zeptember

The pain is unbearable at 1:44pm. I’m already considering calling an ambulance.

The bleeding started gushing around 1:20pm. The pain followed immediately. This is the third menstrual cycle I’ve had which started off very slowly and with dark brown blood. I started late Thursday afternoon, with only the tiniest spotting of dark brown. The pain level was the same as it’s been all month, and centered mostly in the lower back and sides as it has been.
Today is the first day with real, hard core pain, and the blood is getting redder now, less brown “dirty” blood.

I told my husband yesterday that it’s bad when I have the brown blood, because it means it’s clotting back behind my cervix, and eventually will have to come out, and that’s what causes the cramps, because my cervix has to dilate to push the clots through.

I took one Tylenol 3 - I’m about to take another one after only half an hour. I’m in unbelievable pain. I am afraid. I am home alone. My husband went off to band practice.

If I make the decision to go to the hospital, I will call my husband first, and call a local friend second to see if they can take me. Failing that, I call the ambulance.

Regarding my gynecologist, she finally called me back Wednesday afternoon, and was apologetic - she hadn’t typed up the notes from our visit on November 7th because the tiny room we were in had no computer hookup. She said she’d forgotten what all had taken place. We discussed it together, and she remembered as we talked. She said she was putting it all in the computer then, and would give me my referral. She gave me the number to call, but warned I’d not likely get through anytime soon because of the long holiday (Thanksgiving) weekend. She was right.
We discussed what to do should I end up in unmanageable pain again. She said the E.R. is the best place to go because they’ll run blood tests while I’m in the thick of pain, and can do ultrasound or whatever needs to happen right then and there, and give me more powerful meds. I told her I would go next time.

Well here we are I think at ‘next time’.

I’m getting nauseous from the pain. Giving it a few minutes as now the first Tylenol 3 is kicking in as far as being stoned goes. Perhaps I won’t need another. I’m regulating my breathing and talking myself down from panic mode. Journaling helps immensely.

This morning I performed Chi Nei Tsang on myself, because I was tired of having the brown blood. I wanted the flow to start already. I was mad at the cyst and at my body for being broken. I knew that because there was no pain and blood flow right from Thursday evening, it meant that I’d have to miss work again for up to 3 days. This in turn stresses me out because I fear being fired again.

As soon as the pain set in, I emailed my employer and told her what was going on. I’d sent a status update last night, too, so she knows there had been no pain and that late pain arrival was inevitable.

This morning I ate two bowls of gluten-free cereal with almond milk, had a piece of pumpkin pie (minus the crust) with homemade whipped cream (full dairy), and later on, I had some gluten-free white cheddar popcorn (corn/rice puffs). I’ve had two out of three cups of detox tea (kidney and liver tea) today, and have taken 1 ginger capsule and 1 uva ursi capsule today.

I think that’s all the food I’ve eaten. Now that I have Tylenol 3 in me, I’m hungry again. I always get the munchies on Tylenol 3.

I did not take any Ibuprofen today. I wasn’t in much pain until the sudden onset after 1pm, and there was no time to try the Ibuprofen - the pain level shot up to ‘7′ on the scale and called for the big guns, so I took the Tylenol 3.

The spasming uterine pain is fading. Being reclined in bed with the rice bag heating pad helps. I just got a sudden pain in the chest, however. I get that a lot when on Tylenol 3. I know this stuff can kill me.

I am afraid, mad at my body, depressed at losing another sunny day, alternating feeling sorry for myself and mad. The bad feelings do not help my condition. I need to love myself unconditionally despite the illness. I need to find personal strength in this, rather than wallowing in the superficial and the sensory world around me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe I am personally the cause of my illness. I’ve had this since onset of menstruation at age 14, when I was still considered a child. Three of my four aunts have Endometriosis, and so did their mother - my grandmother.

There are new agers out there who say I caused my own illness, that I came into this world with a choice and I chose to be ill. Even some of the alternative medicine people I’ve tried to see over the years have purported this to me.
Those people need to spend some special time with the necklace.

…

Well, the pain is stable. It’s stopped ramping up. And I still have a load of laundry out back to take care of. Ugh. I think the neighbors will just have to wait, or move my stuff outta their way if they want the washer.

Riots ‘kill hundreds in Nigeria’
Page last updated at 21:03 GMT, Saturday, 29 November 2008

Hundreds of people are reported to have been killed in central Nigeria after Christians and Muslims clashed over the result of a local election.

A Muslim charity in the town of Jos says it collected more than 300 bodies, and fatalities are also expected among Christians.

There is no official confirmation yet, and figures are notoriously unreliable in Nigeria, says the BBC’s Alex Last.

