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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay tuned…

Wow, déjà vu.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stupid immune system.

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

I’ve been on Iburpofen since January 5, pretty much around the clock. On Tuesday, I consumed about 1,200mg before going to bed just after 9pm.

Yesterday, I consumed 1,600mg between 8am and 10pm, averaging 400mg every 4-5 hours. The ibuprofen helped manage the pre-menstrual ovarian stabby really well, but I was super tired all day, and even napped during my lunch break.
I began spotting very lightly yesterday.

Today, over the course of the day, the spotting became light flow. The colour was medium brown and the flow sticky. I consumed 1,600mg between 8am - 4pm alone, and I am here to tell you that it did NOTHING for my friggin pain. I stopped taking the ibuprofen after 4pm, hoping to begin diving into the Tylenol 3 when I got home from work, but my acupuncturist called to remind me that we had an appointment today, which I was late for. Whoops!
Thankfully, she was still open to seeing me for a full session, and so I dragged my sorry ass out of the house again.
As has been the case for me in the past, the acupuncture helped while in session and immediately afterwards, but the pain resumed the moment after I emptied my bladder. See, the endometriosis is very near to, if not on my bladder by now, and it was the “small endometriotic implant on the bladder reflection” which my surgeon refused to excise because she was afraid of rupturing my bladder three years ago.

Anyway, the acupuncture failed to provide pain relief past the first 20 minutes of leaving the practitioner’s office, and this is the second practitioner I have been to. I will continue to see the acupuncturist for awhile, and I will continue to take the prescribed herbs. I think I only saw the last acupunturist less than 10 times.

I would also like to note for posterity that I have had some wicked PMS food cravings over the past week. I feel as though I have been eating my weight in chocolate again. I definitely went through three bags of store-bought gluten-free cookies in the past week. My dinner theme over the past two weeks has been, “if all I ever eat is gluten-free pizza and pad thai again, it will be heaven”.

Tonight I ate shrimp pasta alfredo for dinner (rice pasta), and within the hour, the pain ramped up. This could either be from the shrimp, or it could be that the pain was going to ramp up, anyway.

By 5:30pm this afternoon, the colour of menses was turning from brown to pink to reddish. Now it is a dark red. The flow is ramping up a bit, but the fluid is still a bit sticky. There is a lot of debris. I assume this is due to all the sugar and caffeine I have been ingesting since before the holidays. I know that a sugary diet is what also lends to ovarian cysts. So my goal for 2010 is going to have to be quitting my sugar addiction again.

As of 10pm, I am on Tylenol 3 for the pain, and still shifting uneasily in my chair. I am not in bed with the laptop, as it is in the shop. Sadness.

I am not going in to work tomorrow - I informed the director at the end of my shift today.

I guess the one good thing about all this is that I am not also sick any longer - I’m over the cough and sinus congestion. Well, there is still the continued 99.2°F average temperature I’m still having all day every day. I’m seeing a doctor about that tomorrow.

Now, finally, I think I have updated everything I need to, and I’m off to bed.

Today is Day 2 of headache and 99.2F average temp… again.

Honestly I should say the temperature thing is a continuation of what has been going on since December 7, 2009, when I noticed I had a fever from the flu for the first time.

Since December, my temperature has returned to MY normal of 97.5F only once or twice. Since December, my temperature has gotten to 98.6F a handful of times. But the prevailing temperature has been in the 99F range.

This morning when I woke for work, my head hurt, my sinuses hurt, my eyes hurt, my joints ache and my upper back aches - but not in the flu sort of way. My head, sinuses and eyes are likely all tied with either a continuation of the last virus I had, or a new virus caught while back to work yesterday.
The joint pain is because I went dancing for two nights in a row this past weekend. The back pain is because george is due in 48 hours, and so my body is trying to fold in on itself from the top down as it usually does each month.

I have to leave for work in 10 minutes, and yet I feel like my head is going to explode and I feel like I could expel one of my sinus cavities right here on the keyboard. And just in time, the stabbing right side ovarian pain has awakened for its day at work on my body.

