I Will Not Suffer In Silence

I stayed home because of the pain and heavy bleeding today. I took a Tylenol 3 and within an hour had to go to sleep. I have no idea how I got through work yesterday because I was on Tylenol 3 then, too. Being at home I guess allows me to just go pass out with freedom.

I was on the couch at first but couldn’t get comfortable – I needed to stretch out my legs and couldn’t, and then my cat was meowing incessantly. So I got up and moved to the bedroom. It took awhile to settle – the Tylenol 3 made me VERY cranky and my anxiety was up again, too.

My first dream entailed me being at some diner somewhere, trying to order something as I sat at a small table near a partition. Suddenly, my left eye began to twitch and droop. Eventually my eye stuck itself shut and couldn’t open, and my vision was getting blurry in the other eye. I couldn’t order when the waitress came to me. I began to panic and went to the restroom. I may have been at Tillie’s diner across town….anyway, when I went to the restroom, I looked in the mirror and my eye was puffed out and stuck mostly shut. I tried to pry my eyelids open and could see my eyeball stuck in a downward position in all its viscous horror.
I then began to get tremors, not just in my eye but my whole head. It felt like a seizure coming on. I ran back into the diner and appealed to the horrified waitress. I asked her to look at me and tell me if I looked okay. The look on her face confirmed that I really wasn’t okay; I wasn’t imagining things. I began to shake, told her I might be having a seizure, and to please call 911.
As she did so, I was somehow able to get on chat or text my husband and ask him to call 911.

When the police officer arrived, I was no longer at the diner, but in a place considered to be my home (it didn’t look at all like my home in real life). I get the feeling I lived alone in this place. The police officer asked me “what seems to be the problem” and looked completely put out to have to have arrived to pick me up. I told him I needed an ambulance and needed to go to the hospital. The cop wasn’t buying my story and said I looked fine. I ran to the mirror and checked my eyes and face. Although the swelling went down a bit, I was still in bad shape. I went back to the police officer and explained to him that I was having seizures and eye twitches and my eye is still sealed shut and I can’t drive in this condition, I need an ambulance NOW!
The officer tried to tell me that maybe if I just wait it out, I’d be fine. The dream ended with me trying to convince him to allow me to go to the hospital.

I can’t remember if that dream flowed into the next or if I’d awakened for a few seconds and drifted back to sleep again.

My second dream had me encountering a kid as I walked back to my house from somewhere. I think I was in Michigan near my first childhood home. The kid was between the age of 10-12, short for his age, curly short black hair but not frizzy or too tightly curly, and darker skinned than me but not ebony. I can’t remember how we first encountered each other on this walk, but he began to follow me and beg. I think he was a homeless kid that everyone in the neighborhood knew. There’d been some teenagers hanging with him who followed us for a few seconds but seeing that I was interacting positively with the kid, let us go on alone. I remember saying something to him about when I was little, then added that he is not little anymore, not like the kids I teach at school.
But the kid got annoying and acted out. I had to pick him up and carry him as though I were carrying a preschooler in my class to the observation chair for having acted out and refusing to go of his own accord to said chair.

Once back at my house, which was very much like my first childhood home, the kid began going through my stuff. There was something that he made fly through the house, a heavy paper object or toy of some sort. We played with that for a few minutes. The house was starkly empty and there was an echo when we talked.
After a few minutes, the kid began trying to steal stuff. I chased him through my house and swatted his hands away from stuff and emptied his pockets and scolded him and told him I’d given him things already, he didn’t have to take MY stuff. This just made him act out even more, in a mad grab session, running through my house.

As I chased him, the house began to get creepy. It began to shake like an earthquake. We ran outside and there was no earthquake. The kid still had stuff belonging to me so I resumed trying to pry stuff from his hands. He wasn’t laughing – he was serious about taking it, and we struggled with each other. I began hitting him. At this point, two young teen boys (probably about 13 years old) came by to check on the younger boy and saw us struggling. They joined in, picking through comic books and games and other stuff that my husband had on some bookshelves just outside of the house, against the exterior wall of the house in the driveway and on the porch. I tried grabbing stuff back from them, too, telling them it belongs to us, it belongs to my husband, it belongs to me, etc…
The younger boy had run off – we’d come to the house from the left side of the street facing the house, and he’d taken off across the lawn to the right side of the house and ran up the street. I tried to chase after him but that’s when I noticed the two older boys, who were now ripping pages out of my husband’s comic books and graphic novels. When I tried to stop them, they explained that the pages are supposed to be ripped out and placed on a laminated mat of some sort. I told them ‘but that’s for my husband to do when he wants to because it’s his!’ but the boys continued.
Enraged, I began hitting them, too. Striking them, bashing them, anything I could do to make them stop taking our STUFF.

