I Will Not Suffer In Silence

Saturday, July 3, 2010 - Woke up at 4 on the scale, ate breakfast w/ coffee. The bleeding resumed - I hit a 6 on the pain scale.

Sunday, July 4, 2010 - Pelvic pain if I was standing - I spent most of the morning sitting and watching the town parade. Tried hula hooping in the afternoon - which set off more pain - about a 4 on the scale. Better by evening but I was quite fatigued.

Monday, July 5, 2010 - Begin teacher training class, which is an hour and ten minutes commute. I had to be up at 5:30am. Ugh. Got about 4-5 hours of sleep. VERY fatigued all day. Light spotting. Rented a hotel room with a classmate to avoid the hour-plus commute to and from school all week.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - Already under a lot of stress from the class and homework expectations. I was told upon enrolling months ago that I’d have all summer to get my coursework done. Now I’m being told everything for each class is due within 7 days of each class!!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - Students are having emotional breakdowns. I’m near breaking point. Pelvic pain kicking back up again as a result. Came home late Wednesday night.

Today, July 8, 2010 - I took the day off school to go to my first pain management clinic as prescribed by my GYN Dr. Giudice, and the pain mgmt program director, Dr. Thoha Pham. Good thing, too, cuz the pelvic pain is still with me, today. Yesterday and today it’s kicked up to about a 4 on the scale.
The person I saw today is a pain management psychologist. Her name is Dr. Katherine Bowman, and she’s going to teach me to be more disciplined in progressive relaxation, as well as introduce me to mindful meditation. My next appointment with her is July 29th, and she wants to see me every two weeks.

This evening, I have acupuncture, and I will talk to my practitioner about the herbal remedy (discontinuing it again because THREE fingers broke out completely from top to bottom, cracked open, bled, and shed skin for an entire week - started within 24 hours of ingesting the tea), and I will see if it’s possible to see her weekly.

My next appointment with the pain management program director is August 4th - to just check in and see how things are going. I’ve had quite a bit of confusion as to some Dr. Priscilla Abercrombie in the Women’s Health bulding - I thought my GYN wanted me to see her, but no one has been sure if I’m supposed to or not? So I’ll get that sussed out with Dr. Pham.

SO many doctors! Ugh. It is a sad commentary that I actually feel at home and comfortable in the presence of doctors and specialists. :(
And at the same time, the guy in the parking garage today asked me why I come around so much, and I told him I have an autoimmune illness that causes a lot of pain, so I’m on the medical campus a couple times a month. He looked me up and down and said, “You look like happy sunshine to me - not sick!” I beamed back at him and thanked him, and said I could be a full time invalid and patient, or I can live life when I can, and I choose to live life when I can. He smiled big and praised me. :)

For lunch today, I bicycled to pick up Thai food. It was a one mile trip on the bicycle, and now my knees are killing and my entire body is fatigued and feels like lead. This makes me mad at my body. It makes me feel like any exercise I do will always lead to more pain. I feel like I can’t win.

And yet, every single time, I get back up on that bike. I get back out of the house and go out somewhere. I keep fighting. It’s so weird. I get so mad, so frustrated, want to give up, but I can’t. Something just won’t let me. I’m off to do laundry, now. The laundry basket with all the dirty clothes weighs 24.4 lbs (11kg). I note this because I can carry it - normally. We’ll see how it goes today. Probably will be okay. Just noting how I keep getting back up on that horse, is all…one activity to the next, despite the pain.

3:40pm update: Note to self: bell peppers are in the nightshade family. You’ve had digestive problems with bell peppers for many years. It is getting worse. Now you are getting diarrhea after eating bell peppers. These are nightshades and also inflammatory foods and thus on your No Fly List.

