I Will Not Suffer In Silence

Here’s hoping today is the end of it for another 28 days!

The bleeding and pain subsided overnight, but returned with a vengeance around 10:30am today. I got to the point of wanting to cry ‘Uncle’, and then the pain began to dissipate, thanks to 800mg Ibuprofen and another 100mg of Gabapentin kicking in.

I had some REALLY good news yesterday on the job front – I’m not allowed to say much at the moment. I’m hoping this turns out well, that’s all I can say!

On the depression front, I’m still struggling to keep myself groomed and fed, and employed due to the depression. I’m on medication to help (the Gabapentin does double-time for mood stabilisation and neuropathy relief, and I’m also on Zyprexa for depression/anxiety).

Divorce sucks. People suck. Endometriosis sucks. Part of the reason he told me he left me was because of this stupid illness. :(

The endo flare began on Sunday, and presented with full body exhaustion. Granted, I had gone out dancing on Friday, ran around on an aircraft carrier for 7 hours on Saturday, then went dancing Saturday night.
On Sunday, I slept for 14 hours, got up for 4 hours, then went back to bed for another 10 hours.
When I awoke on Monday, the pain and bleeding began.

Today is Day 2 of the latest cycle. I have been no higher than a 6 on the pain scale, but I am still thoroughly exhausted and body-fatigued.
I took half a Tylenol 3 for the pain last night, because I had to go see my shrink when I just wanted to be in bed, and the drive to and from my shrink’s office knocked my innards all over the place (I drive a 16-year-old Dodge Neon, which is like a go-kart).

I have been following my psychiatrist’s advice and taking an extra pill per day of Gabapentin during my endo flares – I’m convinced it really is helping to reduce the pain.

I went to work yesterday and today, and made it through the entire day. Hopefully, tomorrow the flare will begin to subside, and then I’m golden again til next cycle.

The pre-menstrual cramping and symptoms have been nearly ommitted by taking Gabapentin, so for the past three months, I’ve been surprised when george does show up. Though Monday morning I knew when I got out of bed, I’d be greeted by the bastard, cuz I was cramping upon waking.

Today’s pain has consisted of gnawing lower front uterine cramps, as well as intermittent stabbing left side ovarian pain. Great. The endo is returning for a third time to the left ovary. Get thee to menopause, stat! No more surgeries!!

…Annnnd a pain flare, 7 on the pain scale, shaky and nauseous, hits right before a school assembly. Kill me now.

…

12:30pm – I pounded 800mg of Ibuprofen on the way to work, and it kicked in by the time I was leading the children to their assembly. However, I had to be up and down, sitting or kneeling on the ground, and it was still quite painful. Add to that a woman with a broken foot seated next to me, and so I could not navigate around her with ease in order to sit in front of the class to direct them during their assembly song. As a result, the children did poorly, and I got in trouble from my head teacher for not moving back and forth from next to the students to in front of the students and back again. I told her about my pain and about the woman’s broken foot in my way, but she was still upset. Of course, she herself could have gone in front of the children, now, couldn’t she?
One of the parents (a friend’s significant other) told me not to worry about it, but I am. The whole ordeal was just bad, because the owner of the school’s husband insisted that my first and second graders learn and sing California Dreamin’ by The Mamas and the Papas.
WHY. WHY did my head teacher allow that song for a Secretary’s Day assembly? I went to her weeks ago vetoing the song, and pleading with her to confront the guy and ask for another song. But she told me she picks her battles with him, and caved in for that one, but won’t cave to him for the graduation songs. Of course, SHE picked the graduation song to be You’ve Got A Friend by James Taylor. It’s a more poppy version by another artist, but still, it’s that song.

I meant to rant about my pain, and it turned into a rant about work politics. But there you have it. And I’ve popped another 800mg of Ibuprofen for the pain to keep it at bay.

Today my students went to Chabot Space & Science Center for a field trip.

Of course, this is when the pain level decided to reach a 7 on the pain scale. I had to use the elevator because I could no longer navigate stairs. My legs were at first weak and shaky, and then the radiating nerve pain began down the outer side of my right leg. This of course was happening alongside the intermittent stabbing uterine and ovarian pain. There were some excruciating pain moments, resulting in me grimacing.

