I Will Not Suffer In Silence

George arrived on Sunday, March 8 at 6:48pm. I’d been cleaning the house all afternoon in preparation for george, and documenting it for YouTube.

I’d been documenting different parts of the video all day as ideas and the script came to me, and getting excited as to how all the parts would fit together at time of edit. This was the first video I was creating that would have a soundtrack and voice over parts, and my confidence level was high - I would figure out how to put it all together in iMovie.

I was in the bedroom, photographing the stuff I would use to entertain myself with while bedridden, when suddenly my face and ears flushed. I felt stingingly hot and winded. I went to the bathroom and there was george - a day early. There was bright spotting at first, and the pelvic cramping returned. I immediately popped 600mg ibuprofen, dropped everything I was doing around the house, and zoomed off to the store to finish grocery shopping.

By the time I returned home an hour later, the pelvic pain was at 6.5 on the Mankoski Pain Scale. I can’t recall but I think I took Tylenol 3 before bed that night.

On Monday, I went from bright spotting to dark brown spotting, and then it turned bright red by evening time. I note this because all through 2008, I had dark brown coffee ground type material on my first two to three days of menses before the heavy bright red flow set in. And then it was November 7, 2008 when I was diagnosed with a 4cm ovarian cyst, which left me very ill throughout the month of November. I went on a detox diet for liver and kidneys that month, and by the end of November, the cyst had shrunk to 1.6cm.
I’ve had dark brown spotting on and off since November. I’ve only had one month so far that menses started off bright red and stayed that way throughout.
A healthy menstrual cycle is supposed to be nice and bright from day one of menstruation. The dark stuff means something not right is going on inside, such as a cyst. So I keep track of the colouration every month, now.

Going back further in time a bit - after my last day working over in Daly City, on Friday, March 6, I went to a health food store I always frequented when I used to live in that area ten years ago. I picked up some liquid iron supplement, and also purchased iron supplement pills. I spoke at length with the dietician running the register, and he told me that for my condition, my doctor would probably put me on 1,800mg “of the harsh stuff”, meaning the really constipating iron tabs. He sold me stuff that’s supposed to be much more gentle on the stomach and intestines. I’ve been taking the iron since Saturday, March 7th: 100mg per day of the capsules and 4tbsp (20ml) per day of the liquid stuff.
That is to say, I’ve been taking three times the recommended dosage of the capsules, and two times the recommended dosage of the liquid, because I lose so much blood every month, and because a year ago last April, when I was in the emergency room, I was told I may need a blood transfusion with all the blood I’d lost (I declined treatment, I just wanted to go home cuz I’d had a horrible hospital experience).

Tuesday is when the cycle got very heavy and painful. That day was the Full Moon. My pain level was at a 7-8 all day on the pain scale. I went through a lot of Tylenol 3 that day. So much in fact that I’d wager to say I overdosed a bit, because by evening time I had mild hallucinations and found it difficult to breathe. Despite having taken so much Tylenol 3, I was highly productive on Tuesday. Being that high allowed me to dissociate from the pain and work on my YouTube video quite a bit.

On Wednesday, I woke from a medication-induced nightmare which left me on edge for much of the morning because it involved friends disowning me. The pain and bleeding was moderately heavy, but it fluctuated all day. I ranged from a 4 to a 7.5 on the pain scale for much of the day, but despite that, I was very tired and listless all day. I refused pain medication for much of the day because I didn’t like how much I’d taken the day before. It wasn’t until around 9:30pm that I resumed taking Tylenol 3, because the pain and bleeding ramped up again. I went to bed feeling 8 on the pain scale.

Thursday is when I had my Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
First off, I woke up from another medication-induced nightmare in which tornadoes, my father, my husband and some friends were involved.
But I fully expected to feel better after having two heavy pain and bleedy days. This was not the case. If you can believe it, the bleeding was even heavier than the previous two days. I was soaking a pad an hour, I was dizzy, off balance, disoriented. I took my pain meds and considered whether I should go to hospital emergency. Every time I stood up or adjusted my position, I soaked a pad.
I had just stood up and had picked up my bottle of orange juice, when the lid popped off and the bottle fell from my hands, splashing all over the place. It wasn’t even 10:30am yet. I wrote about it after cleaning everything up, but my bad day didn’t end, there. After cleaning up the mess, my pain got considerably worse of course, what with all the stooping, bending and mopping I had done. I took my rice heating pads to the kitchen to heat them up in the microwave, and shrieked.

Ants!

We’ve been having trouble with ants for the past few weeks, and have tried several remedies. The ants always find a new way into the house. In the two and a half years we’ve lived here, we’d never had ant invasions until this year. Because of the recurring ant invasions, I’ve come to scrutinize any room I enter before going about my business in that room. This means that I had just been in the kitchen less than an hour prior to my re-entry, and there were no ants. And yet here they were now, a full busy highway of them. They had found my cats’ water dish but surprisingly not their kibble. They were having an all out pool party in the water bowl. Miscellaneous ants crawled about the kitchen, checked out the liquor shelf, and cruised alongside the bottom of the refrigerator. The source of their entry was through an opening in the cabinets below the kitchen counter. This is the area - that entire back wall of the kitchen - in which the ants have been trying to come in through various sources for weeks, now. They’ve even tried coming in through light switches.

Upon entering the kitchen and seeing this, I put down my heating pads and sobbed. I had to clean up this mess NOW, or else I’d go mad, and the ants would be in the cat food and in the fridge within minutes.

Good thing I’d already popped a second Tylenol 3.

I set to work with the ‘Bugs R Done’ orange spray. After coating the kitchen in that stuff, I opened windows to air out the house, and mopped up ant carcasses. To the latest entry point, I applied ‘Ant Eater’ brand anticide, which contains diatomaceous earth and clove oil. I then stripped down and took a nice hot shower. While showering, several ants streamed out of the towel rack in the shower and began running up and down the shower wall.
I sobbed and sobbed. Depression set in full force at this point.

My husband came home early from work, bringing peppermint and cinnamon oils in tow. He moved the fridge out, cleaned up under it, and we applied soaked cotton full of the oils to various potential ant entry points around the kitchen.

I went to bed early last night - around 9:30pm - as the bleeding tapered off. I laid in bed first listening to progressive relaxation tapes, then reading The Witching Hour - a book I first fell in love with back in 1995. I had three heating pads on various parts of my body. I finally was able to get to sleep around midnight.