ADHERE!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010: spotting turned to flow again. 6.5 on the pain scale. I went to work anyway, and took half a Tylenol 3 and 600mg Ibuprofen. They were really short staffed, so I felt I had no choice but to be there.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010: spotting, intermittent cramps, right side pain.
To top things off, when I got home from work, my cat let me know she’d somehow gotten a bladder infection. She mewed for an hour until I realised she wasn’t trying to get into the bedroom. We usually ban the cats from the bedroom and they love to mew outside the door, cuz they love laying on our bed instead of on the couch or their own catbed. But somehow I came ’round to the idea that she was trying to tell me something, and she was. The poor thing.
I followed her around the house and quickly realised she was trying to find anywhere to pee, but the urine was just not coming out. She glanced up at the bathroom sink. I lifted her up and into it, and she squatted and a trickle came out. Oh my god. I about cried. My poor baby!

 
I took her to the kitty emergency room and confirmed the diagnosis. She was put on antibiotics for a week, and now she’s all better. But boy, what a scare. She’s 14 years old, so any health problem could be a major one; it could mean her time has come. Cats in her family line live to a maximum of 17 years old, so she’s only got up to a few years left with me. Of probably 20-something cats that came from the matriarch from 1992 onwards, only three are still living, and two of them are in my household. The third lived with my Ma until last month - now he’s at the Humane Society, awaiting adoption, because my Ma cannot be trusted to properly care for animals.

Saturday, June 12, 2010: Pulled left upper arm/shoulder while stretching. Pain lasted all week through today.

Monday, June 14, 2010: I began commuting to a teacher training course. It’s a one-week course from 8am to 5pm, and it’s 40 miles from where I live. It takes an hour and ten minutes to get there, and an hour and a half to two hours to get home. I have the same unfortunate route that rush hour traffic takes - both ways. I sit in my go-kart of a car (the seats are low to the floor) for over two hours a day, and I sit in class for 8 hours each day. I’m not just at a desk though - I also have to get down on the floor, sitting either on my knees or cross-legged, stretching over a rug, like my teacher. It is the Montessori Way.
These positions did NOT help with my strained shoulder/back issue, and it certainly doesn’t help that I have congenital chondromalacia patella, so sitting on my knees hurts more than my back, it also makes my knees feel like they are on fire, because they get so inflamed.

 
The other problem I ran into during the training week was that of scented people. I’m not used to having acute chemical sensitivity - it’s only been since September 2009 that this has plagued me so bad - only nine months - so I’m still figuring out how to cope.
Being in class with up to 30 women is a scary thing, because women tend to love scents, fragrances, perfumes. I picked a seat on the end of one of the long tables, and as it figured, one of the scented people in class chose to sit right next to me. The sore throat and headache set in within an hour.
The next day, I chose a seat across the room from this woman. The day after that, I was late to class, and the only open seat left in the room upon first glance was right next to that same woman, and another scented woman.

Not all oils, body sprays, soaps and perfumes have chemicals that are immediately toxic to me. These particular women, whatever they were wearing - the chemical makeup of their fragrance was too toxic for me, no matter how little or how much of the scent they had on them. So it’s not like they were doused in the stuff - on the contrary, it was probably a light tap or spray and most people probably wouldn’t even notice the scent. But the chemical(s) in their perfumes hates the hell out of me - the one with the compromised immune system. Go me.

After Day 1 of class, we were told to clean the tables and tidy up the room. I got stuck with table washing duty, and was handed a bottle of clorox surface cleaner. Of course, I choked and ran to escape the fumes. I had a talk with my teacher, and the cleaner was removed by the next day. She had the students use 409 cleaner, instead. It was a little better, but not vastly. I switched duties with another student and tidied up the curriculum materials on the shelves, instead.

You know, I got back into child care because I had lost my mind in the field of computer software. I had gone to school to be a teacher, not a technical support lackey.
However, the challenge of returning to the field of child care in my thirties has meant dealing with escalating health problems while trying to remain limber and agile, which are the basic requirements for being a preschool teacher.

I find myself in the past year wondering more and more often, “Did I really make a wise career choice for myself?”

Wanting to do something is one thing. My body and health cooperating with this is another thing entirely. But what else will I or can I do for a paycheck?? I’ve never been anything other than a child care provider or a clerk or a corporate office lackey of some sort.

