I Will Not Suffer In Silence

I just called in sick again. I was worried I could be fired, but the boss said she understands my pain, and not to worry, this absence doesn’t reflect on me, but please could I try to make it in tomorrow. I told her I felt sure that this would be the worst phase of george, so yeah, I’ll be in tomorrow.

I also cancelled the trip to Yosemite with my boyfriend and friend. We’re all bummed, but my boy and I were panicked about having enough time to pack for moving day, and then of course this missing work on account of george didn’t help my panic issues.

Right. So now there’s more time to recover, and more time to pack, and I promised I’d be in to work on July 3rd, which made the boss happy.

Now I go fall down for a limited time until management comes in to do a preliminary walkthrough, to advise me on how best to fix up the place to ensure we get all of our deposit back. Now THAT’S a turnaround! This place is such a slum, with real live slumlords, and then they do something nice like this. Weird.

The pain has been so bad since yesterday that I spent all of yesterday whacked out of my skull on Tylenol 3 and Ibuprofen.

I ended up wiping down 5 walls (three made up the small foyer area though) and scrubbing some carpet stains. While the wall-wiping was a Bad Idea™, the carpet scrubbing was actually good on my back, because I was on my hands and knees, almost in turtle position, which is one of the recommended postures when having severe menstrual pain.

This month makes up the most times I’ve ever felt faint from the pain during a single menstrual cycle. This month is also the most I have felt nauseated from the pain in over a year.

Since starting my dietary restriction in the name of pain management, I have had george three times: on May 7, June 3 and June 27. Originally, I’d planned to be on the yeast free and sugar free diet for four months, ending in August. But after I started discovering food allergies, and then the trip to the allergist at the beginning of June found I am likely to have Celiac, I extended my diet out to October, and along with being yeast free and sugar free, I also went wheat free.

Granted, my diet hasn’t been so great with such limitations. I’ve eaten a ton of chicken and gluten-free waffles as my main staple, for example. Every time I eat shrimp lately, I’m finding that I feel hypoglycemic afterwards, so now I also have to question shellfish next time I see the allergist.

I was supposed to see the allergist today, to go over the blood test results to confirm whether I really do have Celiac, but the menstrual cramps are so bad that I had to cancel.

Anyway, last night I declared my diet mod in the name of pain management to be a complete failure.

The depressing point is that I thought that in the case of declaring failure, I could go back to eating all the stuff I’d eliminated. With the pending Celiac diagnosis, this changes everything. Even after I get surgery for the menstrual issue, I’ll still be miserable diet-wise if I do get diagnosed with Celiac.

And then there’s the fact that I still have hypoglycemic attacks just before and during menstruation, regardless of diet mod. Will that be fixed after surgery, or is the hypoglycemia a result of my defective pancreas?

Regarding surgery, will I get a hysterectomy right away, or just do the initial laparoscopy to get the official diagnosis and take it from there?
I still have to talk to the gynecologist about that.

Ok, I’m feeling REALLY dizzy again (I’ve only had 1 Tylenol 3 so far today). Time to go lay down again.

We had a moving sale on Saturday and got rid of a lot of crap. I made $14 and took the stuff that didn’t sell over to the goodwill store.
Afterwards, my boyfriend treated me to a sushi dinner at our favourite place in the South Bay! Mmmm mmm good. I even brought my own wheat-free soy sauce along. This is the second time I’ve done this, and I’ve had no complaints from restaurant staff.

I weighed myself on Monday – 164 lbs (74kg), so I gained a pound. It’s likely related to george, cuz he arrived on Tuesday. I’ve probably gained a couple more pounds since then.

Oh and I had another job interview on Monday. It was for yet another dotcom. I’m not too thrilled about what they do (TV and radio for one’s cell phone) or who founded the company (a bunch of ex military and NASA guys), but it would be a chance to really break into tech writing officially, as opposed to being the guy nominated to document processes on contract jobs. I’ve been wanting to become an official writer in some form for awhile now, and on top of it, they’re offering $45 – 50K salary. We’ll see how that goes. I am now waiting to hear back from them.

