I Will Not Suffer In Silence

Friday afternoon, I was amazed and proud at how well the pain denial thing was working, until I realised it wasn’t just pain denial or “mind over matter”. I’d also taken medication to help me along. Regardless of that, the pain could have come through the meds, it could have been so much worse like it has been in months past.
So I hope it’s really my brain along with the medication effecting the lessened pain, rather than the pain just behaving itself for the most part.

I started the mindset that there must be real actual pain denial in effect. I did this for two reasons:

1. I just started a new job and I can’t afford to be off sick again. I’ve already missed one day and one hour from this job because I caught a virus from someone there. I’ve been going to work hacking up green and yellow goo, getting dizzy, and I’ve had a constant sore throat. I shouldn’t have been going in but it’s clear they’re giving me the wary eye if I miss any more work than I already have. I feel that missing more work on account of endometriosis pain could jeopardise my continued employment.
2. An acquaintance who means well keeps telling me to “think positive” thoughts – affirmations if you will – that the pain will simply not happen. Whenever I try to tell her how the pain works, she narrows her eyes and starts to tell me I’m not thinking positive. She’s not the first person in my life to tell me that. My folks still tell me that all the time, going back to when I was a kid in high school barfing from the pain. My Qigong practitioner, my homeopathy practitioner, my masseuse, various doctors over the years – they’ve all told me the same thing. “Think positive in an effort to overcome the pain”.

I’ve also had friends, neighbors, relatives, and coworkers over the years tell me to “think positive”.

These people all have the same thing in common – they all give me a look of disapproval when I reply that thinking positive is not enough to stop the pain.

It kinda reminds me of when I was in middle school, and I came home crying after having been picked on and beat on all day. This was almost a daily occurrence for me throughout my school years. I came home crying and my mother told me a bible story about turning the other cheek, and basically ignoring the abuse these people gave me, and eventually they’d give up.
Tearfully I exclaimed, “But ma! They follow me!”
I explained to her that I’d tried repeatedly to just ignore the taunting, but the kids would lay in wait and attack me, and it was relentless, it never stopped. They never tired of it.

Seriously, you need to understand this, people. Telling me to just “think positive” and/or ignore the pain is not enough to stop the pain, just like it was not enough for me to ignore the kids who hurt me.

You may be frustrated at this point, trying to refer back to the opening sentences of this journal post. This is the thing people are not willing to understand – that the pain lessens when it wants to lessen, and worsens when it wants to worsen, despite medication, despite dietary modification, despite prayer, despite thinking positive.

What I’ve started doing in recent months is that every time someone gives me unsolicited advice on how I should manage the endometriosis pain, I take their advice and closely monitor the effects, then record it on my Things I’ve tried to combat endo page. When something doesn’t work out, I have my notes to show you. Once I have my notes, I don’t want to hear your unsolicited advice repeated.

I consider pain denial and thinking positive to be closely related, because in my world view, people who “think positive” all the time are totally in denial of reality.

The last vivid memory I have of doing the pain denial tactic was back in November, 1989. I had just started a full time job, was going to school full time, was trying to make ends meet, and then my maternal grandpa died. I was stressed to the hilt and grief-stricken on top of it. I couldn’t take any time off to go help bury grandpa down in Kentucky. I made the choice to stay behind and continue to be responsible for my own future. Besides, I’d just seen him five months prior when we went down to Kentucky to visit, when grandpa was in the hospital.

The thing is, what if all that was happening to my body really was just being overtaxed, and so the pain just couldn’t come through because of too much other emotional trauma going on?
Or what if for those particular menstrual cycles, the pain just wasn’t that bad, just because? Because sometimes I do have much less painful periods. Rarely, but it’s happened.

What I’m saying is, what if there is no mind over matter going on? What if it’s all just playing out as it would play out on its own, without major life stress going on?