Thursday, June 17, 2010: I was so sleep deprived by Day 4 of the training class that I decided to make a giant mug of caffeinated tea and take it with me to school. This helped me immensely with being able to stay alert and awake for the 8 hour class.
However, by early afternoon, I began experiencing left side pain and ovarian pain. It was intermittent throughout the day. It was Day 8 of the new cycle, so I wondered, is it the caffeine or is it Mittelschmerz? Or is it both?

I had gone for a brisk walk on my lunch hour twice during the week with a schoolmate I’d met during a teacher training course last Autumn, so I was really trying to exercise and work out the kinks in my back. It didn’t work. I was experiencing muscle tightness over my entire body, and at night while trying to sleep, I was getting charley horses in my calves and feet. I was sure I was drinking enough water during the day - I had been bringing two or more bottles of Smart Water (electrolyte water) with me to school each day.
I haven’t been so good at remembering to take my calcium pills - actually I forgot for the entire week. I was only taking Vitamin C and Zinc pills, and occasionally remembering my Evening Primrose Oil capsules. So perhaps I’m deficient in calcium and potassium, and perhaps I’m dehydrated despite what I think was good hydration. It certainly didn’t help my stress level during the week.

Friday, June 18, 2010: The last day of class. I was caffeinated that day, as well. I went out that night and drank some alcohol with my husband. I got buzzed, not drunk. I had a good time and my body felt more relaxed than it had in a week.

However, when I woke Saturday morning, the full body muscle strain was back, and the left side ovarian pain ramped up again. I dealt with the ovarian pain radiating up to my sides and down into the tops of my leg all day, just as I had on Thursday.

Today is more of the same with the ovarian pain. I have been on Ibuprofen and/or half Tylenol 3 pills for much of the week for the pain.
Thankfully, I have a followup appointment with Dr. Giudice this week to go over the MRI report. I can’t wait to get that out of the way.

Each day that passes leaves me wondering if I really should try out the Gabapentin or something similar.
I’ll talk to the doc on Wednesday.

Today, I woke up wanting to cry. I still have classwork to finish. I am expected to put in an appearance at work tomorrow, despite telling them I’d be taking the summer off for the training courses.
I have this week to finish the coursework, and a new class starts the following week. I have three classes back to back to back in July. I’m a tad stressed out over all of this. Each class is college-level intensive - it’s like 11 weeks condensed into one. On top of that, I ended up being partially responsible for taking photos for the class, because the two people who said they would totally flaked, and I panicked, knowing photos were needed, so I began snapping pictures of the demonstrations. Naturally, others saw this and began asking me to share my photos with them. Since we only have a week to assemble the binder, inclusive of 200-something photos from class demonstrations, I began to stress over just one more thing - not letting people down.

So I’m pretty depressed over just about everything right now.

I got the photo thing off my plate by yesterday - all the pix are uploaded and invites sent to classmates to pull down the photos from the web (Picasa). I have an order of printed photos waiting for me at Walgreens.

Now that I’ve made time for journaling, it has helped somewhat. Despite the pelvic pain and shoulder/neck strain, and despite the guilt over not being able to join my husband to help him celebrate with his dad on Father’s Day, I will now start my day and try to finish that damned 3-inch-thick class binder, and begin assembling the summer theme materials to take to work tomorrow.

I’m not working with children tomorrow - my head teacher decided to take off last week during tear-down week. The office already knew I was roped into a class which was pushed up a week. So both of us were gone and our outdoor classroom has not been set up with materials for the summer session. The head teacher is still supposedly AWOL, and the director asked me to come in a few days for a few hours each day to clean up and change out some materials in the outdoor class.
Of course, I said I’d do it, because I felt responsible for picking up for the head teacher’s supposedly unauthorised or poorly-timed absence.