It’s 44°F outside, and we have one ambient heat lamp installed, which does absolutely nothing to warm the “outdoor classroom”. The teachers probably won’t want to send me any children when it’s below 55°F, which means I have to float around from classroom to classroom, assisting other teachers all morning. It’s awkward work.

But off I go.

On December 5, I developed a mild cough. Two days later, I had the flu. I found out later from a doctor that it was likely H1N1.

A week after getting the flu, I fell ill with endometriosis pain and was bedridden for a few days. I was on a lot of Tylenol 3, which was good not only for the cramps, but also for managing the fever (acetaminophen) and the cough from flu (codeine is great for supressing coughs).

The moment I came off the Tylenol 3, the cough and flu-symptoms returned. And then my husband fell ill with the flu. And then my symptoms turned into a sinus infection. This was the week of December 20. By the end of that same week, I was experiencing Mittelschmerz.

I have all the flu stuff detailed on another journal here and here.

My husband and I began to feel better by December 29, and on NYE we were able to go hang with friends.
On Friday and Saturday (Jan 1 and Jan 2), I went out dancing with my husband, because we were screwed out of our vacation and because it’s the last dancing I’ll likely get to do before falling ill with endometriosis pain again…it’s due by January 7…which is two days before my husband’s birthday.

So I missed work on account of flu, then on account of endo pain right before Christmas/Winter break, and now I’m going to return to work and immediately miss more work on account of endo pain.
Good times. The fear of not having job security continues.

Back on September 16th, a day before my birthday, I wrote a wishful thinking post. I had resolved “to live the next 11 days as well as I can, and enjoy life the best that I can, until the darkness falls once more”.

The very next day, on my birthday, while at work, I was suddenly seized with severe bladder pain, which lasted a few minutes. This happened around 11:45am, during the lunch rush, where I’m supposed to be monitoring children aged 3-5 eating their lunches, keeping them in their seats, resolving fights, reminding them to wipe the table and sweep up after themselves, and help them open up their food packs. During the lunch rush is when I am needed by no less than three children at a time, for over an hour, for one thing or another. All told there are around 50 children at lunchtime, and there’s about five or six adults. It’s about 1 adult per 8-10 kids. For some reason, once you mix the age groups, the 1:4 or 1:6 ratio for the 3-year-olds no longer applies. So it’s constantly overwhelming at lunctime, and here I was getting unexplained knifing pain in my bladder. It wasn’t uterine. It wasn’t ovarian. It wasn’t cervical. I don’t normally get bladder pain.

Now, about a week prior, I’d had a yeast infection, which I promptly took care of with Diflucan. I got it because I didn’t shower before intercourse. Women with endometriosis are prone to yeast infections at the drop of a pin, and you and your partner both need to be clean before intercourse to spare you the chance of infection. I lagged in my duties.
Anyway, I wondered if Diflucan can cause a bladder infection, but in checking the side effects lists, I don’t see evidence of that. Perhaps the yeast infection had turned into a bladder infection? I’m still wondering about that.

So the bladder pain I had on September 16 only lasted a few minutes, then was gone. A few minutes of course feels like an eternity while it’s happening, but it did pass.

I did pretty good for the next two days - Friday and Saturday - though I did have some pelvic pain twinges on Saturday September 19. So perhaps I was good for only ONE day if you wanna get technical.

On Sunday, September 20, I woke with severe low back and pelvic pain.

As I was getting dressed, my back went out - my upper left scapula was pinched the most, and it was hard to breathe. I could feel the pain under the back of my ribs. I had no range of motion. I spent most of that day with intermittent back, pelvic and shoulder pain. I took half pills of Tylenol 3 and whole pills of Ibuprofen all day long. The pain would seriously disappear for minutes or an hour and then return again. It was crazy.

On Monday I had continued flank pain, and a cankre sore popped out around 11:30am. I went to the doctor right after work and was told I had swollen lymph nodes, that I was fighting something, but that I wasn’t contagious. The low back pain continued through the evening, and I went to bed with a heating pad that night.

