I Will Not Suffer In Silence

Many people think of it as a major accomplishment to get through an hour on the treadmill or heft a new barbell at the gym.

I’m ready to cry with excitement because I’m so proud to have finally made it through an entire video of [Iyengar] Yoga For Beginners with Patricia Walden without having to stop the video and walk away, or stop and rest before continuing.
Also? The Warrior Pose kicks my ass. But I held it. I did it. I’m proud of myself.

Here is the first part of her video. If you can overcome her scaryclown-like face, then you’ll be alright. ;)

Oh and I went to my first ever yoga class on Tuesday, August 25 for an hour and a half. I made it through that and was also very proud of myself.

WARNING: THIS ENTRY MAY TRIGGER SOME PEOPLE, PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION

I’ve had a combination of not enough time in the day to finish writing about my doctor experience last week, and ongoing emotional trauma over the whole visit. That’s why it has taken so long to continue all that I want to say. I still may not say all I want to say by the end of this post, but I will give it a try…

One of the things the gynecological oncologist told me about my pelvic exam is that I have what’s known as an everted cervix. She said this is nothing to worry about, she sees it all the time. But when I got home and looked it up, the Internet scared me because I kept reading that an everted cervix could be a precursor to cervical cancer. I read that maternal usage of DES could lead one to be born with an everted cervix, other reproductive abnormalities, and autoimmune disease. I read that an everted cervix is considered a lesion and that the best treatment for this is to cauterise the cervix!

WTF!!!

I am so sick of doctors torturing my private parts! I had a flashback to the gynecological surgeon back in 2001 who emphatically told me I did not have endometriosis, so she wouldn’t give me surgery, but she insisted on a cervical biopsy without any anesthetic or pain meds. I went home nauseated and shaking from the pain and trauma of that visit and have hated her ever since. I filed a formal complaint against her in 2007 after her colleague operated on me and found stage III endometriosis with my left ovary stuck to the back of my uterus and my right ovary stuck to my pelvic sidewall, and more endo found between the bladder and the pelvic sidewall.
An inquiry followed, with the panel finding the previous gyn not at fault – no wrongdoing – no censure, nothing.

GAH, I hate people.

ANYWAY, after the Internet made me panic about having an everted cervix, I called up my two most recent gynecologists and requested they tell me if they’d noticed whether I have an everted cervix. The one who mattered most called back. I say she mattered most because she saw my cervix before surgery in 2007. The eversion was present even before surgery. How far back does this go, I wonder?
Anyway, she left a message saying she has no idea what this new gyn is telling me, but I don’t have an everted cervix. I have what’s known as an ectropion cervix, and that too is nothing to be concerned about.

After listening to her message, I looked it up; ectropion cervix is the SAME THING as everted cervix.

These doctors, I tell ya I wanna strangle ’em.

I read up a bit more on ectropion/everted cervix and found that it’s considered to be a non-malignant disorder:

“Nonmalignant disorders of the cervix (the narrow opening at the mouth of the uterus) include cervicitis, cervical eversion, cervical polyps, and cervical dysplasia. Cervicitis is a broad term for an inflammation or infection of the cervix. Cervical eversion, also known as ectropion (often mistakenly termed cervical erosion), is the migration of cells from the lining of the endocervical canal (endocervix) to the outer portion of the cervix (ectocervix). The cells from the endocervical canal are more delicate than the cells of the ectocervix and thus more susceptible to infection. Actual erosion or abrasion of cervical tissue is quite rare but may occur following childbirth, certain medical procedures, sexual intercourse, or the use of an intrauterine birth control device (IUD).”

Further, the website states that “Cervicitis may be caused by vaginal infections, sexually transmitted diseases, and pelvic inflammatory disease. Tears or lacerations in the cervix occurring during childbirth or abortion may lead to cervicitis. The cause of cervical eversion is not known. The condition is normal in early puberty, and some women are born with it. Pregnancy and long-term use of oral contraceptives may increase risk.”
Well, I’ve had two abortions in my lifetime, one which had complications. I’d taken RU486 and nearly passed out from the pain. I thought I would die. I went through it without pain meds because I’d barfed up the vicodin I was given. Four days later, I nearly passed out again because the placenta decided to finally pass. Perhaps this abortion is what created the cervical eversion. I really wish I knew if I was born with it, but none of my previous gyns still have my records on hand.

