I Will Not Suffer In Silence

George went away yesterday. I was still bleeding moderately up through Saturday, and he finally died down by a lot on Sunday and was nearly gone by yesterday.

Saturday was spent hanging with my friend who’d seen me through my surgery. She’d moved out of state several months ago and just moved back again, so we hung out for the first time since her return and had a lovely time.

Yay for that, but I’m depressed. The rest of this journal entry will be one big, long pity party.

Later Saturday evening, some friends begged me to come out and join them for a pseudo-bachelorette party – I noticed by Saturday that depression was starting to sink in, and with it the old agoraphobia and social anxiety again. But I ended up going out, anyway.
On Sunday, I went to a going-away barbecue near the beach of our island. It was cold and windy and sunny, so I shivered and sunburned. I was SUPER social-anxiety-girl that day, too for some reason. I know some of these people, and I joked that it was an impromptu East Bay gothnic – only selective – because it was for mutual friends moving out of state. But still, my face fried…again. Second time in a friggin month and it’s my own damned fault.

I’d started eating chocolate again over the weekend, too, and now my entire face and neck is broken out in zits along with the damned sunburn.

Sunday night we joined a friend for sushi dinner in his neck of the woods. Even though there were only three of us, my social anxiety was still peaking. I was glad to come back home at the end of the night, but upset that I’d not done any laundry over the weekend.

Yesterday I started working on my astrology site again while doing laundry, and became immediately overwhelmed again by all that still needs to be written. Tonight sealed my failure when I found a site called My Astrology Book, whereby this guy does pretty much what I’ve been trying to do for two years, only he’s much smarter and quicker than I am. I wish I’d never found this site. I found it while doing research on Sun gods. But now it’s too late. I found the site and I want to scrap all the work I’ve done. I’m fatalistic – it’s bred into me. I can’t stop the wallowing, now.

This spiraled me into “what am I going to do with my life come October?”

Then there’s the fact that I just got paid, yet with all the bills due (two credit cards now and rent, mostly), I have $150 to last me for the next 15 days, and this has to cover gas and groceries and laundry. Gas alone is $20 every three days.

Then there’s the fact that I’ve gained a lot of weight again. I’m up into the 160’s again. That’s 20lbs shy from where I started off in April 2006 and it’s because I’ve discovered gluten free carbs and ice cream again and have been pigging out accordingly.

This is all too much for me right now. I’m full on depressed. It’s time for bed in 13 minutes. My neck and shoulders have been locking up again regularly, so I’ve been popping muscle relaxers again, which also contributes to weight gain.

I want out of this. I want a miracle rescue. I want to be taken care of. My man invited me to dinner and a movie tonight. I went over my budget and told him I couldn’t do it. He was sad, hugged me, told me he was sorry, and went off to join his friend for said dinner and movie. I was left jealous and mad, hiding all of this from him of course. I wanted him to say he’d cover me no problem. I want to be taken care of. But he won’t do it. And why should he? But that’s where I’m at right now – weak, vulnerable, giving up, broken morale, left to fend for myself regardless. And there ain’t no one gonna take care of me but me, and I don’t wanna do it. I’m abandoning myself, abdicating responsibility. Why? Aren’t we the makers of our own reality?
Why must I be so overwhelmed? Why can’t I just say ‘oh neat!’ about this astrology site I’ve found, and keep working on mine? Why the jealousy? Why the defeatist attitude? Why the insecurity?

I don’t know. It’s my mom’s fault? I learned it from her? How do I unlearn it when I can’t seem to get past this moment of abject heartbreaking sorrow over my financial and career choices?
I’m not in control of my diet, my finances, my career choices, so I hired a health counselor whom I’ve been paying $150 a month with no noticeable change or benefit yet to be seen. As a matter of fact, since seeing her, I’ve REBELLED quite a bit, especially on the dietary front. I can’t even PAY someone to fix my life.

I know it’s a full moon – this too shall pass, right?

I shall now take deep breaths and go to sleep, and remember that tomorrow is another day, and not only that, but another day closer to the weekend.