Tuesday was more of the dame - low back pain, but get this - I awoke with shin splints. WTF!!!
I also had developed a sore throat, sores forming under the back of my tongue, moderate fatigue, and sore shoulders again. That day I also had some pelvic pain, and my left thumb broke open again. I had a nagging headache by 8pm that night. I napped when I got home, and my body temp dropped during the nap - I got goosebumps, I was so cold, and the house was 73°F.

I seriously started feeling like I was going crazy. But now, after reading the side effects for Diflucan, it all makes sense. I just wish I’d been more intuitive the last times I’d taken Diflucan, to establish whether this is always true - whether I always have these side effects - or if it’s something new because my body continues to grow weaker because of this stupid immune system disease called endometriosis.

Wednesday - sigh a breath of relief - I felt better.

But we’re not done, yet!

On Thursday, September 24th, I felt quick knifing very low uterine/bladder pain 2-3 hours after consuming 1.5 cups of Sierra Mist pop, which I was craving. I never crave pop anymore, so this must be a serious bout of PMS coming on. Of course, pop contains corn syrup, which ALWAYS causes pelvic pain whenever I consume it.

I didn’t bike to work at all that entire week.

On Friday, September 25th, I experienced intermittent dull uterine pain all day. However, after work, I decided to bike to my therapy appointment and from there bike over to the company BBQ. I was tired but I did it, in a show of stubbornness.

That night, around 10 or 11pm, I became very dizzy as I was leaving my friend’s house. The pelvic pain had ramped up while I was hanging out with my friends, and so I’d taken 600mg Ibuprofen. I don’t think the dizziness was from that, since I take Ibuprofen so frequently.

On Saturday - yesterday - our town was experiencing another heat wave. Despite being 87°F outside, my husband and I shopped at some local Halloween stores. Yesterday I consumed a white chocolate raspberry blended mocha (with cow’s milk) because I was really fatigued and craving the caffeine (HELLO PMS!).
Last night my husband and I were intimate and right afterwards, I felt nauseated, and then the cramps started. I checked myself and there was brown blood. I thought for sure I’d started my period. I went to bed wearing a pad but the bleeding stopped, never touching the pad.

Today I’ve been seriously tired. I slept for about 10 hours and haven’t wanted to get up all day. The low level nausea has been with me all day. I’ve had the feeling that my period is starting but every time I check, it’s not there. I’ve had annoying low back and pelvic pain all day.

It’s nearing 5pm and I’ve been on the couch the entire day. I had planned to attend a birthday party for a friend, a parking lot sale, and then see another friend play with his band tonight.

I’ve missed everything so far but the band, and I’m not sure I’m up for that, either.

So let’s recap - where did those 11 days go that I was so excited to live for?

Of those 11 days, I got to enjoy 2 days pain-free.

2 days.

Out of the past 27 days, I have enjoyed roughly 8 days pain-free.

I have not gone back to yoga class, and I’ve been in too much pain to do the yoga video that I own.

I have continually doing slow stretches and fighting through the pain. I often do the wide hip circles when not out in public (cuz doing those makes one look like a pole dancer, heh) in an attempt to ease the low back and pelvic pain.

To anyone who doesn’t suffer from chronic pain, I hope this gives you an educated visual, and I hope you understand it a bit better when I tell you just how tired and depressed I am.
Just because I have high hopes, doesn’t mean my body wishes to cooperate.

Oh and to those of you who still think wishful thinking and being positive will end my pain, you can go to hell.

On Saturday, my hubby did get me out of the house. We went to a nursery to scope out starter beds, raised beds, herbs, vegetables, soil and all the rest of it. I was bleary-eyed from the pain and Tylenol 3, but determined to take a walk through the calm nursery garden and just be outdoors for a bit.

After we were done there, my hubby needed to pick up his car, which had been getting detailed. He’d driven my car to get us to the nursery. I told him it’s only a couple blocks from the car detail place back to our house - just drive us from the nursery to his car, he can get his car, then I will drive my car the couple blocks back home.
We got to the car detailing place and he had to wait for his car - it wasn’t done yet after all. I just decided to wait, too. I slept in my car for about 15 minutes til he pulled up alongside me in his car. Then we drove back home.