The other thing that scared me during my visit to the gynecological oncologist last week was that she’d asked if I’d gotten the CA125 test, yet. I looked at her funny and said, “No, no one will give me the test because of my age and the fact that I have endometriosis creates a false positive for that test.”

The gyn/onc nodded and said that yes, the test does give false positives for women with inflammation and disease such as endometriosis, but she would like to run the test, anyway. She wrote me up a prescription to go to a lab and get my blood drawn. That was just one more thing to stress me out that day. My head swirled with, “why is she insisting I get the CA125? Did she see something during the exam? Will she use the results of the test to try to convince me further that I must get a hysterectomy?” I mean, seriously, “because CA 125 can be elevated in so many non-cancerous conditions, only about 3% of women with elevated CA 125 levels have ovarian cancer.”

I’m actually terrified to have a hysterectomy. I’ll be 38 next month and had no relief from my pain from my first endo surgery in 2007. Everyone has underlying issues other than the big issue placing them into the hands of the hysterectomy surgeon, and that’s why so much can get complicated for a hysto. I just don’t trust that this doctor can effectively remove all of the endo from my body before putting me on estrogen-only HRT for the next 30 or so years.

And there’s that too – HRT until I’m in my 70’s.

I’ve started to research estrogen-only therapy for women under age 45. I want to know – did any of those women get cancer quicker?

Sites such as this do NOT help me to want to have a hysterectomy.

Big sites like HERS Foundation and HysterSisters look fishy to me – they look like they’re supported by radicals and/or big pharmaceuticals with their own agendas, while saying they’re there to help women. I’m far too pessimistic to trust that they’re really there for altruistic purposes. I can’t find stats and medical journals to back up info on the HERS Foundation for example. I need non-manipulated data, please! And HysterSisters keeps plugging hormone treatments like Vivelle-Dot and surgical stuff like da Vinci surgical system for hysterectomies. I don’t want corporate sponsorship and advertising!

And then I found this article:

Researchers continue to weigh in on estrogen monotherapy arm of WHI study
December 14th, 2004

Yet another group of researchers, this time from Germany, has commented on the termination of the estrogen-only arm of the Women’s Health Initiative.

“The study arm of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) with estrogen monotherapy for hysterectomized women was terminated early after an average of 6.8 years – only 1 year before the planned ending – due to increased risk of adverse effects (HR 1.39, per 10,000 women 12 additional cases). However, according to the regulations of Good Clinical Practice, the early termination was not necessary, as the fixed termination criteria such as exceeding a defined ‘absolute excessive risk’ were not met,” stated A.O. Mueck…

From there, I found an article from OB/GYN Clinical Alert, which reads:

The updated breast cancer results in the canceled estrogen-only arm of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) are based on 237 cases of invasive breast cancer and 55 cases of cancer in situ, diagnosed by the February 29, 2004, date of study cancellation.
…The breast cancer results in the WHI do not allow us to answer the above questions with any confidence. Exposure to estrogen-progestin either has a greater risk of breast cancer, or pre-existing tumors respond differently to various hormone regimens, accounting for differences in epidemiologic reports.

…Many of the WHI conclusions are the result of statistical manipulations.

And you can see the progression in the study’s fumblings here.

Now, what is important about the Women’s Health Initiative articles is that all the conflicting data arises out of the 2004 study, but all the quotes the gynecological oncologist uses to make her case FOR hysterectomy without negative side effects are from the 2001 WHI report. She uses the following language in her patient handouts: “We know finally, from the WHI Study, that for women age 50-59 without a uterus, needing estrogen therapy for their symptoms, there is virtually no risk [bold hers] to taking estrogen alone for many years: no increase in breast cancer, heart attack, stroke or blood clot. For women over age 60 still needing estrogen for their symptoms, some unfavorable risks appear: the rate of stroke increases from 0.33% to 0.44%, an increase of .12%. Also, the risk of blood clots in the legs increased from 0.15% to 0.21%, an increase of .06%. The risk of heart attack decreases from 0.24% to 0.14%, and breast cancer risk decreases from 0.29% to 0.21%. All of these changes are teeny-weeny and frankly ignorable for the woman with significant symptoms who needs to feel like her normal self.”