We’ve not had any further ants and hopefully it’ll stay that way.

Today I am feeling better. I’m back to spotting again. I have mild to moderate low back pain. The problem today is that around 9am this morning I had black, bloody stools. This is important to note in relation to my iron supplement discussion above, because it is a sign of iron toxicity. Insofar as symptoms go, I also have metallic taste in my mouth, and a headache. So I’ll be laying off the iron supplements altogether until I see my doctor. I have an appointment today at 2:45pm.

Tomorrow, I’ll be up in Calistoga for an all day spa event for a bride-to-be. I’m a bridesmaid in her wedding next month, and so we are treating ourselves and the bride to massages, swimming, relaxing, and dinner. We’ll cap off the night with a girly slumber party and then come back home on Sunday.

This Monday, it’s the 16-year anniversary of a local nightclub, and so my husband and I will be heading out to that.

Coming up this Tuesday, I have an appointment with Social Security Disability Insurance, which will likely be a waste of my time. I set up the appointment yesterday in the throes of my depression, because I am feeling unemployable again due to the fact that I have just missed another week of potential work, and I can’t shake it from my head that the last job might have continued had I not been out sick for nearly a full week every month, and the daycare agency never called me back when I asked to be reinstated (that’s the same agency that told me “I knew it! Every time I need you you are not available!” in August, 2008, because they seemed to only call me on a monthly basis, and when I was bedridden).

I talked to state disability yesterday. They told me that per their rules, they can only pay out a maximum of 55% of one’s paycheck, which means one must be inable to work for more than 14 days out of each month. Because I can work 23-26 days out of each month, I do not qualify as disabled per their requirements. So although I am potentially unemployable due to my health conditions, I fall through the cracks for state assistance. I was referred by state to federal. I know that will be a joke, too, but at least they’ll take time to interview me rather than just deny me outright.

This Tuesday, I also have an interview for a nanny position. I know I will ace the interview because I am confident in my skills and educational background. But I am not confident I will get the job once they find out about my health condition. I go back and forth on the issue of whether or not to divulge my health condition.
We’ll see how it goes.

Next Saturday, I’ve got an appointment to get my hair coloured. I’ve not done anything colour-wise with my hair since the wedding five months ago. I’ve been letting all the colour and length grow out so I can get the copper and red tones I originally wanted before that one hairstylist screwed up my hair just weeks before our wedding last year. The woman I’ll be seeing next Saturday is the miracle worker who fixed what the other hairdresser had done to me.

Apparently I won’t learn to take better care of myself anytime soon…

I was still an anxiety case and not tired at all during my last entry, so I took a teaspoonful of codeine cough syrup to make me drowsy. I figured since it had an expiration date of 2007 on it, that it would be a weak sedative at best. I figured it was more a psychological crutch than anything.
I was wrong.
I woke from a nightmare as my husband was readying for bed sometime after midnight. I had been babysitting a child - the parents came home from their night out and they were drunk. Instead of payment, they gave me all sorts of infant toys they’d just bought, and slurred drunkenly at me about their time out that night. I thanked them for the toys and eventually was able to bring them round to the topic of payment. I told them what my hourly rate is and even decided to state a range in case they were not so flush with cash after their stupid shopping and drinking spree. The mother paused, looked at me nearly cross-eyed, and stated I’d have to talk to her husband, as she did not have any cash. So I phrased the same to her husband. He went from smiling drunk to the look of belligerence. His tone became cold and he stated that he just didn’t have ANY money to pay me with, that they’d just bought me all this stuff…
Oh sure I see, now I’m an ungrateful bitch. Okay, nevermind, well I’ve got to go! Be seeing you! And I made my way out the door with a forced smile and bid them goodnight.
I got out to their driveway, which was more like an unkempt alley with bumps and potholes. The alley bordered a muddy grassy area along an old rickety wooden privacy fence. In some places, there was no longer any wood - instead I saw the metal fence, and behind it some more homes (this actually exists - not outside of the crazy family’s house but behind the converted warehouse space our friends live in. We’d just seen them Saturday night).
I looked for my car and became panicked when I didn’t see it in the spot I’d left it a couple of hours earlier. I walked up and down the alley looking for my car, and on my way back I found it - my car had dropped into a sinkhole! I hadn’t even heard this happen! Some of the wooden and metal fencing had fallen down on top of my car in the sinkhole, and my car looked to be in bad shape. I wanted to melt down right there. I tried calling my husband but got a wrong number. I tried again and reached him but he seemed indifferent to my problems. It was an effort to get him to come pick me up.
Next thing I knew, a crew was on the scene raising my car from the sinkhole. Dunno if I’d called them or neighbors did, but neighbors had come out to watch. I talked with a neighbor about how a policeman had just told me I could sue the adjacent property for lack of upkeep and maintenance on the land on which my car had been parked. Turns out the property was a big house converted into many apartment units, and the person I was talking to not only lived in that property as a tenant, but owned it. So now he was tipped off to my intentions and he brusquely walked away from me.
I can’t remember if I started to walk home after inspecting my car and deeming it a lost cause for the moment, or if my husband finally arrived to pick me up. The neighborhood had now turned into the neighborhood I lived in during early childhood back in Michigan.
I can’t remember much about the dream during this phase. I know I ended up back at our house, which was built on stilts at the top of a cliff overlooking a large body of water.
Next thing I remember is being in the house with my mother and brother present, and the house begins to shake. I look out the window and see multiple tornadoes coming in off the water. I try to gather everyone but I can’t find my mother or my husband. My brother is slow to the news at first, but picks up on the urgency and danger and starts looking for shelter with me.
The dream ends with the house exploding from the force of the many tornadoes. We all die.
I watch the remainder of the dream as a viewer rather than participator. A neighbor in the area is picked up by one of the twisters and flies through the air, down the hill to the neighborhood below, where he is set back down and takes off running down the street in panic.

End dream.

Dream influences:

The crazy family: I had an interview earlier in the day on Sunday with a crazy family, so this is how they entered into my nightmare.

Tornadoes: for me tornadoes in dreams always mean big change is coming. I already know I’m losing my job in two weeks. What change beyond that is coming just makes me more uneasy. Examples of change in my real-life past from having tornado dreams: moving to California on a few weeks’ notice. A boyfriend suddenly breaking up with me and ordering me out on threat of harm to my cats, after we’d spent five tumultuous years together.