Then again, it’s been proven that a lot of stress and anxiety actually brings on the cramps. And there’s no better proof of that than my time working for that company that fired me for having endometriosis. The more they harrassed me, the sicker I got, until I was missing up to four days in one week each month from the pain. So with all the stress back in November, 1989, and then again this cycle, wouldn’t I be getting bad cramps instead of not getting cramps?

I just don’t know… I mean, to contemplate not being in control of my body at all, and the pain just being willy nilly – that scares me. If I could know that I positively did have a mind over matter effect on my body, and I mentally stopped the pain from making me bedridden – If I knew that to be a FACT, then I wouldn’t be so afraid of believing in mind over matter and perfecting this skill.

What prevents me from believing that “thinking positive” actually works and is not mere coincidence is that as a devout Christian at the tender age of 14, the first thing I tried when such horrific pain hit was to think positively about the situation. I prayed to God to take the pain from me, and I thought for sure I’d be absolved, as though a case of mistaken identity for punishment had happened. “It had to be a fluke, it had to just be a bad cycle. It couldn’t be like this all the time. I’ll be fine next time.”
My ma reinforced this behaviour and for months I worked at it. I begged God to stop the pain. I had renewed hope each month that the pain would not be so bad again. Not every month in the beginning was so bad, so one month I would feel like my prayers were answered, and the next month I’d be sobbing, wondering what happened, because I was suffering again. My ma began to tell me I was being tested for my strength of belief in God. She retold me the story about Abraham and his son Isaac. I carried on valiantly, trying to prove to God that I was a true believer.

All to no avail.

In the 23 years since I’ve been menstruating, I can probably count on one hand the amount of times out of those 276 months that I’ve been pain-free during my period.

Now here’s the thing…I DO think positively about my condition. I do it in form of thankfulness.

I am thankful that I have about 17-20 good days in every month before the pain hits, because many women with endometriosis have between zero and 16 good days in a month.

I am thankful that I am only bedridden between one and four days each month, because some women with endometriosis are bedridden for a week or more each month (my maternal grandma was).

I am thankful that I know almost exactly when the pain will hit me every month, because many women with endometriosis have pain all the time, or the pain comes on without warning at any time of the month, leaving them bedridden.

So if anyone thinks I’m just a pessimist, or that I don’t think positively enough, or that I lack faith, the only thing I really have to say to that is that I’m seriously insulted by their brainless comments. The people who tell me to “think positive” and who encourage pain denial are overlooking the very real fact that I have an autoimmune disease which behaves like a cancer, because endometriosis is characterised by rogue abnormal cell growth which sets off pain receptors in the places on which it grows. People overlook the fact that I was born with this illness – I did not bring it upon myself through poor diet, poor sexual relations, drinking alcohol or anything like that.

To tell a person with a congenital painful autoimmune disease to “think positive and maybe the pain won’t bother you anymore” tells me that you are selfish and just don’t like being around anyone who suffers, because you don’t know how to deal with it.

My advice is: Don’t put your mental problems on those of us who suffer from chronic pain and incurable illnesses. Keep your selfish proclamations to yourself, because they just stress us out further and only serve to make us feel guilty or otherwise at fault for our pain.

I don’t have the energy to spend listening to people who make me feel bad for being in pain. I don’t need that in my life.
People who keep that up will find that I don’t have time for them anymore, as I’ll be taking their advice and practicing aquaintance denial as my “thinking positive” tactic.

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.

It’s catch up time once again!

I lived through class last week, and this week I’ve been working full time as an assistant preschool teacher. When I get home in the late afternoon, I am exhausted, but I fill out my practicum journals, which are due at the end of the month, in order to receive my Early Childhood Montessori Education certification.

By day 2 of working, I got sunburned scalp and face. It was minor, but it didn’t help with the fatigue factor. By today, day 3, I fell ill and had to come home early. I was sitting in class monitoring the children as the teacher spoke, when I began to feel really hot in the hands. I mean burning up hot. My feet got really hot, and so did my head. But the rest of my extremities were cool to the touch. I then developed a pounding headache. I felt faint and nauseated. My heart began to race. This of course brought on mild panic, cuz I didn’t know what was happening to me, and if it was related to my as yet undetermined cervical issue (more on that in a moment).