I went to work last night, despite the cramping from george’s first day. It wasn’t too bad. Every now and then I’d get a sharp pinch. The main problem was the lower and mid back pain. I felt my entire back tightening up, steeling against the building george pain, getting Ready For It like my back does every month. I’d taken 600mg Ibuprofen before work, and then another 600mg around 9pm.
When I got home around 12:20am, I took a Tylenol 3 and went to bed. Did I officially mention that I work the evening shift from 4:30pm – midnight? Well, now I’ve said it.

I got up this morning and I could already feel george gearing up and sharpening his tools. By 10am, I popped a Tylenol 3 for the pain, and continued to pack up the house. The pain never subsided all day, probably because of the fact that I was lifting stuff into boxes, stooping, bending, and lifting the boxes themselves after they were packed. But you know, had I not contributed to the pain in that way, I might have had a mellower morning, but as soon as I got to work, the pain would become just as bad as it is now because of the physical labour involved in what I do at work.

Before the interview for the current job, I thought I’d be standing at a machine all day, scanning books. The truth is that there have been custom scanners with a v-shaped glass built for this company. To lift the glass, you step on a pedal. But you are seated in a chair while you work, so your leg is constantly rising up and stepping down on the pedal while you sit. I’ve been on the job for five days, now, and every night when I get home, I need to pop a Tylenol 3 and/or use a heating pad to ease the mid and lower back pain.

So I could have pain now or pain later. I could achive packing now or waste time going to work, only to have to turn around an hour later and come home from the pain. So by 1pm, I called in sick. Now I’m afraid I’ll be fired, because this place isn’t like corporations – it operates more like factories do – and they can let anyone go at any time, full timer or not.
So I worry. But I wasn’t able to go in. I took another Tylenol 3 and passed out for a couple hours.
Now we’re out of boxes and I’m too stoned to go get more boxes. So there’s wasted time anyway. I’m thinking of driving while stoned…hmmm prolly a bad idea huh.
Crap.

Well, I can still CLEAN.

June 13: Weighed in at 165 lbs (75kg).

June 16: My brother’s birthday, so I gave him a call. Also, found out for sure that I got the job. Shift to start June 20th, hours to be 4:00 – 11:30pm. The job is scanning books for digital preservation. I went and hung out with a friend and her friend – we went to the beach and listened to the ocean for a bit, and then went and did some window shopping. It was a nice afternoon to spend in celebration of the new job!

June 17: My boyfriend and the band he’s in had a gig. I showed the lead singer a letter I got from my cousin D, whereby D expressed how much the band’s music means to him (The letter had made me cry when I’d received it two days earlier). After the lead singer read the letter, he was so moved, that he dedicated the set that night to my cousin. It was a very powerful show!

June 19: Spent the day hauling shit from the storage unit, packing and running around, and the evening at dinner and hanging out with a couple of friends I haven’t seen in awhile.

June 20: First day on the job. Found out a few things:

• I get paid on the 15th and 30th.
• I only make $11/hr and can only top out at $12/hr and there’s no upward mobility.
• If I’m late to work twice within the same pay period, I will be fired (not that I have issues with tardiness, mind you, but don’t you think that’s a bit mean?)
• I get no health benefits.
• I have to pay for card access to the base (the scanning facility is on an old military base which is still partially in use, although this company is in no way related to Defense).

I only worked 2.5 hours that day because it was a training day only. I asked to do more work but was told no, it’s ok, go home. Sweet! So I went and picked up my boyfriend from the bus stop after he got off work, and we went home and had a lovely salmon dinner and watched the original ‘The Haunting’.

June 21: Had that day off work to go see the gynecologist my friend had referred me to. This is the second visit this month to that office, but the first time seeing this particular doctor. She’d read my file and heard my story and did a full pap on me and declared surgery to be a go!

Did you get that?

SHE WILL DO MY LAPAROSCOPY!!!

So now all I have to do is set a date. I’m thinking my birthday … a nice present to myself for entering my mid-thirties.

I’M SO FREAKING EXCITED! I’ve been waiting 20 years for this.

After I got home, I went and hung with my buddy and we had dinner and walked around Park Street.