I really really really wish the outdoor classroom head teacher had the freedom to teach in her own style, because the children really are learning and really are excited by her lesson plans. Alas, the parents and teachers and office administration are less than happy with this teacher, because she allows the children and the outdoor classroom to get absolutely filthy. And well, her personality is a lot like a friend of mine back in Michigan - most people just have no clue how to even deal with people like my head teacher and my friend; these two people are on a whole other plane of thought and reasoning. My friend self-diagnosed as Asperger’s Syndrome, and he’s also officially diagnosed as Paranoid Schizophrenic. So, taking his personality and communication style, and seeing how closely my head teacher matches him, I don’t want to diagnose her - rather, I go with how I’ve learned to interact with my friend and apply it to this teacher. Things have worked out for the most part pretty well between us. But I don’t think I can save her from the parents, the teachers or the administration. :(

So I am covering her ass for a few days, for a few hours each day this week, as the children begin summer school. I will see teachers and children, but I am not instructing the children. I am not taking in any pupils to the outdoor classroom. I’m merely there to use what I learned last week in class in trying to set out some materials for summer session.
This is of course a bit stressful in and of itself, but also a good learning experience, no?

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.

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.

I don’t feel like I fully conveyed my sense of frustration and panic over my highly regular cycle throwing me for this much of a loop.

When my period is even a day late, I freak out, since it’s a trigger for me. I’ve been pregnant twice in my life, with the first time being at age 18. I have never gotten over the trauma from that first unwanted pregnancy - I always feel like I’ll be in big trouble, like my life will be over, like I’ve really screwed up this time, etc. The weight of this stress is enough to throw my shoulders and back out. I’m nearly to that point today, and I took a mental health day off work because of it.

I feel like I’m in limbo whenever my period is late. I go through each minute of each day knowing I should have been bedridden already. I’d already planned for the time off work. I’d already stocked up on groceries and tried to prep the house for my descent to the underworld. And then george is a no-show and I’m left biding my time, Waiting For It.
I’m in that special hell where I cannot exert myself too much because it causes pain…but I’m not in debilitating pain. And I’m super tired - I want to sleep all day and all night. And yet because there is no constant gnawing pain and/or bleeding going on, I feel like I’m expected to BE somewhere and DO something productive. But my body isn’t up for it. But my mind is restless. So the guilt sets in. I have video blogged about the guilt before (catch it here and here), but it’s so hard to LEARN the lesson and just be okay with whatever my cycle is doing - just roll with it.

I get so caught up in knowing where my uptime and downtime is, that if I end up with a little more uptime than expected, I freak out over it. I feel like something is seriously wrong. It’s like I’ve told myself I’m not allowed to go over 25 days between menstrual cycles - that if I do, it means I’ve messed up big time (see above-mentioned trigger).

Now, the last time my menstrual cycle did a huge change on me was 13 years ago, probably as I was settling in from a major life change - moving across country.

Now I’m edging up on the age of menopause, so I should expect that my menstrual cycle is going to start acting funny, and that this will last for years until I stop menstruating altogether.

But it’s not reassuring. I know I have an ovarian cyst, that I’m prone to the cysts, and that if the cysts grows bigger than 4cm, I have to consider cancer testing.

I have an MRI scheduled in two weeks, but I’m not reassured. I called the doctor but they have no openings today or tomorrow, the soonest I can get the MRI is next week, but I’ll be in Michigan.

So it’s the waiting game. I’m in Limbo, that special hell where I wait for either my period to show up or positive pregnancy test or the MRI to confirm Something Bad™.

This morning, I went out back of the house and tried a bit of tetris in the storage unit. It went well, but the exertion left me nauseous, dizzy, weak/trembling. Between that and the fact that my vaginal mucus FINALLY turned slightly pinkish this morning, that’s all I have to go on that george will be here soon.

Normally it’s nothing for me to lift and move a few things in the storage unit…but it’s 30 minutes later and I’m still shakey and nauseous. The nausea is from the damned ovarian cyst.

My cats caught sight of the cat carrier and luggage and made their way quickly to the closet. Now I keep hearing a scratching sound, but I don’t think it’s the cats. At least, it wasn’t when I last checked. Someone next door outside or someone upstairs from me is sweeping or brushing at something, I guess. But it’s driving me nuts because I’m already in a panic state. I turned on Internet radio to drown the brain weasels and the scratching noise. It’s helping a little.

In the meantime, the nerves have flared up in my legs - I’m getting nerve pain down my inner thighs and tops of my legs all the way to my calves. Usually the pain only goes to my knees. The radiating nerve pain is another sign of george.

