manic again, around the Full Moon. Instead of blaming it on the moon, this time I became consciously suspicious of the herbs.
I normally do not suffer from mania, you see. The last time I did, I was on Yasmin.
Now, here’s another problem - I told myself I would research the herbs before taking them, but then I felt pressured by my acupuncturist to start taking the pills NOW, because she wanted me to start getting better NOW.
It’s not her fault I felt pressured. I wanted to start feeling better NOW, too. So I threw aside the research I had started and just took the damned pills, hoping for pain relief.
What I got instead was manic-depression, to the point of being super hyper and anxiety-ridden to sobbing uncontrollably within the span of a few hours. And it happened on more than one day. And then my fingers started splitting open and bleeding again. I checked my diet - nothing I could think of to be causing this allergic reaction….

…except maybe the herbal pills.

So I emailed back and forth with my acupuncturist last weekend, and just stopped taking the pills altogether on January 31. She says her supplier told her that the pills are both gluten and yeast free, but something is triggering the atopic dermatitis, because my fingers cleared up perfectly within 24 hours of stopping the pills.

It’s getting too late tonight to do it, but I would love to go meticulously through the ingredients list for each brand of herbal pills - both the Unicorn Pearl and the Harmonizing The Moon - to try to root out the dermatitis. I already know the ginseng and/or the dong quai is what brought out the mania. And I find it quite interesting that those two herbs, which are touted to acupuncturists as being ‘warming’ and ‘good’ for gynecological problems, are listed as BAD elsewhere.
For example, MedicinePlus says “Avoid use of ginseng in patients with hormone sensitive conditions, such as breast cancer, uterine cancer, or endometriosis.” Also noted on that website for side effects of ginseng:
“heart palpitations, rapid heart rate, leg swelling, nausea/vomiting, or manic episodes in people with bipolar disorder”.
I’ve never been diagnosed as bipolar on my own - but I did exert bipolar tendencies when I was put on SSRIs back in 2000-2001. It is thought by later psychologists that the meds pushed me from my official Major Depression diagnosis into bipolar territory.

But the ginseng made me bipolar.

Good thing I saw a new psychiatrist today.

Regarding dong quai, MedicinePlus says, “It remains unclear if Dong quai has the same effects on the body as estrogens, if it blocks the activity of estrogens, or if it has no significant hormonal effects. It remains unclear if Dong quai is safe in individuals with hormone-sensitive conditions such as breast cancer, uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, or endometriosis.” Also noted as a dong quai side effect on that website is skin rash. Same with ginseng.

In the physiological department, I am still spotting this evening and will likely continue to do so for another day. I am constipated from consuming the Tylenol 3, and I still have moderate low back pain. I am super tired like I always am after having spent a few days writhing in pain and medicated to the gills.

Oh, and my gym membership card is ready to be picked up - I need to give the personal trainer a call and see if Monday February 8 is a good time to get together. Hopefully she can work well with me and my mobility issues, both with the osteoarthritis and with the endometriosis.

Today for some reason I’ve wanted to cry all day. I’m super emotional about everything. It’s as though my heart is broken. At one point, just before my lunch break at work, I was talking with my co-teacher/head teacher and she kept correcting my language, telling me to stop using adjectives. She said the director of the school always tells her to watch how she phrases things so as not to create a legal issue. This teacher would like me to follow the director’s advice, also.

All I had said was that I needed to know which recepticle to use as the wash bowl, so I could wash the easel. This teacher has in the past told me not to use the cleaning bucket, because according to her, it contains trace amount of bird feces, because we wash the lunch tables with it, and the birds are always landing on the tables and leaving their feces there.
She told me earlier this week not to use the dirty water bowl that the children use to empty water from their work jobs into, because that could create cross contamination if there is bird feces or some other type of contamination on the easel. She says it could be transferred from the easel to the bowl. She refuses to acknowledge that I wash the bowl thoroughly with hot soapy water before and after using the bowl for cleaning.
So I wanted to know WHAT to use to do the washing, said since she did not like my choice of vessels thus far.

She went on a long explanation about proper use of language and avoidance of adjectives, saying she does not lIKE or DISLIKE anything, and that it’s a matter of keeping the children safe and respecting the parents’ POTENTIAL wishes, and they MIGHT wish that their children were in an environment where they were not at risk of contaminated materials.