Hubby wanted to go to a second nursery to encourage me to get out of the house and start on that flower bed cuz he knows how depressed I get immediately upon becoming bedridden each month. I told him that even that short trip to the nursery and the wait at the car detailing place was murder on me and my bladder as well. I told him with how heavy it is right now, I need to be near the bathroom. I went and knelt against the bed. Hubby came after me, gently coaxing me to try again. I was so tired from the meds. So depressed that my weekend fun was taken from me.
I drew a deep breath and hauled myself up off the floor and bed, and off we went to nursery #2.

The second place wasn’t as nice as the first, but still offered some tranquility for the state I was in, and had some very fragrant white roses. I showed my hubby how to get sniffed by a morning glory (the petals are so soft and wispy that when you sniff them, they adhere to your nostril, thus sniffing you back!) After browsing there for a short bit, my hubby took me to Baskin Robbins for a Clown Cone - something that was a favourite treat for me when I was a little kid.
I have to say, now that I’m all grown up, Baskin Robbins ice cream is rather unmentionable, especially since we have Tucker’s homemade super creamed ice cream parlour nearby.

After ice cream, we came back home, ate dinner, and hung out. I think I went to bed early. Can’t remember.

On Sunday I spent the entire day on the couch, only getting up to go to the bathroom or shower. I researched endo stuff all damned day. I was on a mission. A stoned Tylenol 3 induced mission. I also spent the day trying to locate a substitute teacher for me on Monday, because I knew the pain would be too much for me to handle. Around 10pm I finally got a reliable call back from someone who said they’d sub for me. I went to bed after 1am but woke up around 8am from the pain. I took Tylenol 3 all day again. That cold I’ve been trying not to catch from the kids at work is really really trying to get me - my throat has been sore all day today.
Today was the same as yesterday - all day on the couch, researching endo stuff.

My neighbor was very kind and brought me some ice cream today. It was 88°F outside and 76°F in the house today but I wasn’t really bothered by the heat until late afternoon. It was very sweet of her to bring me the ice cream. :)

Tomorrow I return to work and hope to get through the entire day pain-free.

If so, clock resets for another 23-25 days, minus any mid-cycle pain that may occur (usually 8 days after my cycle ends).

There’s no catching a break this month.

I need to go back in time to the last cycle before I record this month’s cycle, because I didn’t do an adequate enough job in my journal.

Back on April 2nd, I mentioned that I pulled the “grin and bear it” routine and toughed out the pain. That’s all I wrote to you about. However, I did make notes in my calendar, so I’ll record those here now.

Friday, April 3, 2009: The pain and bleeding ramped up about 11:20am. I had been observing children at the school I’d just been hired at. I was to report to training that following Monday. My lower back had been killing me for most of the time I was there observing (about 3 hours). When I got home, I popped Tylenol 3 and enforced bedrest for the rest of the day.

Saturday, April 4, 2009: The pain was bad during the early part of the day, but subsided by 4pm. I enforced bedrest. I bled heavy all day. There were occasional sharp pains in both of my ovaries, but the pain was mostly on the right and lower right quadrant.

Sunday, April 5, 2009: The pain was mild and the bleeding moderate. I had anxiety all day over whether I’d be able to go to work on Monday, because I’d only been bedridden for part of Friday and most of Saturday. By nighttime, I was only spotting again.

Monday, April 6, 2009: The spotting and pain ramped up at 1pm. I also got a moderate headache and a feeling of sugar crash, though I’d just eaten some gluten-free mac ‘n cheese and some cornish hen for lunch at work. I took half a Tylenol 3 and within the hour I felt a little better, but the mild pelvic pain stuck with me after that, and moderate back pain continued into the 6pm hour.

For the rest of that week - my first week on the job - I experienced moderate low back pain. I wasn’t sure if it was leftover from george, or if it was from the cervicitis, or hell, if it was from all the activity I was getting from working around children again.