June 22: Weighed in at 163 lbs (74kg).
Spent the morning hauling shit to the storage unit.
My second day on the new job. All day long I was told I was doing things wrong and that I need to ask for help when I’m having issues. I kept saying, “but I thought I was doing it right…” and I was told that I thought only within what I knew, and that there’s always a better way.
Now come on, people, how the hell … I mean… what, am I supposed to have the boss sit next to me for every freaking book I scan, IN CASE I might not KNOW something about what I’m doing during every step of the way? And if that’s the case, then the boss should have taken the TIME to SIT with me instead of correcting me all day.

Then at the end of the shift, I declare I’m going home. I had only taken a half hour lunch. I skipped my two 15 minute breaks so I could cut early, like I was told by the interview lady that most people do.

Well.

The boss guy told me I couldn’t leave. I told him, “But I only took a half hour lunch..” He informed me that they pay for the half hour lunch. I realise now I needed to say “But I didn’t take my breaks”. I’ll definitely say that next time I don’t take breaks.
But then, he imposed upon me. He said, “Besides, aren’t you supposed to give (the other new guy) a ride? I thought he asked you…”
I paused. I said YES, he DID ask me, but that I was supposed to have been leaving early, so I’d declined. But now, hell, I guess I’m available to give the new guy a ride, aren’t I!

So then I’m standing there. He explains nothing further. So I ask if there’s a shutdown/closeup procedure. “Oh yeah”, he says.
We have to empty the trash, put new bags in the cans, and sweep the floor at the end of the night. We have to tally up from the spreadsheet all our books we’ve scanned. He showed me the formula to use, and it came out that I’d scanned 2038 pages in 7.5 hours. Pretty impressive, eh?

No.

According to mister guy, I am a thousand pages short of the DAILY QUOTA.

As I was leaving with the other new hire, one of the other co-workers came running out to my car and also asked me for a ride, saying his wife couldn’t get through the locked gate.

So, now I’m expected to be taxi service on top of everything else, because I have to be nice, or else this small group of people (there’s only about eight of us on that shift) will be very uncomfortable to work with, otherwise.
I just about cried on the way home.

I recall being so excited to get this job. I feel the preservation project is so very important. However, a couple days before the start of the job, I started to get a weird gut feeling. I told some friends about it. Told them I couldn’t place my finger on it, but that I’d find out, soon.

Well, there it is. All the things I’ve laid out in bullet points, plus some.

Good thing I have another interview! Just got it set up yesterday, by another company I had sent a resume to at the same time I applied for the job I have now.

Meanwhile, my second allergist appointment is next Thursday. I got blood drawn yesterday to see if the celiac disease shows up. I’ll keep you posted on that. I’ve been keeping daily food logs for the allergist since June 8th.

And then July 1-4 I will HOPEFULLY be in Yosemite. I say “hopefully”, because in all the anxiety over job and finances and home… I FORGOT that george is due two days before we leave for Yosemite. So I will likely be out of commission for half to 3/4 of the time there.
But I’ve had mild cramps every day since the 20th, so I’m hoping george is early.
We’ll see how it all goes.

And then four days after we return from Yosemite, we move out of the shithole apartment.
A week after that will be our six year anniversary, and two days after that is the AIDS Walk that we do every year (please donate!).

So … uh…. yeeeeahhh…. Iiii’m a bit stressed.

June 8, 2006: Had allergy test which left me loopy from all the histamine reaction. Sister had her gall bladder removed (she’s recovering fine, thanks), missed Pissup Night due to stress and low funds. Cleaned the hell out of the house, started packing for the move.

June 9, 2006: Cleaned the hell out of the house, started packing for the move.

June 10, 2006: Cleaned the hell out of the house, packed for the move.

June 11, 2006: Cleaned the hell out of the house, packed for the move.

June 13, 2006: 1pm Gynecology appointment whereby I presented my entire george history. Came out of the appointment with instructions to return on June 21st for surgery consultation! ABOUT FREAKIN TIME!!!
Came home, zoomed to realtor’s office to sign the papers on the new place and hand over some cash.
Then I was supposed to go meet a friend at a coffeehouse, but instead, I was hypoglycemic and therefore emotional and forgetful, so I went home and had a meltdown. My friend called and I felt terrible. Rescheduled, though.