I about burst into tears. I just wanted her to tell me WHICH FRACKING BOWL TO USE, since she always has a problem (oh wait another adjective - she’ll say she has no problems at all) with what I’m choosing to wash the classroom stuff with.
The discussion ended without her telling me what vessel to use, so I chose the dirty water bowl again and hoped she’d not correct me and tell me to put the bowl down again like she did the other day. As I washed the easel, I noted aloud how tired I was. My co-worker told me that she read or heard of an interesting study whereby if people declare they are for example tired, that they will BECOME tired. I tried to not sound angry but told her firmly that it’s not a self-fulfilling prophecy kind of thing - it’s a FACT that I am tired, and it is part of my health condition, which renders me bedridden every month, and by the way I may not be at work on Monday because of it, FYI.

She didn’t talk to me anymore after that. She is in that camp of people who think that even after 23 years of living with a chronic incurable painful condition such as endometriosis, that I somehow manifested this illness upon myself by pessimistic thinking.

I want you to know that that camp of people will be the first to get the pain transference device strapped to their heads once it’s invented. Ever see the movie Strange Days? The transference device I’m thinking of is like the ‘SQUID’ recordings used in that movie: “experiences recorded directly from the cerebral cortex which when played back through a MiniDisc-like device allow a user to experience all recorded sensory inputs as if actually doing it themselves” -wikipedia.

Anyway, the conversations with this teacher is what nearly broke me for the rest of the day. I literally had tears in my eyes for the rest of my shift, even on my lunch break. I got out of work, came home and had some hot chocolate (Trader Joe’s Sipping Chocolate, mixed with goat milk), and wanted badly to have a complete emotional breakdown. However, I had to be at my acupuncture appointment within an hour, so i could not have my breakdown.

I want to let you know that it is not the teacher who CAUSED my emotional state. I was already fragile to begin with. She is not willfully malicious or mean in any way towards me, ever. My emotional state has nothing to do with her personally. I’m just exceedingly fragile today.

During the acupuncture appointment, the doctor stuck me in the bottom of the right foot and it stung really badly. I yelped and it wouldn’t stop stinging, so she removed the needle. It continued to sting. She said that’s the point for something dealing with my blood. Wish I could remember.
I had needles in my feet, legs, pelvis and head. I laid there for 20 mins, then she came back and removed the needles. I turned over. She put needles in my lower and upper back. These needles - every single one of them - were so painful going in that I yelped and/or cried out, voice shaky and near tears. The one in the lower right side i think it was - that one stung for several seconds, but I rode it out and it abated.
Afterwards, we talked about the herbal supplements I’ve been taking. I am wondering if the ginseng, dong quai and licorice are causing my emotional issues. I’m wondering if the mania I experienced two weeks ago is also related to these ingredients. I have in the past gotten hypoglycemic and irritable on those noted herbs. The acupuncturist said she’d think on it and do further research. I agreed to continue taking the supplements until my next menstrual cycle at the end of February, just so we can note developing patterns.

When I got out of the acupuncture session, I felt a little less like bawling. The back pain I’ve had on and off all week, and especially painful today, returned right away. It always feels like I’ve pulled a muscle or several muscles in my back every month right before my period. I hate that.
Oh and my vaginal mucus began turning tonight. The last time it did that was on January 5 and two days later I got my period. George is due February 1 but I’m thinking he’ll be here Friday or Saturday.

And on that note, just after 9pm, I’m taking 600mg Advil gel caps and going to bed.

Today I am super tired, have mega pms cravings, and low dull uterine and ovarian cramping. Doom is due by Sunday at the latest.

Yesterday I allowed myself to feel slighted by some stranger on IRC. I felt like she gave me a bunch of shit about my pain issues, and basically wrote me off because I have not yet seen a reproductive endocrinologist, nor will I try further hormonal treatment for my pain issues.

The whole conversation on IRC started with medical marijuana questions - I wanted to know if Prop 215 had worked out well for anyone locally. I did get some good advice, but this one person stuck in my craw.
She asked what my pain issues are. I told her I suffer from stage III endometriosis. What happened next is what often happens - people ask me the same tired old questions - “have you tried this for the pain?” YES. “have you tried that remedy?” YES. “have you had surgery?” YES.