I went from george pain on Monday to low back pain for the rest of the week, which ceased by Sunday, April 12th but was replaced with a bad yeast infection from the antibiotics I’d been on to treat the cervicitis. On Sunday night, I started a 7-day regimen of Monistat to make sure I wiped out the yeast infection. I had two and a half days pain-free but having to deal with wearing a pad from the nasty Monistat treatment, when Wednesday I came down with a cold. I thought it was severe dehydration and perhaps it was - but it also kicked my immune system in the junk and allowed a virus to take me down. The very next day, April 16, I had a sore throat and generally didn’t feel well. Same thing on Friday, though I attended a friend’s wedding anyway.

I woke up Saturday, April 18 feeling like a Mac truck had run over me. I was full on sick.

Because I’ve been sick as a dog with a virus caught from the children at work during my first week on the job, my body doesn’t seem to have remembered that it needed to be shutting down because of george approaching. So I had none of the usual early warning signs - no low back pain, no uterine pain, no major ovarian twinges.

Friday, April 24, 2009: I got up for work around 6:45am. I noticed the faintest pink spotting but decided I would not dwell on it, because george was due in two days, on Sunday. “NOT today. So he simply CAN’T be here”, I thought.

I popped 600mg ibuprofen and bicycled to work.

Around 10am, I was surprised to see moderate red spotting. I was not prepared. Whoops. So much for denial. I began to have mild cramps but I decided to continue to ignore the situation, because after all, george was due Sunday, NOT today.

At 1pm I was finally able to sit down and eat lunch. I’d been go go go since awakening. That’s my job, after all. On my feet all day, keeping up with children aged three to five. I was dismayed to see actual red bleeding rather than spotting. There’d been no ramp up. There’d been no dark brown spotting for a day or three. What the hell!
I decided that I could make it for four more hours like this without it leaking through my pants. The cramps REALLY wanted to come through, but again, I told myself I didn’t have time for this. I went back to the break room and finished preparing my lunch.
That’s when the head teacher came in and announced we’re having a meeting, and I was needed.
Great. I wasn’t told we’d have a meeting EVERY Friday on my lunch break like this. Dammit!!! So off I went again, go go go, and the cramps abated once more.

I was happy that this denial thing was working so well for me.
After work, I bicycled home. I didn’t have any cramps, but my body was VERY exhausted like it gets when george is around. When I got home, I let out a sigh. I was finally able to relax for a few minutes.

That’s when the pain tried to ramp up again.

So I sighed again, then said LOOK, I’M BUSY. I’LL MAKE SURE I STAY BUSY SO YOU DON’T BOTHER ME.

And with that, I got into my car and told myself I had to hurry and go go go to get my dinner, then get to my next job (babysitting for a family in town). But this time, george wasn’t listening, so I popped a half of a Tylenol 3 to make sure he listened.
That seemed to do the trick.

I didn’t have to pop another half Tylenol 3 for three hours.

I took an hour nap from 9pm - 10pm while the baby slept. The parents returned home around 11:30pm.

By the time I got home, I’d worked myself into such a state over the whole psychology denial thing, that I was hyper. I couldn’t calm down. I told my husband I was actually afraid to calm down, because then the pain would arrive.
Then I realised I’d bled through my fabric pad and through my underwear, and anxiety took hold. I called out to my husband for help, and declared that I should start leaving extra underwear in the bathroom during my period.
He convinced me that I really should calm down, that I needed my rest, that I didn’t have to be to my next job until 6pm Saturday.

The moment I settled into bed, my flow became heavy again.
I had minor cramping on and off during the night, but was mostly just heavy.

The pain level for me stayed at about 3 - 4 on the scale.