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.

The pain began on Friday, April 30 and has been a thorn in my side ever since. It’s ovarian pain, and until today it was centered on the right side. Now it’s both sides. The pain has been intermittent and stabby for the past four days.

What really ticks me off is that for the past week, I had been trying to omit sugar from my diet again. I had gotten down to one small serving of something sugary per day, but this only lasted for four days before the PMS set in.

Once the PMS sets in, I am no longer in control of my body. Seriously, it’s like this giant alien bores into my skull and directs me to eat and drink as much junk food as possible.

I had been working out in the gym - I started going to the gym again on April 27 for the first time in 41 days. I went to the gym again on April 29, and I also biked to work that day. I took Friday off from the gym, but bicycled 10 miles around the island on Sunday with my friend. The weather has been sunny and warm, and so bicycling has been a priority for me again.

Despite all this exercise, the massive sugar cravings set in on Friday, April 30, AFTER the ovarian pain set in. I need to note that for myself, so I don’t go off on one of my guilt-ridden tirades against myself again, saying that eating this or that CAUSED the pain. It didn’t. I gave in to the sugar cravings by nightfall, and had three scoops of sugar in a giant mug of caffeinated tea.

Oh yeah - the caffeine cravings - those set in a day or two earlier than the sugar cravings did last week.

I spent the entire weekend drinking sweet coffee drinks - mocha being the drink of choice. I used my almond milk on one out of three occasions, instead of cow’s milk.

The worst offense possible to myself is when I willingly cracked open a can of Coca-Cola we still had in the house from a long-ago house party. I drank half of it, and savoured every moment of it, before forcing myself to dump the rest down the sink drain.

Today I even failed the sugar restriction at work. I was thirsty and had neglected to bring my water bottle with me, so one of the kids offered me a Capri Sun juice pack, which was left over from snack. It was wild cherry flavour, which thankfully no longer contains high fructose corn syrup. It has lots of juice concentrates and sugars, which are still bad for me.

When I got home from work, I gorged on the last bit of chocolate I could find in the house, and ate it with a bag of pop-chips.

I could be in denial about PMS with all the coffee I had drank this weekend. I could be in denial with the ovarian pain. I could be in denial about feeling like I’m out of breath even by simply bending forward to pick something up or walk more than half a block down the street.

But once I’m sitting there eating chocolate and salty potato chips together in the same mouthful, there’s no way I can remain in denial. Well, that and drinking the Coke yesterday…yeah. I’m fully aware that I’m severely premenstrual.

George is due no Sunday, May 9. He was a day late last month. At the rate I’m going this month, my bet is that he’ll be up to 3 days early.

That means I have to have my house in order and my meals laid out before Friday of this week.

I’d like to also note that the inner-thigh-based nerve inflammation pain has just started - right now.

I just looked up a list of inflammatory foods I should be avoiding. Of course, it’s stuff I already know I should be avoiding. ;)

Living With Rheumatoid Arthritis has an article on inflammatory foods.

The Conscious Life has an article on inflammatory foods.

Here is the rundown:

No Sugar

No Cooking Oil

No Trans Fats

No Dairy Products

No Feedlot-Raised Meat

No Red Meat

No Alcohol

No Refined Grains

No Artificial Food Additives

No Chemical Sugar Sweeteners

No Table Salt

No Nightshade Vegetables (egg plant, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers)

I just added the italicised no-nos to my No Fly List (since I already have the others on my list).

6:49pm Edit I am literally waddling. I feel like I weigh 250 lbs (113 kg). I am SO tired after doing one thing, such as putting the dishes away or wiping the counter down. I have to keep resting. I’m out of breath. My legs feel like lead. Ugh. :(

Sunday upon waking, my entire back down through the pelvic region was in so much pain that by the time I crawled out of bed, I was nauseous.
There had not been any bleeding overnight - it was completely gone, even upon waking, so all I was dealing with were cramps, but I knew better.

Normally, I need to eat right when I wake up, but because of the pain and nausea, I went right into the bathroom, cleaned out the tub (which ironically helped to loosen my lower back a bit), and filled it with hot water, epsom salt and lavender bubble bath.