Police have imposed a 24-hour curfew and the army is patrolling the streets.

They have been given orders to shoot on sight in an effort to quell hostilities that mark the worst clashes in the restive West African nation since 2004.

For the second straight day on Saturday, angry mobs went through the town burning homes, churches and mosques.

The Nigerian Red Cross says at least 10,000 people have fled their homes.

Contested election

The mostly Christian-backed governing party, the People’s Democratic Party, was declared to have won the state elections in Plateau state, of which Jos is the capital city.

The result was contested by the opposition All Nigeria People’s Party, which has support from Muslims.

Violence started on Thursday night as groups of angry youths burnt tyres on the roads over reports of election rigging.

Bodies from the Muslim Hausa community were brought into the central mosque compound.

The local imam, Sheikh Khalid Abubakar, said more than 300 dead bodies were brought there on Saturday alone.

Those killed in the Christian community would probably be taken to the city morgue, raising the possibility that the total death toll could be much higher.

Police spokesman Bala Kassim said there were “many dead,” but couldn’t cite a firm number.

Despite the overnight curfew, groups in some areas took to the streets again as soon as police patrols had passed by.

Troubled past

In 2001, more than 1,000 people died in religious clashes in the city, situated in Nigeria’s fertile “middle belt” that separates the Muslim north from the predominantly Christian south.

And in 2004, a state of emergency was declared in Plateau state after more than 200 Muslims were killed in the town of Yelwa in attacks by Christian militia.

Correspondents say communal violence in Nigeria is complex, but it often boils down to competition for resources such as land between those that see themselves as indigenous versus the more recent settlers.

In Plateau, Christians are regarded as being indigenous and Hausa-speaking Muslims the settlers.

FOCUS: MUMBAI ATTACKS
Media reacts to Mumbai mayhem
UPDATED ON:
Friday, November 28, 2008
20:30 Mecca time, 17:30 GMT

The attacks in Mumbai have attracted saturation coverage in the world media.

While the unfolding drama in India’s financial capital dominates newspaper pages, editorial writers across continents have found consensus in pouring scorn over the attackers and voicing their indignation.

A round-up of reaction in the world’s media:

India
The Indian Express - City by the sea

No other city in India is confronted by its own legend with as much verve and as brutal honesty as Mumbai has been. Now a bunch of individuals, of still unknown affiliation but clearly possessed of clockwork innovation, has alerted this country yet again that to strike at its cities and its commerce is to threaten the idea of India.

But through all this, the challenge is to our politics. This is a defining moment. The Mumbai attack renders petty and pointless the discourse on terrorism that has thickened the electoral air. Politics has to rise to the occasion, because it is only through a saner politics that India will defeat the challenge posed to its globalised, growing potential.

A saner, more engaged politics is also the only way for this country to constructively ask itself what it can do better to keep its people and its aspirations safe.

The Times of India - It’s war

This nation is under attack. The scale, intensity and level of orchestration of terror attacks in Mumbai put one thing beyond doubt: India is effectively at war and it has deadly enemies in its midst.

Ten places in south Mumbai were struck in quick succession.

To tackle terror in India it is urgently necessary to stabilise Pakistan and Bangladesh. And, India should seek international help now to upgrade its own security apparatus, but also to stabilise the entire region stretching from Afghanistan to Bangladesh.

There is no time to waste.

Pakistan
Dawn - Mumbai blasts

It is ironical that the attacks came in the wake of the two-day talks between the home secretaries of Pakistan and India in Islamabad earlier in the week where co-operation in fighting terrorism came under discussion.

Détente between the two neighbours does have the potential to curb the menace because militancy does not recognise borders and it is only logical to challenge it through a joint endeavour.

But for the moment the focus will obviously be on how the two countries manage the fallout of the Mumbai blasts.

Without apportioning blame on each other they should co-operate in the investigations to make them productive and facilitate effective measures for domestic security in the two countries while promoting bilateral understanding between them.

The Frontier Post - The Bombay holocaust

It is unfortunate that Manmohan Singh has raised his finger at Pakistan for the Bombay holocaust, without even waiting for the findings of the investigation panel he himself has set up to probe this reprehensible terrorist assault.

And that too when only the other day the two countries’ interior secretaries decided in their Islamabad meeting not to blame each other’s country for terrorist acts without substantive evidence.

He should have waited for his panel’s report. But he did not, replicating his Congress party’s mainstream rival BJP, which his own party president Sonia Gandhi had recently berated in a party meeting for accusing Pakistan of every terrorist act in India impetuously, not on some concrete evidence’s basis.

The regret is that Singh’s accusation will leave the real culprits go laughing all the way.