Thankfully the facility has an elevator! Thankfully the head teacher was also on the field trip, as were five parents who helped drive everyone. Today was a heavy day, so I was in the bathroom a lot. I missed out on the Bill Nye science lab as a result. Meh. I’ll have to go back again with friends.

For visual, here’s what my pain looked like – it’s a 6.5 on the Allie Brosh pain scale:

But hey! I’m still not bedridden! Go Gabapentin!

Also, I’d like to note that I have not taken Tylenol 3 for the past two cycles at least, nor have I sought to refill my prescription.

I’d like to further note that since clearing my body of regular Tylenol 3 intake, and starting on Gabapentin, my allergies, atopic dermatitis, asthma and multiple chemical sensitivity have backed way off. So there it is – after years of being on Tylenol 3, I’d simply overloaded my kidneys and liver, and just needed a good detox.

Funny how being forcibly hospitalised and medicated can actually be turned around to be a good thing.

But I’m still bitter at how it all had to go down.

Let’s start with a review:

My second laparoscopy was December 17, 2010, in which I was diagnosed with new endometriosis growth, and put at Stage I.

My surgeon found endometriomas on both ovaries, and cleaned out as much as she could. She removed a 1.4cm endometrioma from the right ovary, and had to leave the endometrioma in the left ovary, because it was too deeply embedded, and I did not want to lose my ovary. There were adhesions pulling the left ovary back towards my uterus again, just like in 2007, so she cut away the adhesions and repositioned the left ovary as best she could.

I spent the next three months healing from the surgery, and still experiencing debilitating pain. However, between pain cycles in May and June 2011, I experienced 20 and 17 consecutive pain-free days respectively – the highest number of consecutive pain-free days EVER since I began meticulously recording my cycles.

In fact, for the entire year of 2011, I never fell below 10 pain-free days in a single monthly cycle, which was an improvement over the year before.

Beginning in April, 2012, I experienced moderate nausea on the 14th, 17th and 19th (throughout my cycle). I had to take ginger tea, the nausea was so intense. This to me usually signals an ovarian cyst, so I called my surgeon and scheduled an ultrasound.

Then, on May 3, 2012, something unexpected happened, that has (I think) nothing to do with the endometriosis.

On May 2, 2012, the workplace had the carpets cleaned as per routine, but when I walked in the building on the morning of May 3, I immediately had respiratory distress. Now, I have a history of breathing problems and chemical sensitivity dating to 2009, when the interior of my apartment was sprayed by an exterminator for ants at the landlady’s request. But I’d never had wheezing issues or felt like I was drowning in lung fluid before.

On May 3, my breathing got worse over the time I was waiting for a backup assistant to come into the classroom, and by the time someone arrived, I was a sobbing basket-case from not being able to breathe. The director of the school drove me to my doctor’s office, where I had some preliminary tests run, and was given an albuterol inhaler and an epi-pen. I was told I probably have asthma.

Three weeks later, I finally got to see my allergist, who ran me through a computerised breathing test, and detected a ‘lung blockage’ and gave me a steroid inhaler. Within 2 days on the steroid, I had ‘roid rage’ and discontinued it. I continued taking the albuterol inhaler, though. Four weeks after that, I was given another computerised breathing test, and nothing had changed. I was given another steroid, and this one worked for about three weeks, at which time I became clinically Manic on the stuff, so discontinued it. I have used the albuterol throughout, as a ‘rescue’ inhaler.

So the ovarian cyst took a back seat to a new health condition; asthma.

I researched whether asthma is also an autoimmune disease, and was dismayed to find that people don’t really know much about how asthma develops. Even my own asthma specialist doesn’t know if asthma is autoimmune.

The reason I want to know is twofold: first, endometriosis is autoimmune, and when a person has one autoimmune disease, it means they have other concurrent as well as other undiscovered autoimmune diseases.
Second, there have been cases of lung endometriosis.