9:30am update: More ants in the kitchen right before I had to leave for work early this morning. They’re still finding ways to come down from the interior walls behind the cupboards.

I hate life right now.

I just woke up nauseated and cramping badly, and feeling hungry.

Sometimes the Tylenol 3 makes me nauseous. Most often, it gives me false hunger pains. And sometimes the pain leaks through despite being medicated.

Then again, the last time I took any meds was almost 3 hours ago, so I assume that it’s also time for another dose.

I also had more nightmares. I was in a daycare trying to put children down for nap. The children were children I’d cared for 15 years ago back in Michigan. Nobody would listen and I found myself shouting at them. At one point I’d had it and left my co-teacher alone with all the kids in the room, and went for a walk.
I got about three blocks from the daycare and decided I should turn back around. But suddenly, no matter which route I took, I ended up further and further away. I hopped on a bus or light rail train, thinking I could get back to the daycare quicker, but when I was let off the train, I found that I was now up by 16 Mile road (in Michigan). Panicked, I walked faster and faster, trying to find out what had happened, trying to get to a place I remembered, so I could get back to work on time. It was all very anxiety-inducing.

The dream shifted from that to an actual real life memory of being down in the basement at the house my first sex partner was staying at. He was mad at me for terminating a pregnancy I did not want, and ending the relationship with him because he’d lied to me about purposefully knocking me up. He held a shotgun to my head. I ran upstairs away from him in sheer screaming terror, and tried to dial 911 on the phone at the top of the stairs. He grabbed me from behind, grabbed the phone from me, bashed the phone receiver into the wall, turned me around, grabbed my neck, slammed my head into the wall a few times and choked me. Then he stepped back and calmly announced he was going back downstairs to get the shotgun and take care of both of us. I ran from the house, got into my car and drove home in hysterics.

That is a real life memory.

I threw open my eyes and blinked rapidly and breathed deeply to force the memory to fade away again.

I get this unexpected flashback every now and then. All I can do is breathe and push it away.

The flashback caused even more anxiety and I think is what brought the cramps. The books I have on Endometriosis state that since the uterus is hormone-rich, whenever something happens to set off a hormonal surge in the body, the uterus is also involved. And for someone with Endometriosis, this is bad news, because when the hormones set off their signals, it also activates the hormone-rich adhesions on organs outside of the uterus. Those organs in turn set off their pain receptors, because they think something is attacking them. And voìla, that’s how I get to be in so much pain and gushing bleeding.

So of course at this moment, all I can think of is THANKS A LOT, DIPWAD. I STILL KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE. I STILL KEEP TABS ON YOUR SKANKY ASS. I STILL DON’T FORGIVE YOU, YOU EFFING BASTARD. ONE DAY I’LL JUST STOP BY AND GET ALL KILL BILL ON YOU.

…and I breathe…

because anger sets off a hormonal wave again…

You see how it goes…

Good times.

I spent all day yesterday, from about 10am onwards in bed, because that’s when the pain started. I had cramps throughout the day but I remember my last onset of cramps was about 9:30 - 10pm last night.
And then this morning again at 9:45am. I keep wondering about this 12-hour cycle my body tends to go in with its cramping.

So much research still to do. Must make the time for it.

I *still* haven’t posted the research from fatty cells I was looking up last week. I had no idea that fat cells *produce* estrogen. Why did I not know this? The books I have on Endometriosis tell me this. I just retained the info til now. I need to finish typing up that entry and share it.

I was very drugged on pain meds and trying to sleep, but my man came into the room to tell me that ‘Steve’ was here to see the place. I was very groggy and tried to ask who ‘Steve’ was because I just wasn’t remembering. But my man left the room. He was busy with something and didn’t want to deal with Steve, and more to the point I got that he didn’t like Steve.
I was annoyed by this so I staggered out of bed and went to greet Steve, who was this guy with short reddish hair and a short reddish beard. He was dressed pretty normal if I recall correctly. I couldn’t place how we knew him.
I showed him around the house because I was paranoid that he might take something of value if not watched closely, simply because I didn’t know him. He refused to talk the entire time I showed him around the house. He took pictures of the place. His room would be in the basement*, so I showed him that. My friend Evil was also visiting, and I realised then that Steve** and Evil were also friends, and that Evil must’ve told Steve that we were subletting our place.

As I was showing Steve back upstairs, I shot a look over my shoulder at Evil, who had accompanied me through the house. He gave his usual smirk and shrug, and was not about to explain for Steve why Steve wasn’t talking. Steve was nice and smiled graciously and all, but just wouldn’t talk or answer questions.

We got back upstairs and I noticed that Evil was sitting in a recliner chair in the living room, and that there was a woman and young toddler in the room. They were waiting for Steve. He went to them and the woman began asking questions, and he nodded or shook his head to the questions. He may have talked to her but I never heard a sound.
The family went out the door to their van parked in front of the house, and started to pile in. I began to wonder if any of them took anything of value from our house. I was very mistrustful because my man showed no trust or liking towards them.

When I turned around to face the far end of the house (the living room became the kitchen which then became another sitting room or living room), I found my Aunt M had showed up. I was surprised by this, what brings her here, I wondered? I ran to greet her and hugged her and she hugged me back and we smiled really big at each other. And then my ma walked in (there was another entrance to the house between the kitchen and the second sitting room). What a surprise! Hi Ma! I gave her a great big hug and she was all smiles for me. And she looked great! Ma was wearing what looked to be a brown leather skirt - Aunt M pulled ma to her left side and went to zip the side of ma’s skirt, because the zipper was slipping. I stepped back and realised ma’s top was brown leather, too - a two piece. And ma was all skinny with firm taut younger skin and looked great as I said.

Next thing I knew, Aunt J was right there behind my ma, so I went to give her a hug but she was all standoffish as usual. She thrust out a card and some flowers but I managed a quick hug for her anyway. ;)
She’s one of those people who hates but wants the affection. She’s like a cat that way. It always makes her uncomfortable but she appreciates it when people try for her.

Then my Uncle E came into the room from the same direction everyone else was popping in from. He’s a tall man like grampa was. I gave a polite smile up at him but I wasn’t too thrilled about him being there. And then who was to emerge from behind him, completely concealed until Uncle E stepped aside, was gramma***!!!!!

It was at this point that it finally dawned on me - everyone was showing up for the wedding. The thoughts ran through my head…the wedding is still a week away****. People are much earlier than they said they’d be! I wasn’t ready to receive people, yet! But since they’re here, I’ll just have to make do.

