Happy New Year…
Sorry I’ve been away for so long.
Just so I don’t leave you hanging, I did not have a better day after my last journal entry. In fact, it was my worst pain day at work that week. I wore a heating pad all day and consumed 1,600mg Advil.
After that date, I didn’t record my pain for the rest of the week. I was likely too pissed off about the pain to bother recording it. Although I had noted on December 1 “Nausea, extreme fatigue, shakey legs, mild to moderate pain. dark brown flow, turning to red.”
I got my period again near the end of the year and was actually bedridden from the pain.
THIS PART IS IMPORTANT:
Since December, I have become sexually active again, and as a result have been dealing with drama in one case, and what my housemate calls ‘New Relationship Energy’ in another case. So maintaining my endo blog had not been priority. ;)
Although I blamed becoming sexually active again as the reason why I must have been bedridden. Why else would I have had such a great year previous to that, pain-wise, other than the fact that I’d had a noticeable lack of sex, specifically penetration sex?
Ok, interrupting the pain diary for a moment to tell you about relationship stuff!
In December and again in February, I had a fling with a friend. I ended it after February, though. In March, I began seeing a newish friend, and we’ve been together – not separated by more than five days at a stretch – since March 21st (Happy Spring!).
Right…back to the pain blog:
Looking back through the last 24 months of my blog, it reads like someone who grabs at straws each month, looking for a tiny amount of hope that things could be improving pain-wise, but in reality the pain actually has remained the same the entire time.
For all of 2013, though I was bedridden only once, the pain continually got to between 7 and 8 on the pain scale, which is still unacceptable. The surgeries have not been worth it in that regard. The only benefit of surgery was a short-lived lengthening in span between pain cycles. The Gabapentin is what helped me to not be bedridden for over a year, until I became sexually active again. The end of December and into January was very rough on me, pain-wise. Same thing for February.
During March, I pushed through the pain because there was so much already planned for that weekend. I got up to a level 7 pain on March 13, and said ‘screw it’ and didn’t record my pain levels for the rest of the week/weekend because of all that was going on.
In April, I got george TWICE. On top of that, I began dealing with severe low back pain. I wasn’t sure if it was related to endo, a cyst, or spinal deterioration. I went and got an X-Ray, and bone spurs were found on my lumbar spine (#1-3).
My latest cycle began April 29th. The pain was intermittently bad. I consumed over 1,200mg Advil a day for a week. On Friday, May 2, I was out with friends and had to pee every half hour it seemed. On the way back home that night, the pain ramped up and was so intense on the left side that I cried a little. It hurt to be in sitting position. I just wanted to be in bed with a heating pad. Again I wondered if I had an ovarian cyst, or if the endo was sticking my left ovary to the back of my uterus again. But I didn’t want to dwell on that, because it’s too depressing.
Oh! Also…starting in January, 2014, my cycle changed from 28 days back to 25 days. It took a few frustrating months for me to notice, but after continual let-downs when my period showed up 5 or more days ‘early’, I went back and re-counted my cycle days again. Sure enough, it’s back to 25 days after a short stint on a 28 day cycle.
So now you are basically up-to-date.