My family has a history of bronchitis, emphysema and endometriosis, so this is something I should be concerned about. I’ve never smoked cigarettes, but I did grow up in a heavily industrial and polluted area with pack-a-day cigarette smokers. I’ve always been sick with sinus infections and bronchitis every winter and/or spring.
Oh and hey, as of a 2010 study, it appears that emphysema may be autoimmune. File that away for potential future reference…

In the meantime, my periods were getting worse, and I was back to being fully bedridden during each cycle – something I’ve not had happen regularly since before surgery in December, 2010.
This means I had just over a year and a half of slightly improved health from surgery. That is to say, I had a longer uptime between periods, and one or no bedridden days per cycle, BUT I am still getting up to 7 or 8 on the pain scale at times, I am still experiencing heavy bleeding, and I am still consuming Tylenol 3.
Basically, it boiled down to “I’ll take what benefit I can get from the surgery.”

Once I was being treated for the asthma, I went back to address my worsening symptoms, still suspecting an ovarian cyst. On July 11, 2012, I saw my surgeon, who performed a vaginal ultrasound. She detected a 7mm (0.9cm) endometrioma on my right ovary.

For those who are questioning, YES, it IS possible to detect endometriomas through vaginal ultrasound. My surgeon visualised the 1cm endometriomas on both ovaries in September, 2010; three months before my surgery (more on sizing in a moment).

So my suspicions are correct in that I once again have an ovarian cyst, but I had not anticipated an endometrioma. I thought it was just an ordinary cyst, and I wanted to get specs on it to make sure it wasn’t too large to reabsorb.

What I got instead was really bad news; an endometrioma does not reabsorb or go away.

Ovarian cysts are formed when the egg doesn’t fully release from its follicle, and just keeps growing inside of the follicle. The cyst can live in or on the ovary, or in the fallopian tube, and most often goes away on its own, despite causing some nasty pain and/or nausea while it is present.

An endometrioma is “a tumor containing endometrial tissue.” Endometriosis has traveled outside of the endometrium and has embedded itself onto or into the ovary, where it begins to grow. It is called an endometrioma when it goes from being an embedded implant to a growing, swollen, fluid and blood-filled foreign mass. It is now called a tumour.

I’m told that endometriomas are not considered a threat under 4cm in size. Past that, one should be closely monitored in case the tumour turns malignant.

We discussed how to manage the endometrioma and the endometriosis in general for the long term. My surgeon knows I will not take hormone therapy. I made it clear to her that I also do not want any further surgery unless my life depends upon it. I told my surgeon that I just want to be made comfortable til I hit menopause. I want pain medication and pain management. I’ve already put myself back into acupuncture, massage and naturpathy for alternative healing.

My surgeon exclaimed that it’s such a long time before I hit menopause. I told her no, my Ma hit menopause by age 43. My surgeon has referred me to a pain management clinic, and is still urging me to try the Mirena IUD, which puts out a small amount of levorongestrel (the same ingredient as in emergency contraception called Plan B). Due to my extreme sensitivity to hormones in the past, I don’t care how small the dose is, I’m not touching any further hormonal therapies.

I had a phone call with my Ma today, and confirmed that she hit perimenopause by the time she was 40, and was definitely in menopause by the time she was 43. She said her mom also had early menopause.

So that’s where I am at…waiting for menopause to hopefully burn the endometriosis out. It’s a hope, with full knowledge that it might not work.

I had about 12 consecutive pain-free days from last cycle til this one.

I began getting intermittent uterine and ovarian cramping on February 16, when I was feeling sad and missing my grandmother, as it was her birthday. She’s been gone for 25 years, but I still grieve for her.

Two days later, I spent the day grieving for a friend who’s been gone for 9 years. Every year around the time of his death, I get little reminders seemingly from beyond, that he’s still with us somehow. Because I was sad, I got cramps again.

A few days later, my husband returned from a weekend-long gaming convention, and I was happy to see him, so we were intimate. The next day, I experienced either dyspareunia or premenstrual cramping, and then a day later (yesterday), george appeared two days early.

The thing is, I think I brought it upon myself. I’ve had a rough month emotionally, as I’ve been really sad for people who have died. And then I had a really bad day at work, wherein I got emotionally involved with a child who was having tantrums. When I tried to lead her out of the room so as not to cause further disturbance to the class, she had a big meltdown. I picked her up to expedite the removal from the class, and she wriggled free and fell to the floor screaming. My face was beet red with embarrassment and also with anger. In my effort to do the right thing (get her out so as not to disturb the lesson taking place in the classroom), it actually sped up the child’s complete meltdown.