Gramma was still pretty short but her hair was big and permed like it was in the early 90’s. She smiled big for me and held out her arms. Someone held out a drink to toast the family all being here but Uncle E told us to “wait, let’s all get a drink so we can all toast”. I rolled my eyes and gramma snapped, “We just came from the sandwich shop and so you still have to work off allll THAT jazz!”
I grinned ear to ear, and gramma smiled back at me, and we gave each other a big long warm hug. Gramma congratulated me on my wedding.

Next, my brother, my dad and his wife showed up. I hugged both my ma and my dad’s wife simultaneously cuz they were standing near each other. They had their back to the living room, and when I squeezed them a hug, I looked over their shoulders to see Evil and some of my Michigan friends sitting in the living room. Evil was still in the recliner chair, and everyone else was clustered around where that Steve guy and his family recently had been.

I was just so happy that everyone was here all at once, and yet a bit panicked because I knew that the wedding was going to happen Real Soon Now!

George woke me because he was threatening to leak all over and stain the bed. I was very groggy. When I came back from the bathroom to crawl into bed, I realised I could not get the dream back. I grabbed my phone and went to call my mom, but my mind was still on gramma, and I punched in ‘g’ on the phone pad. It was only then that all the emotions spilled forth. I left my ma a very teary voicemail letting her know that her ma had come to visit me.

I miss my gramma so much. It wasn’t a sad dream. I’m still very happy. I’m still blessed with her visit and congrats and hug. But I know, emotions are strange things. I am crying anyway.

* The house in my dream was a cross between what Evil’s house looks like and my friend Blau’s house looks like. It’s nothing like what the house I actually live in looks like. And only Evil’s house has a basement.

** I still don’t know ‘Steve’ in real life.

*** Gramma passed away in 2003.

**** The wedding is actually three months away.

My cat was running through the house like a madman, his claws scraping against the pergo flooring as he ran and turned corners.
This activity filtered into my dreams as I slept, and turned it into a dream. In the dream, I got out of bed and interrupted my cat’s races through the house. He screeched to a halt as I called his name in scolding fashion, and looked up at me. He’d been running from the bathroom through the living room and back again. Now we both stood in the tiny hallway, and he went over to the wall heater and sat down, and began shivering.

As he did this, I saw wet paw prints on the pergo flooring. I leaned forward and squinted at the floor to get a better angle - the wet and slightly dirty paw prints were all over the living room pergo and the trail led back to the bathroom, where my cat had been jumping into the bathtub, leaping out with wet paws, and tearing through the house. The floor of the bathtub was still pretty wet from the shower my fiance had taken before work this morning. As I was assessing all this, I yelled, something like, “were you running with wet feet through the house?” My cat looked severely guilty, and that’s when he took a seat on a flat, plaid, hairy catbed in front of the heater and began shivering, back paws sticking out as he sat all the way on his butt like a dog would do. His left paw was shaking as it stuck out from beneath him, because the rest of him was shivering cold from all the water play.

The dream ended with me feeling very nauseated and waking up because of it.

Most of the dream comes from truth - my cat really has done stuff like this. Except he didn’t end up shivering in front of the heater, nor do we have one of those flat plaid cat beds.

I was in the bathroom, contemplating throwing up and wondering what was going on with me GI wise, when the phone rang. It was my future stepmother-in-law. I let her babble into the answering machine - I’ll call her back later.

TMI ALERT

Back to wondering what’s wrong with me - I was very nauseous, and it felt like a major pain episode wanted to come on, except for the fact that I also felt very constipated and yet like I was about to have explosive diarrhea at any second. Could this be the flu on top of menses?
I eventually had a movement, and was constipated, and the colour was clay. This is BAD. This means I’ve got blocked bile ducts again, possibly from all the medication I’m taking right now for the endometriosis pain. I REALLY need to not fear that stone flush program and just go ahead with it.
I really need to remember the Chi Nei Tsang procedure as well. I don’t have $100 to spend on another visit to my practitioner right now, though.
Along with the colour of the feces, it stung my asshole badly, leaving my teeth chattering and making me more nauseous. I staggered with toilet paper to the tub and got some hot water on the toilet paper and applied it slowly, carefully, patiently to my arse. This is the best thing to do - it helps with the constriction of blood vessels and eases the pain as a result. It took a few applications before the stinging stopped, and then I staggered to find my heating pads.

Now I’m sitting on a warm heating pad, and this helps immensely. The nausea has faded. I’ve taken a Tylenol3 in case the uterine pain ramps up again, cuz nausea is usually a precursor to really big clots trying to pass through the cervix.

I had dreams and nightmares all day yesterday, too. It’s from the medication. My breathing gets restricted and I sound like I have apnea when I’m on Tylenol3 and trying to sleep. That’s why I have nightmares.

Currently I’m missing my friend perform an organ concerto. I’m very sad about this. This is the same friend who was suicidal a few months ago and trapped in New Mexico. He found a way back to the Bay Area and has been doing much better. I woke up with the nausea at the same time I needed to be getting ready to go see him in concert. There was just no way I’d be able to go. I had to go through that horrible episode, instead. And now I’m missing him play. :(

But ahhh, the drugs are kicking in. Soon I will be sleeping again and not having pain for awhile.
This is the first Tylenol3 of the day, but after all the hours I slept yesterday, I was still so exhausted today and was sleeping hard this morning. I shouldn’t be that tired when not on the Tylenol3. But it’s a symptom of my illness. I get that tired. My body shuts down.
The meds are making me tired now though. Back later.

I refused to take another Dilaudid pill yesterday after my last journal entry. I successfully distracted myself via computer and talking with my cousin on the phone, and the Ibu eventually set in and the pain subsided.

This morning was fine for me, aside from waking up from a bad dream. I had no pain, so I went and deposited my 2nd to last unemployment check, and picked up some groceries. Well, the guy who packed the groceries put all the heavies into one bag! So I had to rearrange stuff between the two bags. That was my downfall, I think - carrying groceries to the car and from the car to the house. Not long after I got home, the pain and bleeding ramped up again. I did the whole routine again for an hour and a half - only take the 600mg Ibuprofen… and just do the exercises and Qigong.

I conceded defeat around 1:15pm and popped 1mg Dilaudid. It’s just now kicking in and the pain is fading.