Now…looking at the 2001 WHI report, they had to stop THAT trial, too, because of HRT danger to women! And I quote:

“A review of preliminary data found a 26 percent increase in breast cancer in women receiving the hormones compared with women receiving a placebo. In addition, instead of a heart benefit there was a 29 percent increase in heart attacks and a 22 percent increase in total cardiovascular disease among women receiving the hormones.
…”Dr. Jacques Rossouw, director of the NIH, noted, “the increased risk of breast cancer for each woman in the study who was taking the estrogen plus progestin therapy was actually very small.” It was less than one-tenth of 1 percent, he said, adding, “if you apply that increased risk to an entire population and over several years, the number of women affected increases dramatically and becomes an important public health concern.”

Talk about statistical manipulations!!!! The gynecologist I saw last week is clearly a lying, manipulative sack of shit.

And that’s where I’ll end Part II of my ranting over that one visit to a new doctor.

Today I went to the gynecological oncologist (GYN/ONC) that my regular GYN referred me to. The surgeon reviewed my history that I’d printed out for her and told me with confidence that endometriosis is curable if all the reproductive organs (ovaries, uterus, cervix) are taken out, the endometriosis is completely excised, and the patient is put on a bio-identical estrogen-only regimen until she’s in her 70’s.

I asked her about just excising the endometriosis that was left behind during my first surgery, as well as the new stuff that’s grown since. The surgeon said she is not interested in giving me repeat surgeries, and insisted she’d have to take everything.

I questioned the idea that endometriosis is curable but she was adamant, in the same way that another surgeon was adamant with me. While she didn’t go so far as to explain ‘clinical cure’, I’m sure that’s what she meant. A clinical cure is not the same as a cure in the mind of the average person. As I’ve said elsewhere in my blog, according to medterms.com, the word ‘cure’ means “To heal, to make well, to restore to good health. Cures are easy to claim and, all too often, difficult to confirm.” For many people, when we see or hear the word ‘cure’ in context with illness and disease, we immediately think that it means the illness has been wiped off the planet for good. Examples include Smallpox, Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Diptheria, among others. But the sad truth is that none of these illnesses are fully cured. They are not wiped off the planet. In developed countries, there has not been an incidence of these illnesses in a long time due to vaccinations. Therefore, experts say we have cured the population of those illnesses. The illness has not gone away, though; some of these illnesses still thrive in other parts of the world to this day.

There is no vaccination for endometriosis. If any amount of endometriosis is left in a woman at time of surgery, there WILL NOT BE A CURE. There will instead be continuing pain from the disease. Surgeons asserting that they can get all of the endometriosis out are providing false hope for women. Surgeons should say they are confident in their abilities as surgeons, but should ALWAYS, ALWAYS caution their patients that there is a chance that some endometriosis may be missed at time of surgery – it’s inevitable because of the nature of the surgery and the fact that endometriosis can not only be buried deep below tissues, it can also accidentally be relocated during the surgery, and/or folded into the surgical incision. Any surgeon who does not warn their patient of these potentials is a quack.

So I asked her, “what if somehow you missed a spot of endo, but took out my ovaries, my uterus and my cervix, and put me on estrogen-only Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)? Would the illness not begin to proliferate once again, because it is true that endometriosis feeds on estrogen, whether natural or synthetic?

The surgeon conceded, and said “well yes, there could be potential for continuing pain and further surgery, then.” She then launched into the numbers, telling me that she’s performed 1,330 surgeries, and of those, only 3.8% have had to come back for more surgeries and/or did not have their pain relieved (But that’s still about 29 women! Who are those 29 women whose lives are still affected by daily pain! I’d like to talk to them!) I replied to the surgeon that I’m always in the rare side effects category for treatments, prescriptions, over-the-counter meds, and apparently even surgery, since my first one didn’t do jack shit for me. So I asked her how she can be so confident that I won’t turn out to be in that nearly 4% of patients who don’t experience any relief?
She again exuded confidence that I would be totally cured, and urged me to call a list of women who suffered from bad PMS and pelvic pain, who’d had a hysterectomy and who live well as a result.