That’s when my haunted house began acting up again – things rattling inside, crashing about. I want to say we all went inside and experienced the rumbling shaking of the house, the swinging flickering lights and all that, but it’s fuzzy now upon recollection. Either we all went in or I went in and came back out again. There had been a 12 or 13 year old girl at this point who was also with the boys, also rifling through my STUFF, and I struggled with her, too, attacking her. She got all upset and I told her to go tell her mommy, then. She gave an evil grin and I shrugged and told her I looked forward to the exchange.

I needed to go back into the house and by this time, it was getting dark outside and the lights that were on in the house made a yellow glow. The rooms were dark. I went through the empty house, wondering where all my STUFF had gone. The house smelled like a basement. In fact, perhaps I was in the basement (The house in the dream looked nothing like my real childhood home on the inside). I was in a large room and diagonally to my left there was a doorway leading to the next room. At the far end of that room was a small bathroom, and the light was on, and water was running. I walked towards it.
Something either told me to run BECAUSE it was going to get very scary and possibly a murderer lurked in that back room – one of the kids- or something popped out at me. Either way, I booked it outta there, and began screaming because I knew something was closing in behind me, and fast.

That’s when I woke up, and my eyes felt puffy…

I got out of bed and checked myself in the mirror. Thankfully, I did not look like my first dream…

Have I mentioned how much I hate Tylenol 3’s side effects? The nightmares are caused by me likely not getting enough air, because the codeine has suppressed my respiration.

But of all the meds I’ve tried, I have the least amount of trouble with Tylenol 3.

Regarding the dreams… they do hold meaning, drug induced or not. I’ve been having a problem with my left eye spasming for about two months, now. The spams are minor but I need to talk to a doctor about it, because magnesium and potassium, which I was once told would help with that, has not. I have a doctor appointment this Saturday.

The cop not taking me seriously in the dream is directly attributable to the secretary at my GYN office who I spoke with this morning. I was explaining that I’d like to speak to or see my GYN because I’ve had abnormal periods since February, and also having endo, I’d like to just get checked out to make sure nothing bad is going on. She totally brushed me off and said cycles change as one gets older and it’s nothing to worry about. She didn’t believe I had endo and asked me accusingly, “Are you DIAGNOSED with endo??”
Uh, yeah lady, stage III, and it’s been two years since surgery, and the shit grows back, so piss off already. I wanted to say that, but instead I shot back, “Yes, Stage III, diagnosed in 2007.”
She put me on hold, came back and said, “so you’re having pain?”
I retorted, “LOOK, I *always* have pain, it’s what happens with endo. This has nothing to do with the pain. It’s the cycle switching up on me when for many years it NEVER DID THAT.”

She said she’d leave a message for the GYN to call me back. Bitch.

So yeah, the cop not taking me seriously in the dream? Same bitch.

I don’t know about the stuff being stolen or about the kids in the second dream. I never hit children, though older children like the ones in my dream, I have to say it is difficult to work with them. That’s why I only choose to work with the wee ones.

Being chased by the kids or the haunted house towards the end of the dream may refer back to my recent job harassment, or may stem from a jealousy issue I’ve been wrestling with.

DreamMoods says, “To dream that you have been robbed, denotes that you are experiencing an identity crisis or you are suffering some sort of loss in your life. Alternatively, you may feel that someone has stolen your success or has taken credit for something you did.”
Again, tied to the job harrassment because I left one career field after harassment, went back to my old career, and have been getting harassed there, and now I don’t know what to do with my life, what career options I have, how I’ll make it financially, etc.

DreamMoods also says, “To dream that you a seizure, suggests that you need to have more control in your life.”
Yeah well lots of dream topics end up translating to that.

DreamMoods says, “To dream that you are being haunted, indicates early unpleasant traumas and repressed feelings or memories. You are experiencing some fear or guilt about your past activities and thoughts.”

*sigh*

And now the cramps are back again.

George finally showed up last night, but the pain wasn’t so bad.

However, I woke in pain just before 3:30am and had to pace the house for a bit, it hurt so bad. I took a whole Tylenol 3 (as opposed to half, which I often try first) and drank as much water as I could. I microwaved the rice heating pad and went back to bed, where I spent the next half hour whimpering and readjusting my position in bed, until the drugs kicked in and sent me back to sleep.

I was of course groggy when I woke for work at 6:30am. The pain set in again before 7am but I tried to ignore it. I ate my breakfast and prepared something quick for the potluck at school today. I had all evening after work yesterday to get something for the potluck, but I didn’t do it because I was too grumpy and sore to go back out again, and couldn’t decide what to do for the potluck. That’s a major symptom of george – indecisiveness. Whether it’s PMS or endometriosis-related, I don’t know, and don’t care. But I do know that I lack completely the ability to make even the smallest decisions just before and during my period.
So anyway, this morning I ignored the pain and prepared something for the potluck, and set off to work. The pain slammed me on the way in to work. I drove – I did not bicycle to work yesterday or today because of the premenstrual pain I’ve been in.

