Today is the first bedridden day
I woke after six and a half hours of sleep with the need to use the bathroom. I wasn’t in much pain.
The moment my uterus and bladder emptied, the searing pain began. I really wish my uterus was able to let the menstrual blood out during the night, instead of holding it inside as well as my bladder holds urine. Because the uterus was distended with fluid, it pressed down on my bladder. Because a large endometriosis implant (left in at time of surgery three years ago, because the surgeon was too afraid to get to it) rests on the ultra thin tissue wall which lies between uterus and bladder, the endometriosis lesions press upon the bladder, setting off the bladder’s pain receptors. Once the uterus and bladder distend and then deflate …
33 minutes later…
The pain got to be a 9 on the scale, which meant I could no longer type. I had been eating food so that I could take medication, but the pain ramped up fast. I took one and a half Tylenol 3 pills and staggered to get my heating pads. By the time I got back to the couch with one warmed heating pad, my husband had awakened and was assisting me in warming a second heating pad. I was in too much pain to talk, to do breathing exercises properly, to do anything but sit there with knitted eyebrows and gaping mouth. And then I remembered how pretty I looked just one week ago when we went out dancing, and I know how old and haggard I look right now from the pain. I began crying at that point.
I realised too that I’d let a lapse of medication occur overnight again. That’s why I’m in so much pain this morning. I woke around 7am or 8am to use the bathroom, and wasn’t in much pain, so my rationale at the time was to not damage my liver and kidneys further – give them a rest – and just go back to bed.
Had I taken the goddamned cocktail of Tylenol 3 and Ibuprofen like I was supposed to, I’d not be in severe pain. There’s nothing to discuss – my kidneys and liver will continue to be damaged – there’s no way to stop that. It is mandatory that I be in a drugged stupor from start to finish of each menstrual cycle, else suffer the pain consequences equivalent to going through labor and giving birth dry, with no meds or assistance.
The pain is about a 7.5 on the scale, now. And I’m drugged silly. Going to add some Ibuprofen to the 1.5 Tylenol 3 I just took, since ibu is anti-inflammatory.
To give you a visual of what pain does to a person:
 This was me on March 15, 2010 |  This is me today, March 21, 2010 |
And today is the second day of Spring. The weather is 58°F with hazy sunshine. I won’t be seeing a drop of it.