Hooray for journaling! I feel somewhat better, now.

I just had what can only be described as a hot flash.

It started when I got out of a nice hot shower, which is my daily staple. I laid down on the bed to cool off but noticed I wasn’t cooling off. I had to get to the store though because we’d run out of breakfast food, so I got some clothes on and, still too hot, I went outside to put my combat boots on.

Now, it’s only 66F (18C) outside, so it’s nice, breezy and mild. But I was still feeling hot.

I drove rather than walk to the store, got the food, got back home within half an hour. Just walking half a block to the house was all it took for the final scorcher to ignite within my body.

I got in the door, set my 2 grocery bags down, scrambled out of my boots and socks and into shorts. While doing this, my man looked at me, confused. But he didn’t help me. I brought the bags into the kitchen. I noted to him twice in a whiney voice, “I’m overheating”, but still, he went about the kitchen, not unpacking the bags.

I came back into the kitchen and started unpacking the bags, when he said, “Do you want help? I don’t want you to overheat…”

At which point I snapped at him, “I’m already overheated, I’ve told you twice already!!” and went into the living room and laid sprawled on the wood floor for several minutes, wondering if i would combust. I felt the heat radiating out of my arms. I wondered if I were leaving marks in the wood floor, I was so hot.

I’m now sitting at my desk next to an open window, finally cooling off after fifteen minutes.

WTF was that all about. Early menopause setting in?

George is still here, so it’s likely just a george issue. But still, that was the most intense I’ve had.

…just talked to my man. He says I’m always SO intent on fighting my own battles that I’ve gotten pissed at him in the past when he’s tried to help, so now he just waits for me to literally say, “I need help” before he jumps in. So … that’s what I’ll have to remember for the future.

Went to work today. George acted up two hours after I got in, at 10am. I stood up from my desk to go use the bathroom, and filled a pad, just like that. It was dry, I swear, then completely filled, just by standing up. This is what george does to me every month for the last 21 years.

Last month, or was it two months ago already? I had my entire period in one day. I felt like I was in a horror flick, there was so much blood.

Articles on ‘normal’ menstruation indicate women lose about two shot-glasses worth of blood each menstrual cycle. I lose about a glass. DON’T TEMPT ME, I MAY PROVE THIS NEXT TIME AROUND.

The clots this month are much bigger than I remember them to be. Does this mean the endo has returned with a vengeance? I have no idea.

I popped an ibuprofen600 and winced throughout the day, but I did it. I took my usual astounding number of calls and then when the management ordered everyone to stop doing emails between each call and ONLY do emails on a half hour break, I did 11 tech support emails in 29 minutes, causing my boss for some reason to declare that it is impossible.
The director of support came up to me at the end of the day and teased me about doing impossible things, which means he’s proud of me for breaking records yet again, and wished me a good weekend.
Also found out today that I have 3 PTO days left, not 2.5 days. Hopefully I can make this last til October 1st, when I get 4 more PTO days. I will do my best. It’s, to quote the godaweful U.S. attorney general’s career comments, “a sprint to the finish line”.

For dinner I ate horribly tonight. I had a blueberry scone, some dark minty chocolate, some popcorn, and topped it off with crème brulée and 2oz of a cognac called Navan.

Now it’s bedtime, and not because it has to be, but because my body tells me so.

Today I bled through a pad an hour all day. If that’s not TMI enough, I had to make the pads last because I ran myself out of fabric pads – I’m on the last one right now while the others are hanging up to dry.

Today I also went to the doctor to get an excuse note to present to the Human Resources (HR) department at work tomorrow so they can add it to their retarded file.

This month marks the first time in five months – since my surgery – that the clots came back like the bad old days. So everything is back to what it was before surgery. I’m not happy. I’d been hoping for some relief – even temporary relief. But no.
No break for me. It’s not like I’m an anomaly – this has happened to countless unfortunate women. But we’re told going in that the surgery is diagnostic and we’re told they HOPE it helps us by the lasering off that they do.