I brought to work with me two pieces of paper – one from my surgeon and one from my current gynecologist, both saying that I have an incurable stage III illness which leaves me bedridden each month. I requested to speak with the director as soon as I got to work, and told her that until now, I’ve not had to miss work on account of my condition, but as of now, my body is not holding up well, and so it’s time that she knew about it.

The director was pissed. She said, “THIS is why we have the health screen.”

Now, the health screen issue… I started this job only two months ago, in April. I got the health screen and it said I had to have a physical. So I called to get a physical. There were no physical appointments until JUNE. So I took the earliest possible and let the director know.
The director got all in my shit about it and told me that IT’S JUST A HEALTH SCREEN, YOU DON’T NEED A PHYSICAL. She further lectured me about how doctors offices will force you to get a physical because they don’t make any money on just signing a piece of paper certifying me as healthy.
I went back to the doctor’s office and told them I don’t need a physical, just sign the paper to say I can work. They fought it for weeks. Back and forth I went with the doctor and the director, while keeping my appointment for the phsyical.
Then I went out of country on my honeymoon, so I was gone for most of May.
I returned to work and started the fight up again. The doctor’s office finally relented and said they’d sign the health screen only if I include my job description. So I took the paper BACK to the director AGAIN and told her they have to know what job I’m performing to certify me as healthy enough to do it.
So I just got the friggin paperwork yesterday from the director and as she was looking over it she read aloud the part where it says I MUST have a physical if it’s been over a year since my last one. She stopped herself short and her eyes popped out of her head, because she realised what she’s been saying to me the entire time. I just stood there and waited for her to pick up her jaw, then when she said, “OH. OKAY…”, I told her I’m pretty sure I still have my appointment, and will check with the doctor’s office.

This woman is always loud, brash, accusatory, demanding, condescending and lecturing in nature. Always. It bugs the shit outta me.

So today when I went in with my gynecologist notes, I knew there’d be trouble.
When she told me “THIS is why we have the health screen”, it meant point blank, “Had you gotten the paperwork filled out BEFORE we hired you, we could have found out that you have endometriosis and not hired you.”

But there’s no way to do the paperwork BEFORE hiring me, because they needed me to start ASAP and hired me on the spot. I didn’t even have a proper orientation because they needed me on the floor that badly, and I agreed to it.

Implying as she did that she would not have hired me had she known about my condition is against the law, which means I have to contact the labor board again to cover my ass.

I always knew since the first time it happened that I’d have to go back to the labor board again.

After our little chat this morning, I typed up a letter to the director, which referenced the doctor’s notes I gave her, and which also made mention to the FACT that for the two months that I have been working there, I have not missed one day of work due to endometriosis so far. I then mapped out the next four months and the dates that I could possibly miss work due to endometriosis pain. I dated and signed the document, made two copies, and slipped one into her mailbox. She thanked me at the end of the day for having done that.

AT THE END OF THE DAY. Because I stayed at work for the whole day. She even commented as I was leaving, “you’re still here! You did it!” But the fact is, there were no children at school today – it’s teacher week only this week. I took a Tylenol 3 and twice today took 600mg Ibuprofen to get through the work day. I fought to stay awake and fought through the pain all damned day. Every half hour was “I should leave. I really shouldn’t be here.” But I pushed on.
Had children been present, I would have gone home, because I could not have supervised in the state I was in.

Tomorrow I may stay home from work. I won’t know til tomorrow right before I’m supposed to leave for work if I’m going to be able to make it in or not.
And thus begins the “I wonder if I’m fired yet” monthly anxiety and PTSD that has plagued me at two other jobs in the past two years.

I am so tired and weak. I went to bed after 2am and got up at 8:30am. That’s not bad – I usually sleep about 6.5 – 7 hours per night through the week anyway. I’ve been feeling very sore all day – my hips, thighs, knees and ankles hurt. But I did not walk intensely or exercise a lot yesterday. Maybe I’m so sore *because* I’ve not been running around all day since Friday at work?

More likely it is george. He always makes me feel like I’ve been run over by a mack truck. Then again, I’ve not been eating so well, lately. That will do it, too. I’m still waiting for george to show up. My personal computer calendar says he’s due today. The laptop calendar says he was due yesterday. Who knows anymore. My cycle has been off since February.

I have done nothing physically active all day today. Sunday is usually my day to get all the housework and laundry done before the work week begins again. Today there was so much going on and I totally cleared my schedule.