I didn’t eat until two hours after waking, and only when prompted by my husband, who made me a yummy cheese and mushroom quesadilla.

Within an hour after eating, I got nauseous again, my body felt like a hot flash had come on and I stripped off my sweatshirt. When I got up out of bed, I felt a gush. I had something big to pass - I could feel it (which is a mighty gross feeling, lemme tell ya).
I began doing the slow large hip circles to get the pelvic region moving, until of course the pain became too much to bear and I stopped. I took half a Tylenol 3 and 600mg Ibuprofen, and went and sat out in the backyard to get some sun, because I was feeling so gloomy.

I stayed in limbo with moderate bleeding for just over two hours, and then another huge surge of pain swept over me just before 3pm. Now, I was already on half a Tylenol 3 for the bad lower back pain and the first surge of pelvic pain that day, but I scrambled to the bathroom and took an entire Tylenol 3 to add to the armaments needed for the big fight.

I basically spent most of the day in bed, drugged to the gills once again.

Sometime in the early evening - my husband suggested we go for a walk around the block, since I was being so bitter about missing sunny days to the pain every month. We shuffled on for .8 of a mile, but by the .6 mile mark, my legs were ready to give out from under me, because of how weak and tired I still was from the endo. My husband wondered if my adrenal glands are considered to be under attack each time the endo hits, because of a discussion someone had at work - saying that when the adrenal glands are suffering, a person can feel really weak and tired. I told him I’m sure my adrenals are under attack, as I’m pretty sure they’re part of the endocrine system, which the ovaries are also a part of. I told him it is an interesting thought, and that I shall have to see what research studies and medical papers are out there discussing the adrenals and endo.

When we got back from our walk, I had to get right back into bed I was so exhausted. I spent the rest of the evening finishing up a site redesign I promised myself I would do during this endo downtime. The result is a new look for my Living With Endometriosis main site. Hopefully more navigable and less cluttered!

old theme

new theme

 
Today I was hesitant but I went in to work anyway. I was in a lot of low back pain for much of the day - it began easing up the more I moved around, thankfully. So I got through today on 600mg Ibuprofen alone, and I’m back to spotting. Barring no further bloody cylon attacks tonight, I’ll declare tomorrow the official setting of the clock for next cycle countdown.
Tonight I have some laundry and dishes to do, so I can’t just crawl back into bed, much as I want to. I’m so exhausted.

George has not shown up yet today. Because of his tardiness, I was able to get in another full day of work. :)

Upon waking, I did have some pain, and was sure that by the time I was to leave for work, I’d be in full blown pain.

Instead, I was feeling annoyingly bloated, having low level cramps, and feeling like I might burst into tears at any moment. I went to work, because it was too late to arrange for a substitute teacher. I went in thinking I’d have to turn right back around within an hour.

While waiting for the parents to begin the drive-in drop-off at the school, I stood in silence, taking in the nice sunny morning. It was mostly cloudy but I could still see enough of the blue sky and feel the sun on my face. I stared at the trees in the lots surrounding the school, and I just wanted to cry my eyes out, and I could not explain to myself just why. Hello, PMS.

Although I think part of it is that I expect routine from my illness, and when it deviates, it messes with my head. When the pain is absent for too many days, I actually get hopeful - I envision my illness just vanishing, and I wonder how long it would take for me to really believe it and TRUST being pain-free. Not being bedridden today when I thought I would be gave me some hope that perhaps this cycle won’t be as harsh, and maybe it won’t even be painful at all. But 24 years of cyclical endometriosis pain seems to laugh at that notion.

Just after 9am, the pain was enough that I took what Ibuprofen I had on me - 400mg gelcaps - and waited for the “real pain” to arrive.

I was super tired for most of the day, but the pain never got above a 4 on the scale. :)

All day I have had fierce sugar cravings, and I’ve had to keep my attitude and my anxiety in check all day, because of the PMS. I swear, if I’m not experiencing pain before my period, I’m experiencing really bad PMS! I will take that over pain though!