Honestly, people, do you really think I would live with this illness for 23 years and NOT try all the basic shit in the books, first, then surgery, then go from there?

Then she asked if I’d seen a reproductive endocrinologist. I told her no, I’ve not been to one, yet. This is where she got all huffy with me and basically wrote me off as some ignorant wretch.
I looked back through my records - I’d tried in January and again in April 2009 (last year) to see an endocrinologist. I forget why the appointments fell through.
The person on IRC seemed like she was telling me that I obviously didn’t try hard enough and therefore I must be happy to be in pain all the time.
I told this person that I’ve seen other specialists in the past 12 months, but she stopped talking to me.

I wanted to yell at her and say IF I HAD THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL TO MY BODY, I’D HAVE READ AND IMPLEMENTED IT.

Why did I feel so slighted by someone I don’t even know?

The answer is that I’m in defensive mode with the world at large over my illness - all the time.

People range from well-meaning to outright abusive towards me with regards to my illness. The people in question range from absolute strangers online and on the street to co-workers, friends and family. All. the. time.

I can tell the same people what I’ve tried and what I’ve not tried, what I’ve been through with what treatment - several times - and still get the same questions asked again and again. This is precisely why I started blogging about my pain, the what I’ve tried, the doctors, the vitamins, the diet in general. I’m always repeating my story to people, and therefore I’m always defending my rationale for trying or not trying this or that treatment. Everybody’s got an opinion. Everybody thinks they know best. Hell, it seems like everybody thinks I must be a total fracking idiot, living with endometriosis and not doing a damned thing about it.

Even presenting all this information on my website goes unnoticed it seems. People still ask me the same tired old questions. I copy and paste a url to them. They don’t care. People just want me to shut the hell up and be healed already. They want me to quit my whining. They want me to stop bringing them down.

This same type of write-off I get from people extends to my doctors and specialists. They all get tired of me after awhile and cast me off. That’s why I’ve seen 15 doctors in 9 years and am now on my 16th and counting. My current gynecologist lost her patience with me about a year ago because I wouldn’t get another cauterisation type laparoscopy by a different surgeon - I want an excision laparoscopy and I need to be sure of the doctor before I go and get the surgery. Also, I work very hard for miniscule money - I make $11/hr the expensive Bay Area of California, and I have a very expensive diet, no thanks to all of my damned food allergies. Also, I cannot take time off work just like that. I need 11 or more days off work to recover from surgery. It took 11 days and I was still in a heap of pain upon my return last time, and that was a desk job. I have a preschool job now. Also, there’s the co-pay. It cost me $1,500 out of pocket last time, but I was making $19/hour. I have different insurance now and it’s a different surgery that would be performed compared to last time. The co-pay could be much more. It doesn’t matter though - my gynecologist thinks I can easy peasy just take the time off work and get that “minor” surgery taken care of anytime! Oh and you know, I was not told about in advance, and did not ask for those hideous stretch marks I got from being inflated with carbon dioxide for the laparoscopy.

She actually used phrasing suggesting I liked being in pain because I would not schedule a second surgery.

She actually gave me an ultimatum of January 2010 to find pain management and other specialists, because she will not be refilling my Tylenol 3 prescription anymore.

Goodbye, Dr. Lisa Bernard-Pearl. You worked so well for me in the beginning, but in the end you turned out to be just as mean as the rest of them, casting me aside, giving up on me. You gave up on me. You threw me away.

On January 6, 2010, I had an apointment to see a pain management doctor. I was on my way there when traffic got snarled. I phoned to say I would be a few minutes late, and the receptionist told me to just turn around and go home, because the doctor would not see late patients. I told her I left work on time, but there was unforseen construction holding up traffic. She asked me if I had the new patient paperwork. I asked her WHAT PAPERWORK.
Apparently paperwork is usually snail mailed to new patients, but a particular receptionist at that office emailed it to me. I told the person on the phone I never got it.
I came back home in tears and looked through my email. I found the email - it had been sent in an unprofessional manner - it looked like spam because it had no subject line, was from a stranger’s first name only, and contained an attachment. OF COURSE I never opened it. I called the office back to complain about the woman, and they did apologise. However, there was no seeing that doctor again - it was her last day in that office - she’s moving to an office 50 miles north of me. They told me another doctor in that office would call me but that never happened. In the meantime, I’ve been too angry to call that office back, and too apathetic to find another pain management specialist this month.