USA
The Washington Post - Blood in Mumbai

At present, the attacks have not led to an outbreak of Hindu-Muslim violence in other parts of India. Politicians, who are often quick to react to such incidents, have been remarkably discreet. Muslims and Hindus have condemned the attacks without indulging in a blame game.

Even more remarkable, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the leader of the opposition, K Advani of the BJP, have agreed to set aside their differences to visit Mumbai together to comfort those who lost relatives in the carnage. The victims include senior officers of the Mumbai police.

This single gesture by Singh and Advani will go a long way toward reassuring a dazed and nervous India that the political establishment can still be trusted to rise above partisan passion.

The New York Times - India’s suspicion of Pakistan clouds US strategy in region

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai occurred as India and Pakistan, two big, hostile and nuclear-armed nations, were delicately moving toward improved relations with the encouragement of the United States and in particular the incoming Obama administration.

Those steps could quickly be derailed, with deep consequences for the United States, if India finds Pakistani fingerprints on the well-planned operation. India has raised suspicions.

Pakistan has vehemently denied them. But no matter who turns out to be responsible for the Mumbai attacks, their scale and the choice of international targets will make the agenda of the new American administration harder.

Bangladesh
The Daily Star - The carnage in Mumbai

This attack, vicious in its nature and with wide-ranging ramifications, has brought home to all of us in South Asia the lesson that a serious, purposeful and united effort toward combating the terrorist menace is now necessary.

With the Taj and Oberoi hotels in Mumbai [as well as other spots] now coming under attack, it is clear that terrorism is now no more a national but a broad regional menace. It is now anyone’s guess as to where terrorism will strike next.

At the same time, people everywhere must condemn the atrocity perpetrated in Mumbai. After having been claimed responsibility by the so-called Deccan Mujahideen, it is especially for Muslims everywhere, seeing that such atrocities are being perpetrated in their names, to condemn the killings loudly and make it clear that their faith abjures violence of all kinds.

New Age - We mourn the dead of Mumbai

Today, our deepest condolences go out to the dead and injured in Wednesday’s terrorist attacks in India’s financial capital Mumbai, even as we strongly condemn those responsible for these horrible acts.

In recent times India has been confronted with a spate of shootings and bombings which have targeted civilians and public places, with the May bombings that killed over 60 people in the city of Jaipur still fresh on the mind. Similar attacks took place in Ahmedabad and New Delhi as well.

As such, there is a need for New Delhi to recognise that these are not isolated incidents though the perpetrators of each attack may have belonged to disparate politico-ideological spheres.

Side by side, it is also important to note that India’s terrorism problem, as with anywhere else, is not exclusively a law and order issue, and the government may likely fail if it seeks to contain it with more sophisticated weapons and more draconian laws.

United Kingdom
The Times - Massacre in Bombay

Depravity and barbarism have made a sickeningly familiar return in Bombay. The co-ordinated viciousness, the targeting of a crowded station, popular restaurant and two hotels and the firebombing of a cultural monument have horrified an entire sub-continent. Terrorism has struck at the heart of the world’s largest democracy.

This is a time for India’s friends not only to share its grief, but to bolster its leaders’ resolve and steady their response. The atrocity in Bombay threatens to drive a wedge between Hindus and Muslims in India; between India and its neighbour, Pakistan; and between the people of the sub-continent and the West.

All of this would be to take revenge against precisely the wrong people for what is a terrorist act. The people to blame here, and the only people to blame, are the terrorists.

The Guardian - Pointing the finger at Pakistan

Though such charges may yet be proved to have merit – the use of grenades and machine gun fire bear the hallmark of Pakistani based militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba [who have now denied involvement], the Indian government would do well to move to not succumb to internal pressure from the BJP and instead move cautiously.

The attacks came amid talks between the two countries’ home departments, and strengthening cooperation in fighting terror were discussed, and the two countries decided together to stop blaming each other for tit-for-tat attacks.

Finally, it is worth bearing in mind that whatever rhetoric the Pakistani government may be emitting, the possibility that rogue elements within the ISI acting on their own will cannot at this stage be precluded.

If this turns out to be the case, the Indian government should go public with their evidence, instead of pointing the finger then not producing the goods (as was the case with the Indian embassy in Kabul bombing).

I love how only the Washington Post in the USA purports that India and Pakistan are working together to find those responsible, when everywhere else, especially news from within India, says otherwise. In fact, Home Minister Shivraj Patil and India’s national security adviser M.K. Narayanan have both resigned after having pointed their fingers immediately at Pakistan in blame. And this just after talks between the home secretaries of Pakistan and India earlier that week, where they discussed co-operation in fighting terrorism.