In my dream this morning, I was with my man and it was morning time before work. We were both running late for work, but stopped at a bakery. I got a palm-sized cake for one made entirely of frosting because I can’t have gluten. I was really excited about being so naughty with all that sugar. It tasted so good!

We got out into the parking lot and a guy we cut out of our lives six years ago drove up in some sporty car and offered us a ride to work. B got into the front seat and I got into the back seat. The guy’s wallet was atop a black bag in the floor of the back seat, with his wallet open and a huge wad of money showing. As soon as I saw this, my first thought was, “That asshole. As soon as we get out of his car, he’s going to accuse us of stealing his money and start a huge war again.” That’s the kind of asshole this guy is in real life.
So before we even got out of the parking lot, I told him to stop, and that my car was right over there, in the back corner of the lot, and I’d just drive myself to work. My man turned around and said, “are you sure?” and I told him yes. I’m sure, and I got out of the car.

I started towards my car, but this is where the dream gets fuzzy. Next thing I know, I’m carrying a skateboard and it’s my only transportation to work, and I’m late. I take out my cell phone and with phone in left hand, skateboard in right, I dial using my left thumb. I can’t reach my workplace - the reception is bad (the reception is ALWAYS bad in my dreams).

So I started skating off on my board, and was embarrassed by how bad I was on the skateboard? Where’s my car? I’m too old for a skateboard!
But seeing as how I had a skateboard, I may as well skate it, and skate it well. So in that regard, I altered my dream and was able to skate WELL from that point on. I did this by looking back at my board in my hand again, and seeing that the front truck was misaligned. That’s why I was skating badly. Not because I didn’t know how. So I did my best to adjust the truck and the wheels by hand, since I didn’t have any tools on me, and put the board back down and took off skating.

I skated for minutes, and realised I had gone the wrong way. I was now in San Francisco, near the DNA Lounge. Only, the DNA Lounge had a huge parking lot, then a restaurant and another parking lot, and then a forest off in front of it, instead of more urban landscape. I went to skate towards the DNA but realised the parking lot had just been repaved, so now I’m screwing up my board with the slick oily crap they’ve just applied to the lot. I grab my board and wipe the wheels off on my clothes, not thinking. Now I’m late for work AND filthy. I keep walking towards the DNA, on a little hill of grass alongside the parking lot, and make my way onto a sidewalk. I keep thinking I need to call work to tell them screw it, I won’t be in today, but I’m afraid of getting in trouble.

I get to the front of the DNA Lounge to see that it’s closed. What was I thinking? It’s daytime, of course it’s closed! So I turn back around and walk towards the way I came. This time, the parking lot is dry, so I throw the board down and skate across the empty lot with ease. The pavement is so nice and smooth now that it’s been paved. I glide effortlessly and with speed.
I get to the other side, which has an embankment of grass separating the one lot from the restaurant’s lot, and I jump off my board onto the embankment. My board catches up to me and hits the embankment and flies up, and I catch it and continue walking.

There’s a trail in front of or alongside of the restaurant, and it is lined with pine and oak trees. There’s pine needles on the worn dirt path. I walk the path because I know my car is parked in a clearing in the field behind the restaurant.

As I am walking up the path, I see three young men - perhaps late teens, early twenties. I approach them but they’re standing in the way, so I say excuse me and keep walking, and brush past them. As I do so, I realise that I’ve just walked into a drug deal. I still have my phone in my left hand, and I’m still trying to dial my workplace but I haven’t been able to get through, yet.

Ok, ok, don’t panic, keep walking, I don’t care, they can do and deal drugs, not my business or my problem. But I know THEY never think that way about people who walk in on their business.

So I’m walking and I hear footsteps behind me. I can still hear two of the other guys in the distance, still on the trail, talking. I pick up my pace, and so does the person behind me. I turn my head and it’s one of the guys from the path, and his pace quickens until he’s right up on my ass, almost next to me. I tell him with an irritated voice that he can go around, there’s plenty of space, and he’s in MY space, and to back off. He doesn’t say a word.
I then spin around and clock him with my board and scream at him to leave me the f**k alone, I just want to get to my car.

This of course pisses him off, and I run for my car. He runs at me, and now his friends are running up at me, too. I look down at my phone, still in my left hand, and try to dial my man for help as I also try to get into my car. I get my car door open as the guys all pile in on me. I try to WILL the phone to dial my man, and I scream at the guys WHAT DO YOU WANT! I’M JUST TRYING TO GET TO MY F***ING CAR!

They say bluntly that they want to kill me, and the dream ends with me trying to close my car door and not being able to.

I woke up and bolted from bed, looking for my man. He’d not left for work yet, so I gave him a big hug and told him about the dream.

Now, the contents of the dream…. I had a skateboard because I just took one of those Internet quizzes - “how girly are you” - and I scored 8% girly. The icon had a girl with a skateboard. Add that to the fact that in real life as a teenager, I had a skateboard made of parts from my brother’s and his friends’ skateboards, and we had a halfpipe in the back yard, so I did a little bit of skating in my day. Not much, but still. And so this entered my dream because of the quiz I’d taken recently.

The cake and frosting is because we’re starting to look at bakers for our wedding cake.

The fear of being late for work is because of my real life fears of having to go back to work, and of fearing that I’ll not get my assigned stuff done on time for my online business.

The guy who we don’t talk to anymore - no idea why HE was in my dream, but he can get the hell out.

I’m also not sure about the parking lot, the DNA Lounge or the guys trying to kill me, as well as the field and dirt path… Let’s look it up in a dream dictionary:

Dirty
To dream that your body or your clothes are dirty, might indicate an illness - you should get a medical checkup. If you dream of being in dirty or messy surroundings, it is a positive omen meaning whatever is worrying you will soon come to an orderly conclusion.

Path
If you dream of walking down a quiet path, you have patience and a clear mind. If your path is blocked in a dream, you need to take more time to think about the consequences of recent actions.

Parking Lot
To dream that you are in parking lot suggests you need to slow down and take some time to relax.

Trees
Lush green trees in your dreams symbolize new hopes, growth and desires.

Forest
Dreams that feature forests signify exploring the unconscious mind for clues to waking problems.

Drugs
-A dream of giving or selling drugs suggests that you have some dishonesty around you - rethink who your current friends are.
-If your dream featured someone else who possessed drugs or took drugs, it is telling you to stop drifting and take a more positive role in your life.

Violence
Intense violence in dreams usually suggests a need for control and a fear of losing power in a real life situation.