I took my temp – it was 99F, which is what it’s been since the end of March. That’s been worrying me too, cuz my “normal” temp all my life has been around 97.6 – 97.9F.

I drank some water and went back to the playground to supervise children. I was just finishing breaking up a fight (4-year olds taking sand shovels from one another) when I stood up and immediately lost my balance and crashed into the playground equipment, injuring my left hip. Unfortunately, another assistant teacher saw this and pleaded with me to go home for the day. This is the same woman who a little while earlier asked me if I was doing alright. This time, I took her advice. I rested in the teacher’s lounge for nearly an hour, drinking water and putting ice on my wrists and temples, reflecting on her and another assistant’s words – they thought maybe I was dehydrated. I began to think maybe they were right.

When I felt well enough to get on my bicycle, I pedaled home. Today is day 2 of biking to work, go me for exercise! And well, it’s only a mile commute each way. ;)
The racing heart and woozy feeling returned on the ride home. When I got off my bike, I had to rest on the bike for a minute, with the bike propped up against the house, because I was dizzy and out of breath.

Once inside, I began drinking water again, and read up on dehydration.

Symptoms of dehydration usually begin with thirst and progress to more alarming manifestations as the need for water becomes more dire. The initial signs and symptoms of mild dehydration in adults appear when the body has lost about 2% of it’s total fluid. These mild dehydration symptoms are often (but not limited to):

• Thirst
• Loss of Appetite
• Dry Skin
• Skin Flushing
• Dark Colored Urine
• Dry Mouth
• Fatique or Weakness
• Chills
• Head Rushes

If the dehydration is allowed to continue unabated, when the total fluid loss reaches 5% the following effects of dehydration are normally experienced:

• Increased heart rate
• Increased respiration
• Decreased sweating
• Decreased urination
• Increased body temperature
• Extreme fatigue
• Muscle cramps
• Headaches
• Nausea
• Tingling of the limbs

When the body reaches 10% fluid loss emergency help is needed IMMEDIATELY! 10% fluid loss and above is often fatal! Symptoms of severe dehydration include:

• Muscle spasms
• Vomiting
• Racing pulse
• Shriveled skin
• Dim vision
• Painful urination
• Confusion
• Difficulty breathing
• Seizures
• Chest and Abdominal pain
• Unconciousness

I fell into category 2 with 5% of bodily fluid loss, hitting all but two symptoms (tingling and muscle cramps). Go me!

After arriving home and drinking 24oz of water over the next hour, my body recovered enough fluids so that I was in stage 1 of dehydration (severe chills). I’m still very cold. Well I guess this is my normal state…normally dehydrated perhaps!! Lordy.

I then looked up how much I should rehydrate myself – about 64oz per day appears to be the recommendation. So I only have about one more water bottle to get through (up to another 24oz) today, plus some pedialyte, and I should be back to baseline, hopefully.
From now on, I’ll drink two and a half sport bottles of water (60oz) per day at work.

Right now though, I’m totally wiped out. I will be in bed before 9:30pm tonight.

I wonder if having an autoimmune disease makes one more predisposed to dehydration in the same way it makes us more prone to any kind of sickness?

…ah christ. A quick Google search tells me that constant dehydration CAUSES autoimmune diseases, and that rehydrating cures diseases. Yet another broad group of people to fight, alongside the new agers who blame sick people for their illnesses.

Ugh.

The nanny job ended on March 6 and since that time I’ve been looking for a new job. I’ve applied to daycares, schools, and private families who are looking for a nanny.

I had two interviews with private families and both fell through because of my endometriosis being a deal-breaker (time off each month). I had a third person reject me by phone. This hurt me a lot, morale-wise. But I kept plugging along.

On Tuesday, March 31, I interviewed with a Montessori school. I was told to come back today, April 2nd for second round interviewing, and it was then that I nailed the job. But I almost lost it when I announced I’d be on honeymoon for most of May. They want me in there so badly that they made accommodation for me!