However, on January 21 I saw gynecologist Dr. Streitfeld, on January 23 I saw Dr. Ellis, and on January 29 I will see Dr. Fredian. Today I put in a request to see Dr. David Adamson (referred by Dr. Streitfeld), who is a reproductive endocrinologist, and I also put in a request to see Dr. Grace Eng - the same endocrinologist I tried to see last year around this time.

All of this costs money. Most of this takes time off work. Both are difficult for me, because I miss enough work as it is by being bedridden, no workplace I’ve ever been with wants me to also miss more work on top of that for doctor visits, let alone recurring surgeries.

You know, the record on repeat is enough to make me spit. Really. I was sick of it three years ago. I was tired of it five years ago.
Just go back through my entire journal. I’ve got diary entries dating to the 1980s. Have a good read. And don’t offer me any more insight, suggestions or advice about endometriosis and treatment options unless I ask for it.

Postscript ~
I felt damned near homicidal tonight. I spent all night writing this blog entry. I stepped away to do laundry and grocery shopping, and ported over some more really old diary entries. I took half a Tylenol 3 to medicate against the rage. Rage is the best way to describe how I felt all day today and still feel to a degree even now while drugged.

On January 11, 2010, I returned to work, but I feared another round of pain would be on the way. I stepped cautiously through the day, and to my glee, there was never any further debilitating pain! I was moderately fatigued, which for me is normal coming off my period. I took it easy when I got home from work.

Start the clock - T minus about 22 days til next bedridden.

Now I need to switch acupuncture herbal meds and start taking the ‘Unicorn Pearl’ for the next few weeks.

Did I ever give a breakdown of the current acupuncture meds I’m on? Let’s do that now.

The meds are from a business called Giovanni Maciocia Chinese Medicine UK, and my acupuncturist goes through one of their distributors to get said herbal remedies. I take the “Women’s Treasure” blends.

Unicorn Pearl contains:
Radix Ginseng
Radix Angelicae Sinensis
Radix Rehmanniae
Semen Cuscutae
Radix Dipsaci
Radix Morindae Officinalis
Rhizoma Atractylodis Macrocephalae
Cortex Eucommiae
Fructus Lych Chinensis
Rhizoma Polygonati
Poria Cocos
Rhizoma Cyperi
Herba Leonori
Radix Glycyrrhizae Prep.

Harmonizing The Moon, which I am to take the week before and during menses, contains:
Rhizoma Corydalis
Semen Coicis Lachrymajobi
Radix Paeoniae Rubrae
Sclerotium Poria Cocos
Rhizoma Curcumae Zedoariae
Rhizoma Spargani
Herba Lycopi
Fructus Liquidambaris
Radix Notoginseng
Ramulus Cinnamomi Cassiae
Radix Angelicae Sinensis
Radix Ligustici Chuanxiong
Cortex Phellodendri
Semen Cuscutae
Radix Rubiae Qian
Radix Rehmanniae
Cortex Moutan Radicus

Out of all of the ingredients above, four matched ingredients I took in 2007 under another acupuncturist’s care:

Radix Angelicae Sinensis
Radix Peaoniae Rubra
Radix Rehmanniae
Radix Glycyrrhizae

(if not all of the links to the herbs are there, I apologise - I was too tired to find each one. It is my goal to return to this page to finish linking the herbs).

Saturday (yesterday) I had upper and mid-back pain upon waking - I think it’s my pillow again. I got out of bed, stretched slowly, got moving around and felt a lot better. The bleeding had stopped overnight, but I knew it wasn’t the last of it. I went about my morning, anyway, and shortly realised I was very cranky. This is from having taken medication with codeine in it (Tylenol 3). Every month I get angry and aggressive, not just because I’m fed up with being in pain, but as a side effect to the codeine. I react the same way to marijuana, which is why I’ve been hesitant to go and get a medical marijuana card from the local pot club.
I’m also wondering if my upper back and neck pain is attributable to the codeine - I’ve been noticing TMJ symptoms again since being on Tylenol 3 this round.