June 14, 2005: spent half the day studying for interview on Thursday, then the rest of the day packing the house up.

June 15, 2006: Got up, started to panic about Jury Duty on the 28th. Also panicked about money transfer expected today for the new home. Also nervous about interview today.
Boyfriend wants to have a sale in the pool room, so I look at the calendar and realise that the only weekend to do this is June 24…CRAP I FORGOT TO RESERVE IT….

(Ok just called and reserved it.)

…Around 11am, I realise I don’t have any slacks that fit anymore, so I panicked. I checked my bank account again and the money had transferred through from my remote savings to my local bank account. I ran to a department store, opened store credit, bought some slacks and a blouse, and ran to the bank and cut a cashier’s check for the rest of the money owed (leaving me with $166 to my name until the state unemployment check arrives). Zoomed back home, changed into new clothes, zoomed to realtor, dropped off the rental agreement and the remaining monies owed, and zoomed off to job interview.

I’m not sure, but I think I got the job….I’ll find out on Tuesday when Nice Lady said she’d call, so more on that later.

Got back into town, calmed down, and drove the speed limit. Went to the library and dropped off a book that’s 2 days overdue (oops). Then went to Walgreen’s to see if they still had the boxes I said I’d pick up at noon (before I had a panic attack over interview clothing and promptly forgot about boxes). Waited a few minutes while they tried to find the guy who was collecting boxes…they found the boxes, yay! I haven’t even unfolded them to see how big they are, yet, but…boxes, yay!

Then I got back on IRC and told my impatient friends and boyfriend about the jobness.

Now, I’m drinking 2 shots of Cruzan rum, remembering to breathe, and trying to mellow out before tackling more packing.

Oh, and tonight is Pissup Night. Everyone’s meeting at the German restaurant.
The very expensive German restaurant.
*sigh*
A friend just wrote to say that she’d buy me a beer if I show up.
*sigh*
I can’t have beer on this damned diet.

I can, however, load up my boyfriend’s flask full of rum and head over there.

Hmmm.

Yes, I know I promised to stop drinking (again).

As soon as I learn how to deal with stress, perhaps I’d adhere to that promise.

10:24pm Edit: I just wanted to let ya’ll know that I DID go to the bar and I DID BYOB DIY PUNK ROCK OI OI.

3 more shots of Cruzan and now I’m 3 sheets to the wind…
wheee! I feel MUCH better now.
There were six of us sitting outside the Speisekammer. It started out mellow and of course got louder as the Mass kept arriving for my friends. I kept up nicely with my stuff.

I rode my bicycle there and back, which is a total of just over 4 miles (6km). On my way there, the Bay looked SO blue. I had been near tears after receiving a letter from my cousin (who has end stage hepatitis C). He’d written about how my boyfriend’s band had influenced him. His writing is the same way he speaks; stream-of-conscience, raw, emotional, no bullshit. It was the thing that broke me finally, after everything today. His letter stated that he enjoys every minute to its fullest, not knowing when his last day will be, trying to make things right before he dies, and he thanked me for being the only family who still loves him, knowing that our kind puts out all this love and always gets shit on in return…

Not wanting to spend the evening sobbing, I tearfully gathered my bicycle and bag, poured my rum into an empty Vitamin Water™ bottle, mixed it with some water and ice, left a note in case I was out very late, and set off.
As I rode down the bike path, that’s when I saw just how amazingly blue the water was. I’d made a similar comment about the sky early just this morning – that it was as blue as the tarp that covers our bicycles on the balcony, and what a pretty day it was. I could smell the sea in the air, and I thanked my lucky stars that I fulfilled a childhood promise to myself and moved out of Michigan, and now live in California, 2500 miles across country. Nine years this month, I’ve been out here. Geez though, I can’t remember if it was the 14th or the 21st that we arrived at our new home in California.

I thought of my cousin during the ride, knowing that he too lives near the sea, albeit he’s on the Atlantic ocean and I’m on the Pacific ocean. But he can go out to see the ocean at any time and walk along the beach. I need to write that in my next letter to him, to remind him to do this more often, if he’s been neglecting such beauty.