Saturday, April 25, 2009: I spent the day popping half Tylenol 3 pills every one to three hours, just to make sure the pain didn’t take over. I forced myself to take a nap for an hour, from 3pm - 4pm, so I’d be rested for work. I ate dinner and drove rather than bicycled to work (babysitting for another family in town). When I woke from nap, the pain was about a 6.5 on the pain scale. This dismayed me, since I had to be to work in an hour and fifteen minutes. The pain remained the same even as I left for work, but I used the same tactic as I’d done on Friday - “I can’t feel you, I don’t have time for this…”
The bleeding was still heavy. The parents left me with a sleeping baby at 7pm - it took an hour for them to finish getting ready and put the baby down cuz he’d had a long day. I set up camp in the dining room to work on my teacher practicum and that’s when I began to have lots of sharp, jarring pain on the lower left quadrant/ovary. It was enough to make me gasp at times. At 7:16pm for example, I had three sharp pains in succession that took my breath away and made me wheeze from the pain, and a fourth that was much less severe. Then a minute later, another sharp pain that made me wince.
I had taken half a Tylenol 3 at 5:30pm and didn’t want to take any more if I could help it.
I got two more stabs of pain - 7pm and 9:22pm. Another stab at 9:35pm. Then at 9:37pm, I got a right side stab. This continued on and off until I got home from babysitting around 12:30am.
The bleeding was heavy the entire day and continued throughout the night. I took a whole Tylenol 3 and went to bed.
Around 3:30am, I woke with a major coughing/hacking fit, and almost threw up. I had to flush my nose and throat with salt water, and things eased up. But all that trauma of coughing so violently brought on lower back spasms and cramps (roughly a 7.5 on the pain scale). I took a teaspoonful of codeine cough syrup, warmed a heating pad, and went back to bed. The cramps abated within an hour.

Sunday, April 26, 2009: Still bleeding heavy. My uterus felt raw and gutted, and my legs were shaky. I ate some breakfast and was just about to take a Tylenol 3 when the pain got really bad (I’d say 7.5-8 on the scale). I went to the bathroom, and actually, having a bowel movement eased everything up. The pain passed. I told myself I’d take it easy and enjoy bedrest all day, but then I realised that I didn’t have any clean clothes for the coming work week, and my husband was off at yet another game convention, so he couldn’t help me. I popped a whole Tylenol 3 and set off to do my laundry. I moved very slowly and methodically. The pain ramped up a few times but never enough to make me cry.
I didn’t finally get into bed until 3pm, but at least it’s something. I will try to remain bedridden for the rest of the day.

So let’s summarise the month of April:

Now to address the last bit…My monthly cycle has been shortening steadily since February, 2009.

In February, george was 3 days early

In March, george was 1 day early

In April, george happened twice. On April 2, he was 1 day early, and on April 24, he was 2 days early.

My cycle is still five days long each month, but for some reason, it’s cutting back from happening every 26 days to every 23-25 days.

The last time I had this profound a change in the length of time between my cycle each month, I was about 25 years old. I went from a seven-day cycle to a five to six day cycle back then. It took me about six months before I realised what was happening.

This earliness of course has screwed with our honeymoon plans. I’ve had seven whole days removed because of george being early a day here and a day there since February. This means the entire last week, or the middle of our honeymoon, will be messed up, because george keeps showing up early each month.

Is this perimenopause? Is this something else? The mysterious cervicitis occurrence has never been explained. What’s going on with my body!?!??

I’ve not journaled about this until now because I wanted to make sure I got the test results back, first. And well, it was humiliating to have to go through this.

I alluded to my problem back on March 25 and March 26.

Well, on March 28 when the pain happened again during and after intimacy, I made an emergency trip to the doctor’s office.
I wasn’t due for my annual pap smear until April 20, but was told I should have it done, NOW. I want to let it be known that this is the same doctor I complained about in October, 2007 and in January, 2009. But she was the only doctor available who could see me on such short notice that day, who had access to my medical file relating to endometriosis.

During the pap smear, I was also tested for sexually transmitted diseases (STD), and was told that the test results would be due back on Thursday, April 2.

After the exam, I got dressed and waited. The doctor came back in and said to me, “How do I say this tactfully…uh…are you sure your boyfriend hasn’t been stepping out?”

