I Will Not Suffer In Silence

Yesterday kicked off my “george is over” post menstrual manic hyper overdoing it phase, but I’m SO happy to be done with george again!

This morning I drove across the bay, where I met up with another friend, who treated me to a day at The Legion of Honor, where we viewed the After the Ruins exhibit, which takes photos from the great 1906 earthquake, and compares them to photos of the same locations in SF today. It’s really neat, and sobering, given the fact that I live on the Hayward Fault, which is supposed to ‘go’ anytime between now and 2030.

We also had a look at the art in the rest of the museum, and my two favourite pieces were The Russian Bride’s Attire, by Konstantin Makovsky, and The Dead Soldier, by Joseph Wright.
My friend had predicted that I’d be awed by The Russian Bride’s Attire. :)
The Dead Soldier just made me want to cry, given the current war in Iraq, along with other campaigns the U.S. is waging. I’ve been so upset since day one by the bloodshed that the Dubya Regime has ordered.

After we viewed art, we went walking and enjoyed the beautiful view just outside of the Legion of Honor (I’ll have to resize pix and then remember to post them…).

After a full day, I came home and cleaned in preparation for Vernal Equinox, which will happen at 10:26am PST tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow, I need to get up, bicycle for an hour, and then run off to volunteer my services to feed a movie crew, who are filming in the East Bay.
Then, if I’m not dead by then from exhaustion, I may keep up my commitment to go to Death Guild (it’ll be the third week in a row if I make it!).

The rest of this week entails my volunteer work, bicycling and registering for another state teacher test, capped off with a 60-mile bicycle ride on Saturday.

After that, I go into hiding for some Steph Time, and prepare to dig in for another round of studying.

Today I pedaled for 40 minutes on the stationary trainer, and I walked for 20 minutes on the treadmill.

Today was the first time that I bicycled since March 6th, due to downtime/PMS.

Today was the state teacher test. It lasted five hours.

I took all three subsets, and I feel reasonably positive about the English/History test and the Physical Education/Arts test. I know that I failed the math test, but I also know I can make it up.

Test scores will not be posted until April 17, 2006.

Next week, I have to register for the second state teacher test. I hear that one is much easier. That test date is April 22, 2006.

So basically I have a week or two to chill out, before studying like a fiend all over again for the next test…

George killed me on Thursday the 16th, and I did more napping than studying that day because of the pain and the drugs.
Still, this cycle overall was less painful, with moderate pain on Wednesday and Severe pain on Thursday. Usually I have two to three days of severe pain. I wonder if it’s because I was a good girl and ate spinach twice every day and remembered to take my calcium vitamins every day this time around.
The downside to this cycle is that I bloated very badly, and I attribute that to a major junk food binge due to out-of-control cravings. Even now, I’m really swollen to the point that my lower legs and tops of my feet are sore to the touch, and my fingers are bloated.
George is nearly gone today, and I didn’t have any pain today. He should be completely gone by tomorrow night, making his stay a total of six days.

Woke up from a dream this morning where I was commanding into a cell phone, “Are you there? WAKEY WAKEY!”

So I woke up and realised george was moments away from making a horrible mess. Took care of myself and that’s when the cramps began.

So, I guess eating my weight in spinach for the past two days really didn’t help me, after all. I didn’t have such excruciating pain for the first day of george, and the second day it got painful enough to take a Tylenol 3 on a full stomach (which thankfully didn’t alter me from my studies), but this morning was BAD.

I took Tylenol 3 on an empty stomach about three hours ago and I’m still stoned. The pain has moved into my lower back and the squid are continuous, hence the pain.

This of course inhibits my attention and visual focus by… a lot.

Still, I’ll see what I can do ’til I pass out from the meds.

George arrived today, while I was recovering from a hangover.
The worst pain I’m having at the moment is actually in my thighs, so george has been nice to me today. Endometriosis is known to extend down as far as the thighs or as far up as the shoulders. For me, it’s thighs, and the pain there can be described as similar to pain felt after one does upper leg exercises to the point of muscle fatigue….it’s that ‘day after exercising’ sort of pain.

The uterine cramps have been mild to moderate, increasing as the night wears on. I took 600mg of Ibuprofen about four hours ago, and that’s helped keep the pain down. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I’m glad it worked this time cuz I needed to be coherent for the massive amount of studying I did today.

However, I’m going to take a Tylenol 3 before bed to attempt holding back major pain onset during the night.

I need to pull 9-12 hour study days the rest of this week (the big test is on Saturday), but I know that because george is now here, that I’ll be bedridden for a lot of the time. It’s a good thing I have nine books on histories of major world civilisations – at least I can read those in bed, and get an ‘A’ on that part of the test…

My friends and family have always rolled their eyes at me whenever I’ve said I’m having a hot flash. They always inform me that only menopausal women get hot flashes. I’ve never believed them. I’ve known since I was a teenager that there’s something very wrong with my menstrual cycle.

Last night, I froze my ass off. My body was literally nipple popping cold. Outside, it was 42°F. Inside, it hovered around 68°F, and my boyfriend said he was chilly, too. But I knew he’d warm up pretty quick under the blankets.
When I went to bed, I crawled under three blankets. I had on long pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt. I wore a HAT to bed.