Because I was cranky, I was snapping at the cats. My husband asked me to please calm down, because I was making him uneasy on his birthday. So I took the last .5mg pill of my Lorazepam stash.

By the time we got out of the house around 1pm, I had some minor pain again, but was feeling quite mellow from the Lorazepam. As we walked from our car across the street to the computer shop to pick up our laptop and my external drive, however, the pain reached about a 4.5 on the pain scale.

I continued to deteriorate over the course of the afternoon. My husband got some coffee at our favourite coffee shop (Peerless), and I ordered a raspberry tea. It was quite tasty - and I took some ibuprofen with the tea. When we got home from our errands, it was just about 4pm, so I took a nap while my husband stepped out to visit his favourite game store.

He woke me at 5pm to tell me we needed to get ready for dinner. He’d organised a sushi outing in honour of his birthday. I dragged myself out of bed, and as I woke up, I felt okay - no cramps. Yay!

While at dinner however, the pain returned. At one point I gasped and clutched the table, and decided enough was enough, so I dug out a half a Tyelnol 3 and swallowed it down with some green tea.

Within half an hour, I began to feel very light-headed, then outright dizzy and floaty. I became concerned for myself, wondering what was bringing this on, since I’d only taken half a Tylenol 3. I wondered if something in the sushi acted as an accelerator for the Tylenol 3. I wondered if I’d not had a full enough stomach when I took the Tylenol 3, then scoffed at that idea.

After dinner, we enjoyed a very nice dessert of gluten-free chocolate decadence cake, purchased earlier that day at Mariposa Bakery. My husband requested the cake all on his own - I had nothing to do with it. :)
This was the same torte-like cake we had gotten for our one-year wedding anniversary back in October. Everyone got to enjoy a slice, and judging by the empty plates, they all loved it. Even the owner of the sushi restaurant got to have a piece, and asked me where he could get one of those cakes for himself!

After dinner and dessert, we went on to the local tiki bar. I had forgotten my purse in my car, so I went back out to fetch it. By the time I got back inside the bar, I thought I might pass out from the dizziness, and people could actually tell I was not well.
It finally dawned on me what was going on - even though I’d taken .5mg of Lorazepam some six hours before the half Tylenol 3 pill, there obviously was a drug interaction going on. I stepped outside to phone the pharmacy, nearly tripping over people on the way out. My husband’s friend accompanied me, despite my gentle protests, and waited next to me while I talked to the pharmacist. The pharmacist acknowledged that yes, despite the time lapse, there could still be an interaction, though it shouldn’t be dangerous - it just enhances what side effects are already present in each drug - namely dizziness and fatigue.
I was okayed to take some more Ibuprofen, though.

I went back inside and let everyone know what was going on, and that I’d be fine. People suggested I should go home and rest. I told them meekly that I was afraid to be alone at this point. The pain was ramping up, I was having a drug interaction, and I could not take more Tylenol 3 to combat the pain. So I hung out, and people kept a wary eye on me. Bleh. It’s just, if I passed out, fell and hit my head, or the pain got to be a 10 on the scale, I didn’t want to be alone when it happened - I’d much rather be where people could see it and immediately rush me to the emergency room.

Sometime after 10pm, the pain was too much to bear, and I called it quits. I assured everyone I could drive home myself, that I live only a mile away. My husband’s friend (the same guy) walked me to my car, and I thanked him. When I got home, I texted my husband and his friend that I made it home safely.

I was able to sleep deeply on and off, for only about 20 minutes at a time. Then either the endo pain or the neck pain would bother me awake again. I texted my friends from time to time to see how they were all doing at the bar.
My husband’s friend is so awesome that he also tended to my hubby for the rest of the night, and was the one to bring him home “marinated” - probably sometime after 1am. I thanked him for being such a good friend and hanging out with my husband. They don’t get to hang out enough, those two.

Once my husband was home, I slept like a log, until sometime near 4am, when the damned cat began howling and scratching at the door again. I think the cat’s got dementia, I swear. He’s nearly 14 years old.