First of all, he’s not my boyfriend, he’s my HUSBAND, and NO, he hasn’t been sleeping with other people. I was infuriated that this would be the first thing a doctor would suspect, given MY personal medical history, which this office has been made aware of several times.

She told me the reason why she asked the question was that the pap smear came back positive for cervicitis. I asked her if there was anything else that might cause cervicitis, because I know I don’t have a friggin STD. I cited examples of clean pap smears three times within the last ten years. The doctor shrugged and said she didn’t know of any other cause of cervicitis. What a crock of shit.

So I went home and researched it and found that a latex condom allergy could lead one to cervicitis. I thought about it some more and decided that digital play with improperly cleaned fingers and fingernails could lead me to cervicitis, as could bumping up against the anus during sexual intercourse. In my case, these are all plausible, because I am so sensitive to infections.

I called my gynecologist on Monday, March 30 to let her know I had my annual pap smear early because of an infection. We talked about everything that might lead to cervicitis. She totally agreed with me that digital play with improperly cleaned fingers and fingernails could lead me to cervicitis, as could bumping up against the anus during sexual intercourse. My gynecologist was really upset with the doctor who saw me on Saturday, saying she should have put me on antibiotics right away, to avoid the infection spreading to the fallopian tubes and ovaries and causing permanent damage. She called in doxycycline and flagyl over the phone, and I started on the antibiotics on Tuesday.

Two days later, I saw my gynecologist and she did a follow-up pelvic exam. This time I had no pain. She performed additional testing and told me the antibiotics were obviously working.

Despite knowing the above-mentioned things about my reproductive health, the STD test results from my primary care doctor were not back by Thursday, April 2.
I called on Thursday the 2nd, Friday the 3rd, Saturday the 4th, Monday the 6th, Tuesday the 7th, and Wednesday the 8th, and the goddamned results were not in. I grew angrier with my primary care doctor because she’d not checked in on me once that whole week. I would have been made to suffer an additional 12 days had I not spoken to my gynecologist.

Sometime after 8:00 at night on Thursday, April 8, the primary doctor called me to tell me that the STD tests came back negative for gonnorhea and chlamydia (DUH, AS EXPECTED), and that the pap showed no abnormal cells, no pre-cancer worries, nothing.

She stated that she doesn’t know what’s wrong with me, and to please follow up with my gynecologist.

I took the opportunity to tell her my gyn was already in the loop and was not happy with her decision to not put me on antibiotics right away. The doctor said she’d had a reason at the time for not putting me on antibiotics, but had since forgotten it.
Nice, eh?
I repeated what my gyn said - that she was afraid of permanent damage to the tubes and ovaries if the infection were allowed to proceed, and given that the lab results didn’t come back for two weeks, this is a HUGE problem for my health and safety. The doctor apologised but didn’t seem sincere in her apology.

Because I took a new job, I can no longer make my appointment with the gynecological oncologist or my endocrinologist. I had to cancel both because they are during working hours. Of course, they do not offer weekend or evening appointments, so I will be forced to take time off work. I’m going to see if I can get the appointments on Friday, may 29 - the day after I return from our honeymoon.

In the meantime, I’m glad to have proof once again that I don’t have an STD, just to shut these damned doctors up, because it’s the first thing they always leap to whenever there’s a gynecological issue, regardless of the fact that I have a documented non-STD illness in that region.

GAH THIS MAKES ME SO MAD TO HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS EVERY TIME I HAVE ANOTHER COMPLICATION FROM THIS ILLNESS.

But on the other hand, I’m even more scared. They say they don’t know what’s wrong with me.

So what’s wrong with me then?

The fear creeps in. The big ‘c’ word looms regardless of the family doctor saying she saw no abnormal cells on the pap.

The dehydration wasn’t tied to any ongoing gynecological issues, nor was it strictly dehydration.

I keep a separate journal for the rest of what goes on in my life, so I wrote about the fact that I have caught the latest version of the common cold here and here.

This was the journal I used to write everything in, including the endo-related stuff. Sometimes it’s hard to keep it all separated. But it’s easier for me this way, I’ve found.