After work, I went to my acupuncturist appointment. I was super tired, forgetful, and dazed, but not in pain! I got treatment points in the feet, legs, pelvis, left wrist, hands and ears, then after that treatment, I received treatment points in the lower back, since that’s where a lot of my pain has actually been in the past week.

When I got home, I was still feeling tired, but not as tired as I’d been before the acupuncture appointment. With a little coaxing, I convinced myself to get some housework done with this extra time on my hands.

Because george was late, I was able to work an entire shift today, go to my acupuncture appointment, fold and put away five blankets and a slew of clean towels, unload the dishwasher and load it back up again, and wash some stuff that can’t go into the dishwasher. I also cooked up some gluten-free, yeast-free pizzas for me and my husband.

All that, on a day I was supposed to be bedridden. :)

So despite my crazy emotions, I really am thankful to have had one more day without george.

I was able to enjoy one more night out on the town before calling it quits and admitting to my body shutting down for the next cycle of pain.

Friday April 9, I think I stayed home, cuz all day at work I had been really tired and had low back pain. I had gone to bed at 9pm the night before, and had to be at work much earlier than usual (6:50am vs. 11am earlier that week), so I’m sure some of the fatigue was just because I had to get up so early.

Saturday, my husband and I took a jaunt over to the other side of the Bay and I got an impromptu hair cut to get back the bangs I’ve been missing:

 
Later that evening, we had dinner and discussed what to do that night. My husband wanted to see Rocky Horror Picture Show, but another friend who planned to go with us fell ill. That’s when another friend called and said she and her husband were throwing a hotel party for their one year wedding anniversary. We met up with them for a couple hours in their super awesome Death Star-like suite, then like the rock stars we are, we jetted off to Club Gossip, an 80’s club night, where another friend was having Part One of her birthday weekend celebration.
No pix to share from that night, sorry!

On Sunday, I slept in, and while stretching in bed to wake up, I “blew an ovary”. I swear, that’s what it felt like. I cried out, went fetal and clutched myself, whimpering for a couple minutes. I had right side ovarian and uterine pain for the next two hours. I took it easy on the couch for at least that long. Ugh.
By late Sunday afternoon, I felt well enough to start laundry, but of course, the pelvic pain returned. I pushed through it. I did do three loads of laundry, dangit. My husband and I also went grocery shopping, I cleaned out the fridge, and got some vacuuming done, all despite the pain, which was at a 4 on the scale.

Speaking of pain scales, I’ve been using the Mankoski pain scale, developed by Andrea Mankoski, who also suffers from pelvic pain and did a beautiful service to women by providing a more rational scale than the one normally used by doctors and emergency rooms.

However, I think it may be time for me to turn to another revised pain scale, developed by Allie Brosh, who, when I wrote to her, admitted that she too suffers from endometriosis.

I LOVE her pain scale!

Today I have been at a 4.5 on the Mankoski pain scale, or a 3.5 on the Brosh scale. Here is what 3.5 on Allie Brosh’s scale looks like:

 
I needed 600mg of Ibuprofen gel-caps to get through work today, and every time I sit down or lean over, I end up stuck in that position and the pain sets in immediately. I have to move really slowly to try to straighten my back out.
All day today I have felt like I am out of breath. This is “normal” for me when I’m about to be stricken with another endometriosis flare. I call it a flare because I do not suffer symptoms full time - just around the time of my menstrual cycle.

I have also been suffering from anxiety today, despite the fact that groceries are purchased and bills are paid. Oh and yesterday, I thought I might tear my husband’s head off over things that probably don’t normally make me upset. I say probably because right now I have no idea. Who am I again?
Maybe it’s the impending New Moon. Maybe it’s the impending Mercury Retrograde. Maybe it’s the cold, rainy Pacific winter that won’t leave, yet. It rained all day today.
Or maybe it’s just that my hormones are completely whacked because of endometriosis. I need to start drinking the specially prescribed Chinese herbal tea again, now that I’m heading into the next cycle.

Well shit. It’s 8pm. Gotta get some XXTREME NESTING type cleaning done, as well as some cooking, before I attempt to crawl in to work tomorrow.