But those 29 women! Let’s say they go out on the Internet and tell their story about how hysterectomy did not help their pain issues. Let’s say further that each surgeon has roughly 29 women per 1,330 hysterectomies who slip through like this and do not experience pain relief. Let’s suppose that many endo surgeons out there all have these numbers; Dr. Redwine, Dr. Nezhat, Dr. Seckin, Dr. Cook, Dr. Albee, Dr. Sinervo, Dr. Lyons, Dr. Perloe, Dr. Reich, Dr. Kanayama. That’s 10 doctors, plus the one I just saw, plus the one who gave me surgery already, so that’s 12 total. Now times that by 29 hysterectomy patients each who fell through the cracks as the measly 3.8% collateral damage. That’s 348 women, all posting on the Internet about having a hysterectomy which did not cure them of endometriosis. According to a UCSF article, “Hysterectomy is the most common operation performed on U.S. women other than childbirth and affects more than 600,000 patients per year.” If we apply the 3.8% collateral damage rule to that number, we now see 22,800 women who have not had symptom relief.
Now let’s go around the world with that – how many hysterectomies have not helped women?

When I tried to question the surgeon, she replied with what she has written in a specially prepared statement that she prints out and gives to her patients:
“No matter what you have read or found on the internet, or heard from your friends — what follows are the facts for the vast, vast majority of women. All the women who had a hysterectomy and are so happy with tehir results do not make websites, wrie books or talk about their surgery, so the internet and books are not a reliable source for most outcomes. In medicine, we report patients’ opinions and their experiences by analyzing hundreds of questionnaires and publishing the results so that you know what the probable results of your surgery will be and are not misinformed or biased by the individual stories you have heard or read.”

WARNING: THIS SECTION MAY TRIGGER SOME PEOPLE, PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION

She then told me she’d proceed with a pelvic exam, so I got undressed and put the medical gown on. I told the doctor that I require non-latex gloves and pointed to which shelf I saw them on. I told her she must use the smallest speculum she has, because my vag is tight and tipped. I told her she must enter slowly and allow me time to angle my pelvis downward to allow for non painful entry. She complied with all of this beautifully, and there was no pain.

And then suddenly, she began a rectal exam. I scooted back a bit and exclaimed for her to stop, that I was in pain, that I didn’t know there’d be a rectal. She said she’d use more lube and went in again, telling me it was a necessary exam. I gasped for air, I clutched my fists to my chest, I cried out, I told her to stop, that I was in pain.
She didn’t comply.
The nausea set in. I got very hot. I was officially traumatised at this point, and she said in a cold demeanor, “I’m sorry, but that was necessary.”
I asked her why – she told me that my surgical report and my own description of my endometriosis symptoms indicates abdominal sacral endometriosis, and she said she’d be able to palpate possible endo via a rectal exam.
My teeth were chattering and I was nauseated. I told her I was in a lot of pain and I asked for some Tucks or Preparation H to ease the pain. She said she doesn’t have any of that on hand in her office.
WTF!!!

She sat down with a bunch of printed copies of what I can only describe as her personalised sales pitch FOR hysterectomy. She went over the details of a woman’s cycle and the hormones involved and how it’s bad news for women like me, and how a total hysterectomy can help, etc etc.

At the end of my visit, I asked her if she knew the following doctors: Cook? – “No”.

Redwine? “No”.

Nezhat? “Oh yes, love him! He’s the best in the field! He had special tools invented for him just to make his surgeries easier! I worked at Stanford the same time he did. He finished up his schooling just a few years before me. ” blah blah blah worship fangirl blah…

Well. I now have to rethink whether or not I want surgery from this woman. I have a whole big giant rant on Nezhat and his minions, but I’ve not organised all my thoughts on it yet. You’ll really need to sit down and read up on Nezhat yourself to get an understanding of how dangerous he is – and therefore any of his followers are.

I’m seriously still traumatised by my visit to this woman doctor today.