Attack
If you dream that you attack someone, your ill-mood and temper may cause harm to another. You feel that you have been wronged in real life. To dream that you are being attacked by someone suggests that you are feeling stressed, vulnerable and helpless, or facing difficult changes, in real life.

Late
To dream that you are late for something represents your fear of change and your nervousness about seizing an opportunity. You may feel unready or unworthy in your current circumstances. You may also be conflicted with decisions about your future.

Skateboarding
To dream that you are skateboarding, indicates the ups and downs of some emotional situation or relationship. If you zip along with no crashes in your dream, it means you have the strength and energy to achieve your goals in life.

Junk Food
If you see or eat junk food in your dream, this symbolizes your overindulgent behavior.

Phone
If you can’t reach someone on the phone in a dream, you must listen to your inner voice more closely for your life to move on the way it should.

Cake
If you dream of eating cake, you will have success in an upcoming endeavor.

Yeah, that about sums it all up for me. I’m afraid to give up control of trying to get my web business running by having to go back to work for someone else. I don’t want to go back to work but for me to ultimately become successful, I need to let this happen. I can go back to work part time and still work on my business. I will become successful. I just need to stop dicking around and get more disciplined.
I can do this. My brother did it. He can do it, I can do it.

This morning, around 9:30am, I woke up from a bad dream and was nearly in tears. Thankfully, my man was still home, as he didn’t have to be in to work til later this morning.
This dream comes one day after starting on codeine sulfate for the Endo pain.

I was working in China with my friend T, but I can’t remember what our field was. Computers, maybe? But it was associated with the government, as well most things are over there. There was some unrest when we got to China - rumours that a female political figure was in danger of being assassinated.

We worked with the government regardless of the precarious state of affairs, and we were always looking over our shoulders, and had to be aware of our surroundings at all times. Again, I can’t remember what sort of work we were doing - something in security? Something with computers? Both?

A couple of days before the end of our assignment, T and I were in town near a subway station when suddenly something happened. My memory is fuzzy now but it could have been a blast of air. It was enough to make me and T stop working and look at each other in panic. My heart was in my throat, because I knew we were in inescapable danger.

People ran screaming and there was immediate news that the political figure in question had just been assassinated right here in the area we were in. On top of that, I was acutely aware that the method of assassination was via high dose release of radiation, and that we’d also been hit.

T and I quickly made our way back to the office headquarters and told the other Americans, as well as the Chinese managers that we’d been poisoned with radiation. Everyone was somber but nobody wanted to talk about it. The Americans urged that we were okay, that nothing was wrong with us, that we looked fine. This seemed to help T’s mood, but not mine - I ran over to a computer and began Googling symptoms of radiation poisoning!! I was irritated, angry, wanted to be believed, and I desperately wanted to know how much time I had left to live.
The American co-workers and managers acted as though I was being overly dramatic, making a big deal out of something. They were probably embarrassed by my behaviour because I wouldn’t just go along and say “I’m fine” to save face with the big contract - the Chinese company.

I just wanted to know how long I had left to live. None of the Chinese officials would tell me anything about radiation exposure. No doctors were sent to look at me or my friend T.

Next thing I know, T and I are sitting at some pull-up-a-chair makeshift restaurant in town, facing in at the chefs in the kitchen as they worked the hot stoves. T was sitting to my left and the bar we sat at was aluminum. We’re in China but this makeshift eat-and-go restaurant is serving up TACOS. And they were REALLY GOOD TACOS.

I had a bluetooth on my left ear and I dialed home to speak to my Ma. I didn’t know what to talk to her about, and I didn’t want to tell her I was dying. I just wanted to hear her voice and have her BE there on the other line. But she wanted me to talk , so she was the one listening. I didn’t know what to say, though. After a few minutes of this, the signal faded just as I started to talk, and I lost the signal altogether. This brought on even worse depression and I wanted to cry. I couldn’t finish my meal so I gave it to T and got out of my chair.

Next thing I know, we’re back at the office and dealing with more of the “you’re fine” crap. I go through the whole “tell me how long I have left to live” thing again but still, nobody’s talking. I try to look it up on the computer again but I keep getting distracted or pulled away - now some cow-orkers want to look at some stupid youtube video on the machine I’m using. I walk away.

Next thing I know, T is driving me in a car and saying she’ll just take me to the airport and I can go home a day early. I like this idea, but then I panic because all my stuff is back at the hotel. T says “oh! Right…” and turns us around.
When we get back to the hotel, the door is slightly open. “Someone’s been here”, I say, and my heart fills with dread as I expect the room to be trashed. T goes right inside, not aware or afraid of any imminent danger, and starts packing up my stuff.
Meanwhile, I’m paranoid as all hell and I’m peeking inside of every nook and cranny to be sure no one is there. I can’t recall if the place was trashed or not.

Next thing I know, I’m outside, shuffling along a sidewalk, barefooted, in a black lace shirt and skirt, hair hanging in my face, shoulders slumped, head slumped forward, watching my feet as I shuffle, trying to avoid dog poo and bird crap in various places on the sidewalk. I look up to see that I’m walking past my old apartment complex on Shoreline Avenue, and I can also see the beach out of my peripheral vision.

So yeah. When I woke up , I wanted to cry, because I was still in the headspace of “I’m dying from radiation exposure and it’s going to get REALLY ugly and painful.”

I told my man about the nightmare and he said that’s horrible! He hugged me and kissed me. I opened up the blinds in the living room and almost broke into tears when I saw how bright green the blooming Datura bush outside our window is, with the radiant sunlight dancing on the leaves. I stood there for a moment, taking in the beauty of the day, not wanting to forget it should I die soon.

I really really hate it when nightmares stick with me for so long after waking.

I Googled in real life and found information on radiation poisoning here and here.

I feel the need to shower now. Gotta shake this stupid nightmare. Gonna step outside first and check the mail and maybe hang out in the sunlight in the backyard for a bit.

I’ve been having nightmares and now I wonder if the migraine I had yesterday was because of the Tylenol3.

I was having another nightmare when my man phoned me at 5:11pm. In the nightmare,

I was in some large sterile-looking apartment or house. Some of the walls were stark white with nothing on them, and some of the walls were antique white with nothing on them. My furniture and belongings was haphazardly placed throughout the house. My Ma was there, looking the way she used to when I was a teenager.