Within minutes, I felt a trickle and a hot sear of pain, and I knew that I had made not one but two bad choices: taking the child out of class and causing myself a release of stress and anger hormones, which flooded my system and started the endo flare.

And I was supposed to be the head teacher all this week, as my head teacher is on a family retreat.

As soon as I got the child stabilised emotionally, and made sure the assistant teacher in the class was still running things alright, I called upon the director and the afternoon supervisor for help in finding substitute teachers, in case I could not make it in the next day.

This morning, I woke determined to get SOME work done. I wrote:

Attention: I am going in to work. Endometriosis can DIAF.
I’m the boss, dammit; I call the shots in this body.

 
I got through 5 hours before the pain and exhaustion took me out of the game. Then I came home and passed out for 3 hours with second round Ibuprofen and heating pad. Outside, we had an unusually warm and sunny winter day – it was in the 70′s, which is weird even for California. In February, it’s supposed to be raining hard all through February.

But because of george, I missed a beautiful sunny day, and I will miss it again tomorrow, too.

I spent the rest of the day today couch-ridden, working on importing endo blog posts over to Facebook.

The pain has been steady throughout the day, and I resorted to taking a half Tylenol 3 pill in the evening.
After dinner, I needed the other half pill. I’ve consumed 2,000mg of Ibuprofen today. The pain has been constant at 7 on the pain scale.

This evening, still in the thick of an endo flare, I counted out the days til the next one.

The next endo flare is due on the anniversary night of one of my favourite night clubs.

I’m seriously thinking of showing up – even if I have to arrive in my wheel chair. I AM SO FURIOUS WITH THIS ILLNESS TAKING JOYFUL EVENTS AWAY FROM ME.

February 2, 2012
~7:30am
Today is the cautious day. I am moving slowly about the house, trying not to stir up the Endo hornet nest. Gonna try to go to work today.

8:05am
And the doom just ramped up, but I hadn’t arranged for a sub cuz I was sure I’d be able to go in. Now I have to go in and wait for the late morning shift to arrive to hopefully stand in for me. It’s going to be grueling. Why do I do this to myself? Oh yeah, cuz I’m stubborn.

~12pm
barely maintaining on 1,400mg of Advil

~1pm
Today’s my long day. Working til 6pm. Kill me now.

~7pm
Today was brutal, but I survived work on 1,400mg of Ibuprofen and a heating pad. The children were super at helping me out. ♥

February 3, 2012
~11am
Rough day for me today. I thought the endo flare was over, but it returned while at work. Came home sick for the third time this week – just like old times before the last surgery. :(

~6:50pm
Feels later than it is. Normally that would be a good thing, but with all the pain and meds I’ve had today, I just want the day to be over.
> > Nate (my friend): did you rest?
Me: Hah, of course not. I’m stubborn. I have been couch-bound all day, though, does that count?

~11:59pm
Okay, I’m finally giving in and going to bed. I spent the day couch-ridden, but productive. I have gone through most of my stockpile of news articles and research bulletins – I have enough to post one a day for the month of March (National Endometriosis Awareness Month)! Will continue stockpiling research, of course.

February 5, 2012
Saturday was a cautious day for me physically after spending a week w/ an endo flare. I was excited that my body was able to do the Time Warp at the Castro Theatre. HOORAY FOR UPTIME! Time to LIVE LIFE until the next flare, around Feb. 24. I want to go out dancing every Friday, and I’m going to really try to get to another favourite dance club on Mondays right at 9pm as often as I can.

(Later that evening…)
Whoops, I guess I’m not officially in uptime, yet. Had great energy all day, cleaning the kitchen and bathroom. Went grocery shopping with my husband, and on the way out, I zoomed the grocery cart like a giant scooter all the way back to the car. Now my legs are shaky and I feel a bit nauseated. So I’ve been saying for the past few days, “okay body, TOMORROW then.” I say it again. Okay body, TOMORROW then…it will be uptime.