When I got home from work on Friday, an ant invasion awaited my attention. I had just wanted to take it easy but that was not to be. I spent the next four hours stooping, bending, vacuuming, spraying, ripping up the carpet and killing more ants who had come up through a crack in the foundation.
Ugh. That did me in. I was in a lot of pain in my low back, thighs, knees and calves all of Friday evening, lasting through to today – Sunday.

Today I need to get more laundry and dishes done and I’m not looking forward to it. :(

I really wish I had a helper.

My husband is not a good helper. He has band practice twice a week on Tuesday and Sunday, and sacred gaming with his buddies every Sunday night. He absolutely refuses to give these things up, even to make time for his stubborn dying father.
For example, his father’s wife called this morning to tell us they’d be stopping by to drop off baseball tickets and their house key for him, and to generally stop by to see him. She BOUGHT the baseball tickets for him and his father to spend a day together for his father’s birthday this coming week.
My husband responded by asking ME if I’d be around to collect these articles from his father because he’d be busy with band practice.
Mind you, he’s in a local band with no gigs on the horizon. But he HAS to be at band practice twice a week, no questions asked, or else he bristles.

Through the week, my husband works until 6pm, gets home by 8pm, then spends the rest of the evening working on several side projects for three different publishing companies who have contracted him.

I feel like I’m the only one dusting, vacuuming, doing dishes, washing the floors, cleaning the bathroom, kitchen, cat box and managing the continual ant invasions. In the three years we have lived here, this is the first time we’ve had such forceful ant invasions. The landlords have even sprayed around the outside of the building and have put ant gel bait inside for us. We have used cinnamon oil, Bugs-R-Done spray, and even the ultra toxic RAID in some cases, plus ant traps – all to no avail. It’s a bad year for ants.

My husband does dishes maybe twice a week. Granted, the dishes are more mine than his, cuz he eats out all the time, but it’s still overwhelming for me. He vacuums maybe twice or three times a month. He rarely remembers to change the filters on the hepa vacuum or the filter fan in the bedroom.

He has been saying for about a year now that he wants to get a dishwasher because he cannot stand doing dishes by hand all the time (and neither can I). But we have yet to see a dishwasher grace this household. He promised again this weekend, then hemmed and hawed and said that a used one he found sounded good but an hour drive each way was not worth it for him.
WTF!!! Everything is up to an hour drive each way in the Bay Area!!!

I keep telling him verbally and often that the housework is too much for me to do, that I need help, that I need a maid who we can hire off craigslist who WILL do dishes and laundry because I simply do not have enough spoons to do all this on my own.
I will have to spell it out for him that I NEED for HIM to hire us a maid, because I cannot afford it.

We’ll see how that goes.

On Wednesday, August 12, I went back to work. I was not ready but I went. I felt crappy on and off for much of the day, and was so happy to get back home and into bed at the end of my shift, which thankfully was only 7 hours long.

The pain had hit me around 10:30am, and I popped 600mg of ibuprofen. An hour later, on my lunch break, I took 200mg more of ibuprofen. I was super tired both from the pain and from the ibuprofen.
After my break, I had to return to the classroom and help put the children down for naptime. This entails sitting on a hard floor and rubbing two backs at a time.

Sitting on a hard floor for me has always been difficult because I have scoliosis and a tilted uterus. Sitting upright with correct posture, whether legs are folded or stretched out before me, produces moderate to sometimes severe low back pain after just a few minutes.

I whimpered several times while having to rub backs for naptime. On top of that, we had an especially unruly child who refused to nap and insisted on trying to wake up the other children. I was seriously unhappy with him.

So that was Wednesday. When I got home, I took Tylenol 3 and stayed in bed the rest of the day.

On Thursday, I felt much better and went to work.

I was teaching in the outdoor classroom around 10:15am when I felt a bit of thick warmth hit my underwear. I was wearing a panty liner so I thought nothing of it. Sometimes at the end of one’s cycle, there is a little bit of mucus-like substance. Nothing to worry about.
Once outdoor classroom time was over with, I sent the children in to wash their hands and I cleaned up and put things away. I then joined the rest of the class to help supervise the children during a lesson presented by the head teacher.
During presentation, I left the group to check on a boy who was sitting in the time out chair for disrupting the class. As I walked over to him, I was suddenly gripped with a knifing pain on my left side, which took me down. I literally doubled over and had to sit down and breathe.
I began drip sweating. My face went red and my body felt like it was overheating. The pain was of a stabbing nature, centered on the right side (ovarian area). I held my abdomen and tried to breathe. The pain moved into the pelvic/uterine region.
I got up and went to the bathroom, thinking I might vomit. I checked myself and found that the bleeding had returned. I assumed my body was trying to pass the last of the menstrual cycle, which by this time had likely clotted up inside of me, hence the severe pain, because it had to pass through my cervix first.
Ugh.