I was feeling depressed and we were going through stuff together. I had a white coffee mug filled with tea or something, and my white landline wireless phone next to me on a desk I was sorting through paperwork at. The phone rang and I answered it. It was a woman about a job, and could I meet her in the next 20 minutes for an interview? I said sure and got the details, and we hung up.

I called to my Ma that I’d be going out soon, and I got up from the desk and went to my bedroom to get ready. My bedroom in the dream was as big as a Victorian kitchen - huge and tiled. The walls were antique white with very little on them. I entered my bedroom and walked towards another desk. This desk contained my computer, and as I went towards it, my Ma came into the bedroom and handed me her big brown leather purse, and walked out again. She was going through her old stuff, and had never been happy that I always went through all of her stuff as a child. I did this monthly at the least, rifling through her purse, her big three-tiered dark wooden jewelry box, and her dresser drawers, just to look at everything, because her life was so magical in those places. Her favourite things became my favourite things. This annoyed her to no end.
Now here she was giving her purse to me, and not seeming too happy about it, because it was tied to memories of me always rifling through it, so it’s not like it was ever her purse, anyway. I immediately grabbed the purse from her and without looking at her, I thrust my nose into it and breathed deeply. The purse still had a faint smell of the leather it was made out of, her checkbook, money and cigarette case, makeup powder and keys, anything else she ever kept in there.

As soon as I huffed the purse, I felt severely depressed. Those days were gone. My childhood is gone.

I was choking back tears and had to get ready for this interview I promised someone I’d go to.
I turned and looked on my desk - there were several pictures from my childhood sitting there that I’d wanted to hang on my bedroom walls. I began tacking them up (most were without frames, and looked glossy and thin as magazine paper). One picture I kept looking at, which was especially thin, was a picture of my brother and I when I was about eight or nine. The walls we stood in front of were also beige or antique white, but the room we were in was filled with dolls and stuffed animals and marionettes.

I looked closer at the picture and realised my brother looked like a girl. My next thought was, “that’s not my brother at all!” I thought that must be one of my childhood friends. I stared closer at the picture. It wasn’t a human child at all! It was a very tall doll with a long neck, wearing knickers and a hat with a little ball on top, like a medieval page boy or something. Then I saw the balljoints at the elbows and knees - yes, this was just a life-sized doll I was standing next to in my playroom in the picture. How strange.

Realising I was wasting time, I quickly got ready and went into the office or whatever room I’d been in before, and told my Ma I had to go. She was in a depressed funk herself, and so she was short with me. I told her I’d be back soon. Then she said she needed to go to the store or something. I either protested a little or went willingly with her. She drove in her car, but about five minutes from home, she got lost. I immediately panicked - this was supposed to be a short to-the-store-and-back again and now she’s lost!?!? I’d be late for my interview! I had a fit right there and put my head on the dashboard of the car as panic overtook me.
Ma aborted the outing and turned us around and remembered how to get home. I sulked back inside the door, more ready to cry than ever, and went to the office. I slumped into a chair and picked up the white landline wireless phone. I called the woman, whose name I thought was Jennifer, but was really Susan. I called her back and apologised for being a no-show. She sounded pretty disappointed in me and didn’t want to hear my excuse, but I gave it to her, anyway. I asked if I could reschedule but she didn’t want to. I hung up the phone and was about to cry and throw a fit when the phone rang in real life, and I awoke.

He just wanted to check on me, the sweet thing. After we hung up, I wanted to cry, but choked back the tears. It’s only a dream, it’s only a dream…

Dreams always contain some truths. I’ve been upset since going to Santa Rosa and coming face to face with my pretend life from childhood. I miss my childhood innocense, freedom and creativity.

I don’t know what all the white and off-white signified in the dream. To me it signifies sterility, but one source I check for dream analysis says “The color white represents purity, perfection, peace, innocence, awareness and new beginnings. If your dream prominently features the color white, you may be experiencing a reawakening or have a fresh outlook on life.”

(Note: my landline wireless phone is white in real life. :p )

The whole bit about my Ma’s belongings, down to her purse and the smell it contained, is all true in waking life, except that she had willingly given me that purse when I was still a child.

The part where I disappointed the potential interviewer - I think that’s a line out of my recent real life conversation with the business seminar woman, when I called to cancel the weekend because of the pain I’m in. She didn’t sound too happy that I was cancelling, but what else was I supposed to do, show up in this state and moan and bleed all over everyone? Bah…

The antique or Victorian look to the pictures I held is odd. The dream dictionary says, “To dream of antiques, symbolizes your time honored values, tradition and proven wisdom.”

I created a marionette when I was a child, and later in life I found out my father’s mother used to have dozens of marionettes and that she put on plays for children in Ontario, Canada. I even got a photo to prove it.

Could it be that marionettes showed up in my dream because of a combination of my childhood memory, knowledge of my family photos, and having recently seen Blade Runner, which featured dolls and marionettes in it?

No idea.

It’s a dream, after all. And I often dream of things from my childhood when I’m on Tylenol3. I think it’s because it suppresses my breathing, to be honest. Why my childhood though? No idea.

While in Tylenol3-induced sleep, I had a dream about something in my childhood. It’s ALWAYS something out of my childhood whenever I have codeine.

This dream featured the woods I grew up in. I was in my dad’s living room, peeking out of the golden/yellow 1970’s curtains hanging over the large picture window. I had my little 35mm film camera with me, and I was taking pictures of the woods through the window like I often did as a kid. There were a bunch of boys in the forest below, playing football. I squinted to see them better. They were dressed warmly cuz it was a cold day out. When I looked closer, however, I saw that the floor of the forest was GREEN - there was GRASS down there.

THAT’S not right.

The curtains kept falling back across the window, obscuring my view, and I had to keep pushing the curtains out of my way so I could get a better look at the forest, camera still in hand. I could see now that where all the streams used to be, there was now PAVEMENT in winding paths. The pavement was right over the top of the streams, with the streams flowing beneath them! In the right corner of the forest, near where the boys were playing football, I could see that a portion of the cement path was not there, in order to reveal the stream flowing beneath it.

My eyes scanned the forest and moved towards the left, and I could see less and less trees, and more and more ground, covered over with thick green sod.
The whole place had been turned from a natural wetland into a city park!! People were walking around down there, playing in the park - playing in MY FORMER WOODS - MY FORMER SANCTUARY.

I scanned the forest towards the left of the view out the window, and searched for grampa’s plow - the one that two trees grew through after he’d left the plow in the forest because he was too old and weak, and then had died. I found the plow, but the trees growing through the wheels had been chopped to stubs only in the wheels themselves, and there was no marker explaining the plow’s existence there in the former woods.