So… TODAY I GOT A JOB AS A TEACHER AGAIN!!!!

Because of this victory, george just couldn’t pass up a deal of his own. Call it a late April Fool’s joke if you will.

He showed up a day early – today – while I was at the school for second round interview and observation of students and teachers.

I did the grin and bear it routine. The pain never got too bad today, thankfully. But tomorrow I’m expected back to do observation again, and I’m expected to attend classes next week under the tutelage of the school owner herself, to officially earn my California Early Childhood Education (ECE) units.

I didn’t have to have this schooling when I got the daycare agency job last spring, because they accepted my university transcripts in lieu of.

This school however only approved one class from my transcripts. This is not unusual – every school and agency has their own idea of what coursework is acceptable – that’s why I had a hard time finding childcare work in California when I first moved here in 1997, and said screw it, and went to work in the dotcom industry, instead.

I’m excited that I got this job. I do want it. This will further my career and resume. It’s a golden opportunity, what with the ECE coursework being thrown in with the job offer.
But we’ll see if george behaves. We’ll see if I don’t lose this job the moment I’ve won it.

This of course made me very depressed.

After spending four hours in the school, when I had budgeted up to an hour originally, I went home starving and made lunch. I had to scarf down my food because I’d promised I’d take my father-in-law to the hospital to get his wound checked. He’d just had a fistula installed on Tuesday so that he can start kidney dialysis in a few months (he has diabetes and end stage renal failure as a result. His kidneys are only at 10% functionality right now).

Got FIL to the doctor in time but his wife, who was supposed to pick him up after his appointment, was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t answering her cell phone. I had to be at my own doctor (gyn) appointment in Berkeley, 21 miles away, at 4:30pm.
At 3:30pm, my FIL told me it was okay to go, so I left him at the hospital. I called his wife three more times. She never returned my calls. I called my husband to let him know this. He was pissed at his father’s wife as usual. I don’t blame him.

My husband ordered me to take the rest of the day off and just try to be still and relax so that the pain doesn’t ramp up.

No can do I told him – was on my way to my own doctor appt at that very minute (I’ll make an entirely new post about that, next).

I got to my appointment in time, despite rush hour and construction, because I sped like the devil. Still unable to reach the FIL’s wife, I called him instead. He said he was fine and that they were now on their way home. This means his wife made him wait nearly an hour past the time she said she’d be there!!! This is so typical of her. UGH.

My appointment was fine but nothing much new was able to be told to me regarding my illness (endo) or complications from it, because the test results from the primary care doctor visit on Saturday haven’t come in yet. More UGH.

Endured more shitty traffic on the way home, got home and met husband there. He was home early cuz his car had been in the shop, was all fixed, and so he came home early on the bus to get his car. Once again, he told me to relax and destress.

That’s when the power winked out and back on again, rebooting my computers.

This is the second time since last night that the power has done this. The power only goes out in the computer room, hallway and bedroom. It is not a tripped switch. We can’t figure it out. I called the landlady and left a message.
Because of the quick outage, the computers rebooted as I said, but the DSL router didn’t come back up. I power cycled it twice. I called tech support and left a message. I logged into my linux box and checked out the ip masquerading and network settings to make sure it was all fine.

I then decided that since I didn’t have Internet, I may as well take that time to offload the phone pix I took at the doctor’s office. While sending the files from my phone to my mail account, the phone spontaneously rebooted.

WTF.

And no, we are not in a Mercury Retrograde. I do still keep up on astrology stuff, even though I’m no longer maintaining my old website for that. Well…not maintaining for now. I hope to take up that torch again in the future.

After an hour, the DSL router automagically came back up and I was able to get my Internet fix before acute shock set in.

We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you?

…Just in time now that I’m settled in bed with the laptop all cozy…for the cramps to set in.

Today started out so good. Whisky Tango Foxtrot.