I took 600mg ibuprofen and went back to class. Two assistant teachers approached me separately and urged me to go home.
Once the teacher finished her presentation to the class, I asked if I could go home. She told me without a doubt, yes, it was totally okay to leave.

I went to the office and told the secretary what was going on with me. She told me that lunch duty would be short one person and they needed me to stay. I told her that this time frame was my normal lunch hour this week, that I would be on break anyway, and I just wanted to go home. She told me again that lunch duty was short staffed and they needed me to stay if I could.

I went back to my head teacher and told her I was not allowed to leave. She was incredulous. I told her that sitting on the hard floor rubbing backs would be too much on me with the pain I was in.
My co-worker, a fellow assistant teacher, asked if I’d like to work the lunch hour duty and go home after that. She said SHE could take my lunch break now and I would not have to rub backs, she would do it.

In my mind at the time, it made sense. I was too nauseated to eat or sit down, so giving up my break seemed logical.
I needed to either lay down or stand up. I should have said I would take my lunch break and lay on the couch in the break room, and then go back at 12:15pm when I normally return off break this week, and go to the playground instead of rubbing children’s backs for naptime. But no, I let this assistant direct me and push me to what she wanted. I know she is self-serving at every opportunity, but in my moment of severe pain, I could not think straight. I was a bit too frayed to lay down in a high traffic area anyway – I didn’t want to be looked at or commented on continuously by everyone else in the break room.

So I went outside instead of going in to lay down.
I told the teachers outside that I would be of very little help to them, but that I was told I could not leave. I stayed standing and tried not to bend over at all, because it hurt too much.
Within a few minutes of being outside though, I had to take half a Tylenol 3 to help quell the pain.

I was out there for lunch duty for an hour. I was supposed to be there for an hour and a half but after one hour, I could take no more. I simply told the other assistant teachers goodbye, went to the office, signed myself out and went home.

Once home, I took a full Tylenol 3 and spent the rest of the day in bed. As I lay there, I began to stew over how I had handled the situation at work, and how I’d let my co-worker passively-aggressively bully me like that. I got pretty mad about it, actually, so when I returned to work on Friday, I had a talk with my head teacher and with the secretary. I did not address the offending co-worker at all. My head teacher confirmed that yes, the fellow assistant can be pretty pushy, but the only thing to do is stand up to her. Of course, yes, I need to work on that.
The secretary said she had no idea I was in that level of pain, because when she said, “stay if you can” and I agreed to stay, she thought that was a logical conversation. Whereas I, in the brain-fogged debilitating state of pain I was in, took it as a guilt-induced directive to stay on. She said she had not meant it that way at all. We talked about how to better handle the situation next time. I told her when in that much pain, I’m a very poor advocate for myself, and I need to learn how to get better. She told me to just give her a rating on a scale of 1-10 next time of the pain I am in. I thought about it for a moment. On Thursday, my pain level had easily been a 8 or 8.5 out of 10. She said anything above a 5 and she’d have sent me home on the spot. So we agreed to use the pain scale next time.

Friday was much easier – there were fewer children and I was not in a lot of pain, though I was still fatigued. The fatigue has lasted through to today – Sunday. I’m waiting to feel strong again. Hopefully by tomorrow.

The emotional effects of the Levonorgestrel lasted through the end of July before I started evening out again.

Menses was due on Wednesday or Thursday but it didn’t arrive until Sunday, August 9, because of having taken the Levonorgestrel in July. The info on the medication box says that one’s next cycle could be early or late +/- 7 days. Mine was late by 3.5 days.