And the tree house that Uncle C had built - the trees and boards and the cement tubes were all gone to make for a pretty park.

I began to cry. It was all gone. They took it all away from me.

My crying woke me up - I was crying in real life.

And, in reality, this dream may not be so far fetched, because based upon what my father has told me over the years (reports of developments still coming in every so many months from him), the people who bought my father’s house put a second addition onto the house, and developers nearby have been clearing the forest on the other side of the road from this house, and putting in McMansions. The developers and the city have widened the two-lane highway into FIVE lanes, so of course they’ve cut into the forest. There’s now a sidewalk at the far end of the two-acre front lawn I and the family used to mow with the John Deere tractor.

I need a new sanctuary.

Notes about the dream:
The golden curtains haven’t been hanging in that window since the early 80’s, and he no longer lives in that house since the late ’90’s.

I’m not sure the city could get away with paving over the streams, although I know its done all the time (it’s happening off Highway 101 in San Mateo right now). In the case of the natural wetland near my father’s old house, that valley floods like the devil every spring, because the streams that run through the forest are major tributaries to the Rouge River. So I don’t see HOW it would be possible to fill it in or pave over any part of it. In that regard, I may still have some semblance of my sanctuary left for whenever I visit home. Maybe.

View out the picture window.

Looking into the forest from near the garage.

The forest in the winter.

The forest in the spring.

The property as it looks today - not much different from how it always looked.

I went to work this morning, unsure of why I pushed myself out of bed. There was very little pain, so I went with it. The entire 37-mile drive to work was uncomfortable however - I still have the water-balloon sloshy feeling inside.

I was able to work from 8am - 1pm before calling it quits due to heavy bleeding, clots, extreme fatigue, dizziness and intermittent cramping. I mean, if I’m going to have to clean up my blood from the FLOOR every time I try to use the bathroom, that’s a health hazard to others and I shouldn’t be at work. All I’d do was take down my pants to sit on the pot, or rise from the pot after, and spillage was inevitable. The dizziness of course was from the heavy bleeding.

I got home and on a whim checked my work email. There was an email from my boss showing a thread that occurred after I left. The “officer of the day” - a manager who is appointed to monitor who is logged into the phone queues, and who also logs remotely into peoples’ machines to look at what they’re working on to make sure no one is slacking off - he got my chat message that I needed to go home sick, and immediately wrote to the HR department about it….like a kid tattling or something. I’d notified him AND my boss AND all the other managers on the floor - why did he have to report it to HR?

Because they’re still trying to fire me for having a health condition.

So my boss wrote back to him and to the HR department, stating that she’ll have me get a doctor’s note so being off work yesterday and part of today counts as “one incident”.

This pissed me off to no end. I was shaking with anger. I phoned up my doctor’s office and explained the situation - they were kind and wrote me a doctor’s note. I’m to pick it up this weekend because I’m at work through the week before the doctor’s office opens, and I don’t get home til after they’ve closed.

My boss also noted that this is now my “second incident”. I was absent two days last month for the Endo, too. Last month was the start of the new Paid Time Off policy, so I got a semi-clean slate. Up til that point, I had one more day I could take off work before being fired - regardless of having a documented health condition.

Next month will be my “third incident” and one can have no more than four total incidents of missed work within a 90-day period without being fired, regardless of the reason. The workplace can also opt to fire me after the third incident, expecting there will be a fourth.

Additionally, if I run out of Paid Time Off days before I run out of “incidents”, I can STILL be fired, because under no circumstances do they allow people to take UNpaid time off work.

Everyone I’ve spoken to says this is illegal. So if they do fire me for this, I’m reporting them to the labor board.

When I got home, I ate some lunch and took a nap because I was still so wiped out. At one point I turned over and fell asleep face down on the bed. Not a good plan. I couldn’t breathe very well and the bed is dusty - we have yet to get a dust mite cover for the bed.

So I had a nightmare.

I was at my dad’s old house back in Michigan. A red pickup truck and another car were parked in his circle driveway, but the owners of the car belonged to the residence next door, which was converted into a multi-dwelling home so the neighbor could make money renting to several people.

It was dark and I went out the front door and took a left, walked down the porch and around the side of the house which borders on a wetlands valley. As I walked through the path leading to the backyard, my left hand touched something soft in the bushes - it felt like a female child’s long silky hair on a soft head…but what was a child doing in the bushes? I kept walking, pretending not to be alarmed. When I got into the backyard, I ascended the stairs to the deck attached to the back of the house. As I was looking around in the silvery-lit darkness (there must have been a moon present to make the night look silvery), I saw it….

An old friend of mine appeared - she used to have long silky blonde hair in high school. Her head was down but her eyes glared up at me as she walked slowly towards me. Before my eyes, she turned into a blonde wolf and ran at me. We wrestled and fought. She bit deep into me and clawed deep gashes into me. There was blood everywhere. I tried to hurt her back to no avail - she was much stronger than me. I kicked and fought and did enough damage eventually to get the wolf to break free of me. I scrambled into the back door of the house and stared at her through the screen door as she perched under part of the deck, growling at me. Then her eyes softened -she looked hurt and afraid. I glared and said NO.

I knew she was waiting for me to die. I knew that I would die.

I woke heart pounding and gasping for air to the sound of the phone ringing.

I staggered to the phone - it was the doctor’s office leaving a message saying my note was ready. I then staggered to the bathroom, where I bled profusely and shed several large clots. I had to clean up my legs afterwards, it was so bad.

The nausea set in at the sight of all the blood and clots. I always thought I could handle gore but I guess I can’t. This isn’t the first time I’ve made myself nauseated from all the blood - or…hmm perhaps it’s the blood loss itself that makes me nauseous, not the sight of it…because I can watch viles of blood be drawn from my arm for tests no problem. And I can watch a bag of blood fill up when I donate - I like to poke at the warm bag after I’m done filling it.

Anyway…

I got back into bed and that’s when the pain set in. So now I’m on Tylenol 3 again and using the laptop as a heating pad in bed. I’m waiting for my man to come home from work to make me some dinner.

I hate being an invalid. I hate my job for harrassing me. I’ve been looking for a new job. This is the first job in all my 20 years of working that has ever mistreated me for having Endometriosis. They will not get away without, at the very least, a slap.