On my ride back home, I regretted never having taken night rides on my bicycle until now. The bike path is there all year long, and I’ve only ever used it during the daytime.
As I rode, I was reminded of the night rides I used to take on the other side of the Bay, when I lived in San Mateo. gods, it’s been eight years since that time.
Eight years and life was SO different back then. I was mid-twenties but still just a kid. Still going to the nightclubs in the middle of the week with my pals dhog, Danyeke and Blark.
We’ve all left our ghosts back there on that side of the Bay, still doing our thing back in some time warp.

I’m not making sense anymore, and I’m becoming emotional again. Ahhh booze.

Time for more water.

Anyway, the bike path is still accessible. I’m still going to be living on the island, only a mile and a half (2km?) from where I live now. I just won’t be able to access the bike path right outside my door anymore.

So after my allergy test last Thursday where the allergist highly suspects me of having gluten intolerance, a.k.a. celiac disease (i’d already suspected this a day before the appointment, ha!)…..

We had some people over on Saturday. One of my friends made me a wonderful gluten-free dessert, so that I could enjoy some food that night! Awww, what a sweetheart!
So I had a couple of the cookies on Saturday. And a couple more on Sunday. And a couple more on Monday.

Well, by Monday, I started feeling really hungry, complete with stomach growling angrily at me, an hour or so after I’d eaten a full meal. I thought, “hmmm, I haven’t felt like this in awhile now, and I’m not PMSing, so why the gurgles and feeling starved?”
And then Monday afternoon, I felt cranky and headachey and generally like a hypoglycemic attack was coming on.
Today, along with feeling starved even though I’ve been eating, I had an actual hypoglycemic attack, and my emotions were so whacked that I ended up in tears at one point during the day.

It was then that I realised that sure, the dessert my friend made for me is gluten-free, but it’s not yeast-free (it has peanuts) or sugar-free (it has sugary condensed milk in it). And I’ve been on a yeast- and sugar-free diet since April, so reintroducing sugar into my diet is probably what’s causing all this trouble for me.

So, upon realising that, I became very sad that I cannot finish the dessert my friend went out of her way to make for me. Sad monkey.
But in about a week, we’ll see if my body straightens back out again without the sugar and yeast. I’m thinking it will.

I’d already resolved to stay sugar-free after my self-imposed diet restriction ends in October, anyway.

And I’ll be truly ecstatic if the blood test on June 29th comes back negative for gluten intolerance.

Yesterday, with my boyfriend’s domestic partner health insurance card, I looked up allergists, found one, and made an appointment for THIS MORNING.
Super fast!!

So I went in and had an official allergy test, just like the prick-test I had when I was five.

I was tested for fruits, vegetables, gluten, molds, dust mites, cats, dogs, hamsters, birds, and grass.

I warned the allergist that I was a bit afraid of getting mold on my skin because I know I react badly. But she wanted to see which molds I was most allergic to, so I let her do a panel.

The test results came back as expected – highly allergic to mold and dust (more allergic to “Eastern U.S.” dust, where I grew up. I had no idea there were different kinds of dust!), and moderately allergic to wheat and grass.
I hope to have the official printed results by the next appointment.

So now I have an allergy catalogue, and I have to get dust mite cases for the mattress and box spring and pillows in the bedroom. I have to be on a gluten-free diet for 3 weeks until my next appointment. I have to get a dehumidifier.

And, the allergist strongly suspects that I have what is called Celiac Spruce. She said she’ll confirm it with a blood test when she next sees me.

See? I’m NOT a hypochondriac. I know you probably don’t think I am, but I’ve gotten shit in the past from people, so it’s good to be able to say HAH! TOLD YOU SO! ;)

And then well…it also sucks.

Yesterday I tried buckwheat pancakes.

You may think to yourself, “buckwheat is the same as wheat, isn’t it?”

It’s not.

After eating buckwheat pancakes with sugar-free syrup and a glass of rice milk yesterday morning, I had a hypoglycemic attack. I cured the attack by eating a rice cake with almond butter.

This morning there were leftover pancakes, but I did not eat them right away. Instead, I fried up a couple of eggs and ate them with 2 slices of yeast-free spelt bread and a glass of rice milk.
The eggs made me slightly nauseated.