February 6, 2012
You have GOT to be kidding me.

This is the second woman in the last two years to have completely faked an attempted suicide and resulting coma. I now doubt whether she has endometriosis, or any of the listed medical conditions she talks about. Trust is completely destroyed, and now I’m hearing rumour there’s a third. Seriously, I gave these strangers a chance. I accepted them at face value, because they said they go through what I go through with endometriosis. I am ready to unfriend all of them because of three women. I am ready to shut down again on humanity – the way I used to be back in the early to mid 1990s. I was Mean Not Nice. Everybody deserved my wrath. Everybody was guilty until proven innocent, and even then, people got a squint of mistrust. Is that what I need to go back to? I know it’s not, but damn that’s how I feel right now.

I had a lot of pre-george pain this cycle, to the point where I was taking over 1,000mg of ibuprofen to get through the day.

I had intermittent right side ovarian stabbing pains all day on Tuesday, January 24.

On Wednesday evening, January 25, I got a sudden droning headache, shivers, 
G.I. issues, crushing fatigue, runny nose. But because I have allergies, it could EITHER have been a food reaction OR a virus.
 People are dropping like flies at work from the stomach flu and bronchitis.
Interesting to note; the crushing fatigue started before dinner. Everything else began during dinner.
So was it a combo of PMS and fighting off a virus, PMS and food reaction, or just PMS?

On Thursday, January 26, I woke feeling much better. However, by afternoon that day, I had the distinct feeling of adhesions pulling deep inside my abdomen. I forget what side; I want to say it was the right side. I had forgotten to record it til Sunday in my calendar. According to facebook, I ate 1,200mg Advil to get through the day on Thursday.

On Friday, I was so busy that I don’t remember if I was having intermittent cramping. It was daycare day at school, and parent/teacher conferences were happening. I was floating from the preschool yard to the elementary yard to parent conferences all day long. Then I picked up one of my students after work and babysat him and his brother til 9:30pm that night.

The next day, on Saturday, January 28, I experienced mild uterine cramping. I chose to drink with friends rather than take any pain meds, because it was an all-day birthday gathering for one of my friends. I wasn’t ready to admit downtime was coming for me. I still wanted to play. I never got drunk that day, but I did have five drinks over the course of about 7 hours. I paced each drink and also consumed water.

I was not hungover on Sunday – like I said, I never got drunk. Sunday however was brutal. I experienced moderate uterine fullness and soreness, and spent the entire day on the couch near tears from the pain. My entire lower back was on fire, and deep inside my pelvis there was a volcano of death brewing. 

I took 800mg Advil, half a Tylenol 3, stretched slowly in doorways, used my TheraCane on the lower back, and used heating pads. I was close to having an emotional meltdown, because my period hadn’t even started, and yet I was in so much pain. Later, I dug into the Tylenol 3, which helped, so I took half pills of that for the rest of the day.

I had 15 pain-free days in January (non-consecutive). The good news though is that nine of those 15 were consecutive.

George arrived on time on Monday, January 30. I’d like to note that January is a “Blue Moon” menstrual month for me, since I got george twice (January 5 and January 30).

Sunday night I had gone to bed nauseous and expecting to get george during the night. Thankfully, I awoke on Monday with minimal pain and no nausea, so I went in to work. Of course, by the time I was leaving for work, the pain and nausea set back in. I was able to make it through the day on 1,100mg of Advil, a hamster bladder, and some whining.

On Tuesday, January 31, I wrote in facebook:
“So is it bad that I’ve been sitting here for the past 43 minutes, waiting for the pain to stop so I can eat food and get ready to go to work?

I guess the 800mg of Advil for breakfast so far didn’t do the trick.

I have 30 minutes before I have to leave for work, but I need to make the judgement call in the next 10 minutes in order to attempt to find substitutes for the day.”

Just under an hour later, I wrote, “Can’t find substitute – still short-staffed. Going in with heating pads strapped to my body like incendiary devices. Hoping for the best. I may very likely have to take a half of a Tylenol 3 on the job just to get through.”