All of last week at work, I had hypoglycemic attacks. This happens every month right before my period, but usually 2-3 days before my period, not a full 7 days. Ugh.
I also had minor uterine cramping and low back pain on and off for a week before menses.

On Saturday, August 8, I had cramps bad enough that I took 600mg Ibuprofen. I didn’t want to take half a Tylenol 3 because I didn’t want to be loopy at a wedding I was to attend later that evening. The wedding was great, but I did continue to have cramps on and off all night.

On Sunday, August 9, I was feeling extremely tired. I had housework to get done but just couldn’t find the stamina to get off the couch. I had to babysit at 4pm that day, and at 2:57pm, guess what showed up? I downed 600mg Ibuprofen and rushed to the grocery store to get some freezer food, juice, cereal, and other stuff I thought I might want while bedridden. I rushed back home, scarfed down some food, and then went off to babysit.
I really wanted to cancel the babysitting gig, but it was an hour before the start of my shift when the pain hit, I had no idea how bad the pain would get, and it was this couple’s anniversary that they’d been looking forward to, since they rarely get out on a date night since their son was born 9 months ago. I barely know these people but really wanted them to enjoy their anniversary. So I went over.

Babysitting a 9-month-old means you don’t really get a break. I knew this going into it that I could be faced with calling the parents home early if my pain level got to be unbearable.
This particular baby does not get to sleep unless you vigorously bounce him while dancing around and singing to him. He hates to JUST be sat down and rocked to sleep (unless it’s momma, of course).

So there I was, in pelvic and low back pain, having to in effect do a cardio workout on and off for six hours. The baby himself was not that difficult as far as 9-month-olds go, and he got me to giggle several times with his emerging personality and sense of humour.
After I put him down to bed for the night, however, I finally popped half a Tylenol 3, sat down in front of the TV, and waited for his parents.

When I got home Sunday night, I knew that because of my long day combined with endometriosis pain that going in to work on Monday would not be likely. But I had not made any contingency plans for my absense – there was no accessible Internet access at the house I had been babysitting at, nor did I have my contact list for substitute teachers. By the time I got home, it was too late to begin calling subs. So I set my alarm, took another half Tylenol 3 and went to bed with my heating pad.

I woke twice before my alarm went off early Monday morning. The pain was too much to handle and would not allow for restful sleep. It was 6:45am when I began calling everyone on the list to see who might come in and substitute for me. I can’t even remember if I got anyone or not. I called the main office at the school and told them I would not be in and was trying to find a sub. Then I went back to bed. As usual, I didn’t hear back from the bulk of those whom I’d called, and the two who did get back to me said they could not work for me that day.

I spent all of Monday bedridden and cranky from the medication. I’m still on the Tylenol 3 / Ibuprofen cocktail until I see more specialists and surgeons again, who might be able to help me find something that won’t kill my liver, kidneys and GI tract. I’m to see a gynecological oncologist next Wednesday for surgery. The person they want to refer me to for medicinal treatment however is not covered by our insurance. So I’m still trying to figure that out.

It would also help perhaps if I could remember to stick to my Qigong exercises. Beyond that, I force myself out of bed throughout the day to slowly stretch out my torso and arch backwards to loosen the pelvic region. I do slow large hip circles as featured below:

And I do the reclining bound angle yoga pose:

Sometimes these help. I just sorta figured these exercises/postures out for myself. Sometimes it makes it feel like the pain is getting worse. Personally, I believe that the more often I work the muscles, the better it is towards preventing endometriosis adhesions from sealing into place. I really do not want my left ovary stuck to the back of my uterus again, or any organs stuck to my pelvic sidewall again if I can just keep everything moving instead of curling up fetal in a ball of pain and just sitting there.

Whatever works and whatever helps ease the mind as well as the body…

Last night by 7pm I had a feeling I would not be well enough to return to work on Tuesday, so I began a new round of calling teachers. I was able to find someone to work for me on Tuesday, but still I set my alarm and went to bed.
I got up when the alarm went off and instantly pain shot through my pelvic region and lower back. I took another Tylenol 3 and went back to bed. :(

I got up again to see my husband off to work, and I’ve been sitting in a Tylenol 3 haze ever since.

If I have to miss work again tomorrow, I will officially start fearing for my job security again.