Then I went out and ran some errands, came back, and ate the leftover pancakes with the sugar-free syrup.

This time, I got very itchy on my face, neck, shoulder and chest.

So what the hell? I get similar reaction yesterday eating buckwheat as when I ate whole wheat…yet it’s not a wheat?

So I looked it up and found out that I may actually be allergic to gluten, not just wheat in general.

Feck.

That just ruins my whole day. That and george returned again after being absent all night and all morning for the second day in a row. He did this to me yesterday, then returned in the afternoon with a vengeance. I ended up taking a Tylenol 3 yesterday. I’m thinking of popping another one today.

Anyway, all gluten is out, if I can manage to pull it off. Eggs are back out of the diet again, too. I’ll try one thing at a time again in ten days on the advice of my ma, whom I spoke with today by phone. She said to never re-introduce more than one thing a day back into the diet, and to give it ten days before re-introducing the next food item. Okay.

In the meantime, I’m tired as hell. Going to lay down, now.

Well, I am a bad monkey.

I went to a party Saturday night, and I drank alcohol. I drank so much in fact, that I was VERY hungover the next day. I drank because I didn’t know anyone. By the end of the night, as the birthday boy of that party had promised, I *did* make friends with a few people, so that was good. But still, the social anxiety still leads me to drink and I’ve proven once again that I can’t control said drinking.

I didn’t make a fool of myself or anything like that – but the hangover was pretty bad.

I’m convinced too that the major cramps and ass pain that I had yesterday (while hungover!!) is a direct result of the alcohol exacerbating the endometriosis.

So, I’ve fired myself from drinking once again. No booze til the end of this diet in October, that’s final.

I woke up this morning and my stomach felt smaller, so I couldn’t wait for Monday. Instead, I weighed myself today.

I’M DOWN TO 166 lbs!!!! (75kg, right?)

I’ve lost 15 pounds since April 24th!

Wooooohooooooo!!!

All because I’m not consuming sugar, yeast and wheat anymore.
And honestly, for the past couple of weeks, I’ve not been eating corn products or eggs either – mainly cuz I ran out of those groceries in the house, anyway. ;)

I just realised too that I’d not spelled out any weight goals in this journal, although I did have a weight goal set. I started off at 181lbs (82kg) on April 24, 2006, and my goal was to reach 170lbs (77kg) within like, three months. I reached my goal in ONE MONTH, on May 22nd!

After that, I forgot to set a new goal, but obviously, I can declare that I’ve achieved it. ;)

Despite the fact that george is here as of today, and despite the fact that I’ve been feeling bloated for at least the last three days, I’ve actually lost more weight. I am so proud of me!

My newest goal now is to get down to 150 lbs (68kg). After that, I’ll re-evaluate and see if I can/should drop another ten to twenty.
In high school, I weighed 125 lbs (57kg). According to the U.S. government’s Body Mass Index, I’d be in the lower end of the ‘normal weight’ spectrum if I got back down to 125 pounds. However, I remember being told I looked too thin at that weight, based upon my bone structure. So I’ll stick to the 150lb goal and cautiously work down from there.

Getting back to george…
The bleeding started today and with it minor cramping. The most notable effect so far has been hypoglycemic attack. I woke up feeling a bit sugar crashed, and then ate a protein breakfast, and continued to crash. Even now, 1.5 hours later, I am still feeling wonky and so I’m chugging water and I’m about to eat some almond butter smeared on a rice cake.
This happened last month, too. Because it was my first menstrual cycle on the diet, I wasn’t sure if it was because my body was still in its usual routine or what. But now I know – I will sugar crash no matter what when george comes around, because he screws with my hormones, and I have a weak pancreas, so it’s bound to happen (I had pancreatitis at the age of 21, so my pancreas will forever be weakened and therefore my hormonal regulation will be whacked. The pancreatitis was a result of gallstones and being treated for a year on antibiotics because I was constantly sick).

So .. that sucks that I’ll still have hypoglycemic attacks every month, but at least I’m not having them damned near every day anymore!

And…. eeeeeeeee!!!! 166lbs!!! *bounce bounce*