I tried 800mg Advil, then 3 hours later I took 600mg more Advil to no avail, then a protein bar and half Tylenol 3. Finally, the extended care supervisor found some staff to juggle, and gently pushed me out the door around 11:20am. She’s super empathetic and in general awesome that way.

The pain hovered between 6.5 and 7.5 on the pain scale all day and all evening. I saw that I still had some Vicoprofen in the medicine cabinet, so I decided to give it a try again, since the Tylenol 3 didn’t appear to be dulling the pain enough for me. I took half a Vicoprofen and half a Robaxin muscle relaxer I also had left in the cabinet. The pain during this cycle has been centered low on the uterus and pressing into the bowels through the anus. It’s enough to make me whine and cry like a three-year-old. It’s been REALLY brutal.
Tuesday night, I was in bed before 9pm because of the strength of the medications I had taken.

In the middle of the night (3am), I woke from a crazy dream in time to find myself bleeding through my bedclothes. George had circumvented the thick overnight pad and went through my underwear and pajama bottoms to the bed. I had to change my clothes but was not about to change the bedsheets at three in the morning! Thankfully the bed wasn’t a disaster.
Wednesday morning, I awoke with heavy flow, nausea and grinding uterine pain. Thankfully, the woman I had asked the night before to sub got back to me and said she would come in. I took another half vicoprofen and half robaxin pill. Within 20 minutes, maybe less, I was higher than a kite, so I went back to bed. I was fine as long as I was bedridden. If I tried to get up, I was super dizzy and cranky from the medication.

The pain hit me again four hours later, so around 10:30am I took a half vicoprofen and half robaxin. Once again, it took roughly 20 minutes and I was higher than a kite from the meds. This time, however, I decided I was just DONE being so stoned. I was done being bedridden, and now I was depressed over it, because I couldn’t just stop being high. And besides, the pain was leaking through the meds – just as it had done with the Tylenol 3.

That’s when my memory kicked in – didn’t I have a problem with vicoprofen in the past? I turned to my own journal, knowing full well I’d find out that I had a big problem with vicoprofen. OH LOOK, THERE IT IS…
http://www.livingwithendometriosis.org/steph/2009/10/vicoprofen-review/

And so I spent much of the day stoned – trying to leech the meds out of my system. I took only Advil for the rest of the day and the pain crept back in, but I was adamant that I did not want to take any more opiates or narcotics til the bleariness of the vicoprofen wore off. And here I am, at 6:15pm, STILL FUZZY from that shit!!!

All I can do is smack my forehead and label the bottle THIS WILL KILL YOU or some other means of avoidance. I don’t want to throw the stuff away, because in case of emergency, I’d rather have something in the house.

Now…going back to the end-of-January pain cycle. I was saying it was really painful pre-george.

My question is, am I having a bad pain cycle because of the stress at work during the last two weeks of January (parent observations, prep for report cards, and parent conferences)

OR

am I having a bad pain cycle because I chose to drink with friends two days before george was due?

OR

am I having a bad pain cycle because of BOTH the stress and the drinking?

OR

am I having a bad pain cycle for no reason other than It’s Just Endometriosis?

It’s my age-old question, steeped with guilt over the possibility that I am doing the wrong thing to bring more pain.

Whatever the reason or lack of reasoning, the fact is that in the new year, 13 months after surgery, I am still missing work and still on occasion bedridden from endometriosis.

I was bedridden one month after my surgery when the first real menstrual cycle hit. I was bedridden nine months after surgery.
I was bedridden 10 and 12 months after surgery.

The good news is that since my surgery in 2010, I was only bedridden for FOUR cycles, and only couch-ridden during TWO cycles out of 14 cycles total in the year 2011.
That’s much better than I was doing before surgery, where I was bedridden nearly every cycle of the year.

Doing the numbers helps me keep focus, helps me keep a semblance of morale up.

I’ll continue to track bedridden times through the year 2011 and see if I’m edging back towards pre-surgery illness. I’ll continue to tweak my diet, even though overall, dietary changes have not in my opinion shown vast improvement to the overall pain level during each cycle. If I don’t keep doing something to fight, then there’ll be no reason to fight, and the endo really will consume me.