I’ve spent the last two days in bed with the laptop and heating pad, drugged to the gills, and let me tell you, it makes for a very long day to be stuck in bed. I had all this energy in my mind but my body was worn out – sore – aching – tired. I’d be in the middle of working on my endometriosis informational site and I’d fall over to nap for 45 minutes.

My man got home from work and the evening FLEW by. Of course. Of course! No time – just dinner and zo0m he’s off to the gym and I have to go to bed.

It’s 10:30pm now and still no sign of george letting up, although the pain has dissipated. Tomorrow is going to suck because I HAVE to go in to work. Taking a third day off is not an option. I feel like this is the worst period I’ve had since surgery. How short my memory is – I’d have to go back through my own journal to find out if this is true or not.

Yeah so that’s all I did today was work on my site. I want to purchase a domain and launch the site and market it and everything. It’s still not done. I don’t want this to be another unfinished project. I have to finish this, then start finishing my other projects.

But now, as usual, it’s time for bed.

For the last few months, I’ve been only missing one day of work rather than two when george is here. I normally need two days off because of the heavy bleeding and pain. But I’d become afraid of losing my job, so I’d panic and go in to work and be miserable in pain, and I’d be groggy all day.

But then the new assistant head honcho came in and gave everyone five additional PTO days and wiped out slate as to how many warnings we’d already accrued.
So this month, on top of having a new lease as it were, I’m also sick to death of being afraid of these assholes, and of being afraid of losing my job.
I’m sick. I’m not feeling well. I’m bleeding like a stuck pig, and by that I mean I’m filling a pad in less than an hour at a time. I’m in pain. Screw you, I’m not getting on your goddamned call center phones and taking calls under pressure when I’m this ill. I’d done this for years on other jobs and I’d stopped doing it once I realised the other call center jobs were ok with me missing work only twice a month. But this job, this job has a problem with it. It’s not my fault they have a problem with it. This is their problem, and I’m not going to pander to their problems.

So my boss wrote back to me yesterday, thanking me for letting her know I’d be out sick. Then she wrote, “This will be considered your first occurance.”

When the new assistant head honcho gave us the new PTO policy, he’d mentioned that if one becomes ill and misses more than one day with the same illness, then THAT is counted as one occurrence, so long as you have a doctor’s note to back it up.
So that next Friday in the one-on-one meeting with my boss, I brought that up to her, and she said, “oh yes, unless you’re down to your last PTO days, then when you run out, you can still be terminated.”

So, WHAT’S THE POINT IN THE NEW POLICY THEN???

Eh, this means I have used up 2.5 PTO days already under the new policy. The half a day was because I went to a doctor appointment in the middle of the day last week. I have 2.5 PTO days left before I’m fired. I now have to figure out if I want to go ahead and use two more next month when I fall ill with george again, or use only one and go in sick again, then do the same thing in September. If I do that, then I can make the home stretch – I will be at this company for exactly one year before quitting or being fired.

We’ll see what happens!

Yesterday, I created a list of things I wanted to do on my day off, but complained that since I was in such pain, I wouldn’t be able to accomplish said list.
I fell in and out of deep sleep til 4pm because of the medication. Then I started to go through the stack of newspapers I’ve accumulated over the years for scrapbook purposes – made a tiny dent in that. I did also do some more research and development of the endometriosis reference site I created. I also did the dishes and cleaned the catbox. That wiped me out for the day, and I was in bed again by 10:30pm.

Because my lower back hurts so much to sit in a chair, I’m going to go back to bed again with the laptop, and probably work on the endo site some more today. Maybe also do some genealogy work.

I’ll see what’s possible.

What I hate most about being home sick with george is that I have SO much stuff I need to or want to accomplish on my day off, but I can’t get but one or two things done.

Today I want to clean the bathroom, do the dishes, launder the blankets, clean the catbox, develop the endometriosis reference site I’m working on, catch up on the genealogy assignment I gave myself, work on astrology charts for friends, dust the house, practice along with a yoga DVD my neighbor loaned me, go through the stack of newspapers I’ve accumulated over the years for scrapbook purposes, and put together more photo albums.