• There was afternoon tea in the backyard, courtesy the neighbor upstairs.
• There was a sheet rock party at a friend’s house – a work party to help him get his new house in order so he and his wife and infant can move in.
• Another neighbor in the back of the house needed help getting her digital converter box all set up because as of last Thursday, broadcast television as we’ve always known it in the U.S. ceased to be. I called the FCC and we got a guy to come out and wire everything up for my neighbor, because I didn’t know how. I have not had regular TV or cable TV for probably six years now, by choice. We just have DVD and VHS hookup when we want it. We did not purchase the digital converter for our home.
• A neighbor two doors down wanted me to babysit her toddler.
• A neighbor almost three blocks down wanted me to babysit her toddler.

I cleared all of it off the schedule because of george. I even asked my husband to go to the grocery for me because I couldn’t even manage that.

Regarding my diet, I’ve not eaten well for over a month. I spent 18 days in the UK and my fingers were cracked open and bleeding from all the gluten and yeast that kept creeping into my diet. Some of it was accidental, some of it was on purpose. I drank whisky because it’s friggin Scotland for chrissakes. You cannot deny me that experience! I had bandaids on no less than four fingers and my fingers were constantly in pain. I put lotion on several times a day to no avail because well, it’s a dermatitis allergic reaction after all.
I also found out that “glucose syrup” is corn syrup and wheat, because the UK has to explain what it is on all their labeling. I had been eating fudge because the UK apparently is known for its fudge. And it seems all the damned fudge has the glucose syrup in it. I didn’t check the label until I was back home in the states. Stupid me!

I know this month’s cycle is going to be crazy, if not downright brutal, because of the way I’ve eaten and all the alcohol I’ve consumed socially over the past month.

So yeah, I’m starting to record what I eat again, and I’m going to have to do more diet elimination again soon to find out why I’m still getting allergic reactions now that I’m back home eating my ‘usual’ diet again.

The thing that pisses me off the most is that despite all the allergy tests I’ve had, despite all the research related to diet and endometriosis, despite my own findings for my body with regards to food sensitivities – none of it has been proven as a direct link to endometriosis pain. I get so sick of the anxiety I suffer over eating something and then wondering if I’ll have immediate pain while menstruating or if my next cycle will be affected by something I ate days or weeks ago that somehow may still be wreaking havoc on my system. None of it has been scientifically proven for my body. It’s all speculation. I need some solid scientific findings for MY body.

And y’know, with how off kilter my diet was, I actually LOST weight on our honeymoon, because of all the hiking we did. And since I’ve been back to work, I bicycle to and from work every day. While at work, I run around with children all day, literally. And I kneel and bend and stand. I’m constantly going. With all that exercise, plus all the constant walking and hiking and climbing we did in the UK for 18 days, you’d think building up muscles and toning myself would have a beneficial effect on my system.
But no.

Hell, I’d be happy to just know whether or not the endo is growing back again, and where, WITHOUT having to have surgery again. Because if someone can say yes, it’s grown back, then I don’t have to feel like I’m going insane or imagining things.

In the meantime, I can’t focus. I started this journal entry around 3pm and it’s taken all day just to get this far.

I rarely take Tylenol 3 to quiet an anxiety brain but tonight I did. I’ve taken Tylenol 3 about three times in the past week before bed because of severe joint and low back pain as related to endometriosis symptoms. Tonight it’s just doing double duty.

Back on January 1, 2009, I made a list of things I wanted to do this year. I’m checking in today to see how far I’ve come.

This year, I will:
Become more of an advocate for Endometriosis awareness and humane treatment for those of us who suffer from it.

Put my life’s worth (1985 – present day) of diary entries about my chronic Endometriosis-related pain all in one place (this website!) (Well, I have a complete upload from 2006 onwards, but at least it’s all in one place now. I’m still putting up entries from further back when I have time).

Travel to the U.K. for the first time.

Buy Obtain my first ever kitchen table (our neighbor gave it to us yesterday!)

• Finally stop consuming alcoholic beverages because I know it will kill me based upon the medical condition that I have, and it’s time I started loving my innards every minute of every day instead of cursing myself for an illness I was born with
• Learn and practice yoga
• Live my first year of many decades under the new title of WIFE to my superhero (it’s not been a full year yet ;)
• Re-read every book I have on Tibetan Buddhism, and seek out more, because that more than any other belief system still really speaks to me 14 years after I found it
• Begin pardoning people who have incurred my wrath in years past (I’m not talking about small tiffs here, I’m talking full on silent treatment for years or decades) (still working on that, making surreptitious overtones)
• Generally start to practice true forgiveness on a grand scale

Heh, I didn’t realise I was going in order til I checked back in on my list. Weird. Level of difficulty was pre-arranged, I guess. ;)