My workplace, some friends and family, and total strangers will not see any improvement in my condition. I see little fluctuations that to me are major. I must continue to point them out so you can see how major in the scope of my illness these small changes are, and why I must keep fighting.

I made it through work today! It took 1,200mg Ibuprofen and half a muscle relaxer (the back/neck are still locking up, but not all the time), but I made it! YAY!

And then I took my husband out to sushi dinner, cuz today’s his birthday! The owners made him a special dish:

Now that the endo flare is over, I’m golden until the end of the month. Gotta be strong and adhere to the goals:

• Go sugar-free again.
• Do a better job from abstaining from alcohol again.
• Be serious about gluten-free baking at home, so I cut down on processed foods.
• Start biking to work every day again.
• Keep posting more positive entries – what I can do, as opposed to what my limitations are – and post between cycles, as opposed to during or right after an endo flare.

I have a few additional goals:

• See if I can manifest the idea I had recently to gift fellow endo sisters, to share positivity and love.
• Make a video update on how my life has been since surgery in December, 2010.
• Finish editing and then upload two more humourous videos I’d done in the past year or so.

After 16 consecutive pain-free days, george reared his ugly head once again. The term “pain-free” is really a misnomer, though, because I was in a ton of pain during those 16 days, but it wasn’t endometriosis related. I had a pinched nerve in the neck, which radiated down my left shoulder and arm, and caused much of my upper and mid back to go into spasm. I had little to no mobility of the head without intense pain. The pain also radiated upwards, causing migraines. It all began when I tilted my head back to put in antihistamine eye drops before work on December 14.

The uptime that I would have had for 16 days was completely removed by the pinched nerve. I went through two different muscle relaxers, and was also eating Advil like candy and taking regular doses of Tylenol 3. I was scheduled for physical therapy and potentially a cortisone injection to quell the pain. I bought a TheraCane, which helped only a tiny bit (but having that cane long term is a good idea).

And then, just as I was entering the next menses cycle, with lower back pain ramping up, the upper back and neck pain eased up! Thank goodness, because I can only handle one big pain mess at a time!!

Since the first day of my cycle this month, I have not had any pinched nerve in the neck issues, and I’ve had full mobility back again.

ON TOP of the pinched nerve and the endometriosis, I ALSO developed pink eye for the SIXTH time in three months, because I wore eye makeup with some kind of ingredient in it that hates my eyes. This time mascara was not the culprit – it was black eyeliner with glitter in it, which I wore on New Year’s Eve. The pink eye hit about 36 hours later, on January 2.
Perhaps I had used that eyeliner during one of my other bouts with pink eye, and it was therefore contaminated and reinfected my eye. I don’t know, but I threw it away this time, along with my other eyeliners. Ugh, it’s getting to be too expensive for me to wear makeup, I swear.
I had leftover antibiotic eye drops, so I have been putting those in four times a day for the past week, while dealing with trapped nerve pain (so THAT’S been interesting, having to lay down or lean back, because tilting the head hurt too much) and also dealing with premenstrual cramping.

The cramping had set in on December 30, and was likely the result of me drinking coffee during vacation. Caffeine always kicks up pelvic pain for me. I know better. I was a bad monkey. I could have given myself a few extra days without premenstrual cramps had I just stayed away from the caffeine.
By January 2, I thought for sure george was going to be early. I was urinating more frequently, and felt a fullness in the uterus, so I was checking for bleeding all day Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday, I actually had no cramps until 8:40pm, when began an increasing stinging pain in my hips, moving inward towards uterus, triggering my bladder.

On Wednesday, I had intermittent pain throughout the day, worsening in the evening when I was at a meeting for a paranormal group that I volunteer for. That night, my entire back from top to bottom was seizing, because I was still also dealing with the pinched nerve pain.

George didn’t actually show up until Thursday – a day late – while I was at work. I had been wearing a pad for a few days, so I was prepared. The low back pain was brutal that day, and was aggravated by all the stooping and bending that I do as a preschool teacher. I ate 2 half pills of muscle relaxers that day, and 800mg Advil gel caps. I looked pretty ill at lunch hour that day, and two teachers commented on it.