After a half an hour of shivering, I asked if I could turn on the heater fan, and was granted permission. It sucks when your sweetie is the complete opposite in the body temperature department. He endures a hot house all the time. He doesn’t have to, but he does.

Around 2am, I woke up sweating, and turned off the heater fan.
This morning, I got up and was instantly cold again. My boyfriend had been in the living room with the doorwall open, and I whined that it was cold, so he closed the door.

An hour later, I was standing in line at the bank, when all of a sudden my face felt hot. Then my chest felt hot. Then my lower trunk/abdomen felt hot. I felt sweaty and had low level nausea, and then … light to moderate cramps began.

I stayed this way for about an hour, sweating hot the whole time. I came home, threw the laundry in the wash, and opened up all the windows in the apartment.

Twenty-five minutes later, I got a shiver that started in my back, and the nausea and light cramps and sweating hotness gave way to cold shivering.

This is not the flu. This is george. And that little bastard isn’t even SHOWING himself on the outside, yet.

Now all the windows are closed again, and I gotta go get my laundry, so hopefully that will warm me back up for a few minutes.

I can’t wait until my boyfriend’s domestic partner insurance kicks in. Hopefully his job won’t sack the department before I can see a doctor again.

Well I did end up accomplishing some things today, which helped lift my depression a bit. I:

• scooped the catbox
• emptied the trash
• vacuumed most of the apartment
• bought more kibble for the cats
• cleaned the kitchen
• made a list of things I must do tomorrow
• did my week-overdue budget analysis

A lot of that is hormonal nesting in preparation for george, I know. Every month, I get to the point of bleaching things because of the hideous hormone-induced nesting which terrifies me because it reminds me that female primal instincts are in charge – not my mind. Only, the instincts are a bit retarded, because I’m not pregnant, and yet every month, I go through what seems to be the same XXTREME NESTING olympics that pregnant women do.

Anyway. At least I did *something* today.

I cannot focus on my studies again today.

I have not had the desire to bicycle for a week.

George is due on Tuesday, and it is because of george that I am depressed and lethargic. My hormonal balance becomes completely screwed up within ten days of onset of menses. With onset begins three to four days of excruciating pain and heavy flow, which confines me to bed in a drugged haze. Around day three or four, I get a huge burst of manic energy and try to get a lot done, which reactivates the flow and the pain, and lands me back in bed for one more day. After that, I get a second manic upswing, but not as bursty as the first, and menses ends for another 27 days.

But when you think about it, because my body starts Downtime up to ten days before george, this means that in any given month, I actually only have about two good weeks, and the rest is depression/pain.

I got my very first period when I was fourteen.
I’ve been dealing with this depression and pain surrounding my menses since the age of fifteen. That’s twenty years.

I have between five and fifteen years left before onset of Menopause. I don’t want to have to go through this pain any longer, only to be met with the horrors of Menopause. But I don’t want to get a total hysterectomy because then I’ll have to take Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), which is known to cause cancer.
A partial hysterectomy (leaving ovaries in and only taking uterus out) may be the way to go for me, but I haven’t studied enough about the effects of that, yet.

In the meantime, I’m too depressed to focus on my studies today, and the state test is in six days. However, within the next two days, I’ll be a bedridden, medicated zombie, so studying will be virtually useless, anyway.

This is my fate. It’s not about accepting it – I don’t have any choice in the matter. Fighting it only increases the depression.
I already know I won’t pass the test this time around anyway, but knowing that things are largely out of my control physiologically at the moment doesn’t stop me from feeling like a failure in life.

It brings about an entire conversation in my head over what I really should be doing with my life. Is it the right thing for me to be working for others? No. It’s not. The right thing for me is to be working for myself, whether as a writer or a genealogist, with astrology on the side (note how genealogy and astrology is also a writing career) but I don’t know *how* to do that. The resources are out there, but I don’t know where to start. And of course, there’s the fear and perceived lack of finances.

And yet, knowing what the right thing for me to do in life is, I went and applied to be a teacher, which granted, I’m good at. I went to college for it. I taught daycare for five years.

But is teaching right for me? It’s a two-year commitment to accept a job with the Teaching Fellows.

A major life decision has to be made in the next ten days. I can’t screw it up.

It is obvious to me from my last post that yesterday I had a really bad case of Manic OCD.

I really think I need to start looking at how to manage that. I’d have days on the job when I’d not get any work done if an episode came on. Research/browsing web on company time…all day…until the OCD issue was resolved. It’s not good.

Right, so anyway, today I got back with the program and spent roughly seven hours studying history again. The test is less than a week away now, and I’m only just over half-way through the material for Subtest I (Reading/language/literature, History, Social Science). I’ve yet to study anything under Subtest II (Math and Science) or Subtest III (Physical Education, and Visual/performing arts).

I know I won’t pass the first time around. I have two chances to make up the areas that I fail or cannot complete in the allotted time frame. Based on the fact that I have two more chances to pass, I’m not freaking out. But still, right now I feel rushed, and I hate that.