But I’ll most likely remain reclined here in bed, staring at the laptop monitor while repeatedly dozing off, between popping pain meds, staggering to the bathroom, and reheating the rice pad heating pad thingy all day.

And this is what sucks most about having a paid day or two off work each month.

George began to flow moderately by 4am. Got up at 5:47am for work, felt fine. Got into the shower, felt fine.

Got out of the shower and started to feel woozy.

Got my clothes on, went to the kitchen to make breakfast, and the cramps started.

Knowing full well the cramps would only get worse, I decided right then and there to stay home from work today.

And, I was right.
I sat there at my home desk doing the whole “maybe I should just continue to be stubborn and go in to work, anyway”… “no, don’t do it, you’ll regret it”…. “but am I caving to fear by staying home? I should just continue getting ready”… “Wait For It….” dialogue for a half an hour. Then I stood up and GUSH…. and then PAIN.

So yeah.. screw it. Not going in today.

Will be popping the first Tylenol3 as soon as food settles in my tummy.

George showed up on the way home from work, after I spent most of the day at a much warmer core body temperature than normal.
The pain started around 7:30pm after I got home. Dull at first, it began to ramp up, so I took a 600mg Ibuprofen.

During my visit to my health counselor tonight, my lower back began to cramp up as it tried to protect the pelvic region in pain, which led to my mid back cramping up.

She fed me some chamomile tea and so the pain never got any worse. We made some spinach/fennel/onions to eat. Man, I’ve had so much spinach in the past week, I’m surprised I haven’t turned green, yet.

I’m even more tired from the Ibuprofen, and of course, once again, it’s time for bed, so I’ll end my entry here…we’ll see what the pain level is like in the morning and whether I can make it in to work tomorrow.

I used to keep a spreadsheet of all my monthly endo symptoms so that one day I could lay out years’ worth of data in front of a new surgeon to convince said surgeon that I really wasn’t making this shit up.

Turns out when the second time around came, all I needed to do was give a verbal history and the surgeon took me at face value.

So…I’ve been journaling here and there when I remember, but I’d like to get back in the habit of really chronicling the endo’s cycle, because it changes with my diet, with my environmental stressors, with my attitude in life – and I need to keep a constant eye on what makes george behave.

7/18/07 – left side pinching ovarian cramps while at work. It came and went for about an hour. Then that evening, I was freezing even though the house was warm and my man needed the blankets off and a fan in the window because it had been hot that day.

7/19/07 – blood sugar crashes start. Still freezing.

7/21/07 – massive junk food cravings

7/22/07 – had cheetos for dinner….

7/23/07 – minor uterine pain, increasing and decreasing throughout the day, so much so that I needed an Ibuprofen 600mg pill. Frequent checking because I kept feeling like george had arrived. Sugar crashing still happening after full breakfast. Today I even had second breakfast because they served up eggs and bacon at work for some reason, and I also had a protein bar and I STILL crashed.
Crashed again after lunch but admittedly I drank half a Juice Squeeze drink (70% fruit juice and who knows what else, carbonated)

And …hate to end abruptly, but, I need to go to bed.

Yesterday I had pain on my left side in the region of my ovary. Sharp, stabbing intermittent pain. For the last few days I’ve also had some asshole pain – same thing – sharp stabbing. This is how george was before the surgery. I suspect the ass pain is due to all the ice cream I’ve been eating again, so I’m stopping that – I bought soy ice cream to satisfy the cravings instead.

Today I started getting the sugar crashing – despite having eaten a full breakfast – 2 scrambled eggs with spinach and cheese and a GF waffle and a glass of soy milk, I sugar crashed two hours later. Normally I’m good til my lunch break on a meal like that.

Today after work I started getting uterine pain to the point that when I got home, I checked to see if george had arrived.

And of course I’m feeling really run down and out of energy, and bloated. Normal PMS stuff as far as that goes.

I just want to make it through the weekend without george – there’s two parties to go to!