On Friday, my head teacher and the two teachers from the previous day were surprised to see me at work. My head teacher said she was told I wouldn’t be in. I gave a contemptuous look and assured my head teacher that I would have phoned her myself, as well as the school, if I were not coming in. She replied that she thought so, and said she was confused by what people had said. I told her that it was likely the two teachers from the previous day, who saw me in pain at lunch hour, and who also know about my endometriosis. My head teacher asked me if that was acting up, and I said it was. I told her I was doing well at the moment, and that I hoped for the best, since I’d been pre-medicating for days.

The pain set in not long after class started, because as a preschool teacher I had to go right into the stooping and bending to interact with children. I consciously used the Alexander Technique as best I could the entire day. Between that, the muscle relaxers and Advil, I was able to get through the work day. That’s not to say it wasn’t a bad day; I bled through two pads, to my underwear, TWICE. Good thing I was wearing black slacks. The pain was at 6.5 on the pain scale for much of the day, though I had entered the workplace at about a 3 on the scale.
It took 2 half muscle relaxers and 1,200mg Advil gel caps to get through the day. The pain ramped further when I got home, despite taking a whole Tylenol 3, a half muscle relaxer, and 400mg Advil.
Before bed, I took another half Tylenol 3 and a whole muscle relaxer. I had intermittent cramps throughout the night.

That brings us up to Saturday – which was yesterday.
I conserved my energy, missing out on one of my husband’s birthday functions during the day. He was at a local game store playing table-top games with friends from 11am to 7pm, while I stayed at home playing it safe, trying to avoid the pain.
I took a continual amount of Advil gel caps throughout the day, and the pain level stayed at about a 4 on the pain scale.

I was able to accomplish some minor housework, which pleased me greatly.

Last night, I joined my husband for dinner at a local German restaurant. I have not had any alcohol in the New Year, because I knew the endo flare was on its way. For dinner, I chose grilled salmon on a bed of spinach.

I made all the right choices, and yet, the pain flared while I was out at dinner. One of our friends remarked that I was looking ‘green’.
I was in fact about a 7 on the pain scale. I broke the ‘no booze during an endo flare’ rule in order to attempt faster drug delivery to the blood stream. I drank some brandy with my Tylenol 3 and Soma. It really did help.
After dinner, my husband and I came back home, and I curled up in bed with the heating pads and passed out from the pain meds.

This morning, I awoke to debilitating pain from one end of my spine to the other, spread out across my back and throughout my pelvis. I was at 8.5 on the pain scale and whimpering a lot. I took a full Tylenol 3 and a full Soma, and the drugs took hold within 20 minutes. This thankfully lowered me back down to a 4 on the pain scale.
Moving around wasn’t really an option, as it brought the pain back up again.
As a result of having to take drugs first thing in the morning, I was barely functional, falling asleep at the keyboard from the drugs. My husband made me a bit of breakfast to eat, and then I passed back out again until afternoon.

I have spent the entire day in bed. I got out of bed long enough to make myself a late lunch, and this rekindled the pelvic pain, so back to bed I went, with my food, even.

This is not how I like to spend my weekends. I’m tired of doing this for 26 years. I’m tired of having spent thousands of dollars on two surgeries that have not made me pain-free. This is no way to live.

I really hope this endo flare is done by tomorrow, because I have to be back at work.

It is now 6pm, and I will get out of bed and move around. I’ve been getting out of bed every one to two hours to move around and test the waters on my body’s mobility and threshold.

…6:37pm: so far so good. I’m leaving the house to go grocery shopping with my husband!

…7:52pm: At the grocery store, my legs got weak and felt like giving out several times. I walked slowly and forced one foot in front of the other. Leg weakness is common with endo and me. The nerves radiating down from the pelvis must still be inflamed or impinged with the endo flare, because the signal does not reach correctly in the legs.
When we got home, I was helping put groceries away when I almost fainted. I literally felt myself go dark and dizzy, and then my eyes popped wide and I held onto the countertop. Now I have nausea. It’s not hypoglycemia – I ate 4 hours ago and I’m not feeling hungry. This is different from hypoglycemia. I know this feeling. It happens right before crushing pain from passing more clots. The rest of tonight should be interesting. I hope it all gets itself over with before work tomorrow!