But then, The Washington Post has been accused of being biased and slanted before.
And that’s not the worst part - the worst part is that Al Jazeera only picked two U.S. newspapers. There are countless dozens of other news outlets around the U.S. running the same crap the Washington Post did, so the false idea that the two countries are working together may spread. In the U.S., where people don’t give a good goddamn about anything that happens more than twenty miles from where they live, people are already detached emotionally from India and Pakistan as it is. The false news reports purporting joint cooperation further the distance and comfort that it’s Not Our Problem.

Did you know that Americans were killed and more may be missing in the aftermath?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97587508&ft=1&f=1004
Four Americans are also among the dead in about 10 attacks that started Wednesday night and which India has blamed on Islamic extremists…Officials said the Americans were among 22 foreigners killed in the attacks.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3529123/Bombay-attacks-Britons-and-Americans-targeted.html
Terrorists had asked guests in the restaurant of the Oberoi for their nationality as they were herded upstairs from the restaurant. “They told everybody to stop and put their hands up and asked if there were any British or Americans,” said Alex Chamberlain, a British businessman.

“I guess they were after foreigners, because they were asking for British or American passports,” said Rakesh Patel, a British citizen who lives in Hong Kong and was staying at the Taj Mahal hotel on business.

I had a dream that an acquaintance joined an old 80’s band that had begun touring again (their music sounded like Clan of Xymox or some such) and they were doing what looked like stage plays of all their hits. It wasn’t a concert - it was a formal dinner affair with dim lighting and the band doing coordinated and complicated acrobatic dance numbers to their music on stage, as if they were in a play or musical - cheerleader smiles and the whole bit. I noticed that while on stage, he had on a black Fischerspooner* tee shirt.

There was crazy DIY combination drinks in punch bowls for people to mix up themselves.

During an intermission, I was milling about and saw my old goth friends from Michigan and California. There were people from around the world for this, and a good mix of all types and genres of people. Formal dinner tables were set up in three different rooms. I was fortunate to be at a table right in front of the stage. I saw my chosen sister at a table in the next room, which had a partial view of the stage in the room my table was in. I stopped at her table and chatted.

There was a dark spot in the dream - At the same table as my chosen sister was a friend who up and stopped talking to me years ago over a petty misunderstanding that she never confronted me about. I had to find out through my chosen sister why she stopped talking to me. She looked as depressed and forlorn as she ever was when I knew her, and this goes back all the way to high school. She turned to her left and looked away from me as I had approached the table, then got up and slowly walked away (and looked like a spectre doing it).

A couple of tables behind my chosen sister’s table, right next to the door to the main room, I saw a friend milling about. After chatting with my sis for a few, I went over to him and we gave each other a hug. My husband was sitting at that table chatting with people. I walked over behind him and gave his shoulders an affectionate squeeze, and I think I bent down and we smooched hello.
Someone at the table was looking at some fliers on the wall, and remarked that he hated when fliers contained misspellings. The word in question was for a band damed DUCK and it was spelled DUCH**, but I wondered, was it really a misspelling? Then we talked about the time Bella Morte was misspelled to Bella More.

I remember telling several people at the event that I was so happy that my acquaintance was able to pursue this, and had the courage to come out of the rivethead mold to do it, because he had waffled over this for awhile and then finally did it, and looked a natural at the performance. So many of his friends had come out to support him for this, and were already fans of the band as well.

* Let it be known that although I have heard the name ‘Fischerspooner’ over the years, I have never heard or seen Fischerspooner’s music and concerts in my life. Looking them up on youtube after I woke up from my dream was very surreal and fit near perfectly what I was seeing in my dream.
** I looked up ‘duch’ to see if it means anything in other languages. Google tells me that “Duch means Spirit or Ghost in Slovak, Czech and Polish language.”

This is TOTALLY one of the cooler dreams I’ve had, given the verifications when I awoke.

Oh the things that make my blood boil…

Okay I admit it. I hate Citigroup and want them to conflagrate post haste.

My first reaction upon hearing that the U.S. gubment is giving Citigroup $20bn of the $700bn bailout plan, after having already given them $25bn just last month… was…

WHY CAN’T ANYBODY SEE IT’S DUBYA HUMPING THE SAUDIS AGAIN?!?!?!!

You people DO know that the Saudis are the ones who own citibank, right???

And you DO know that it was the Saudis who were responsible for crashing airplanes into the world trade center in 2001, right???

And it’s not just stopping there! Get this, news flash from within the U.S. this week, A Richardson, Texas-based Muslim charity and five of its former leaders were convicted Monday of funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas (Hello, wake up, according to the US State Department, the group [Hamas] is funded by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Palestinian expatriates, and private benefactors in other Arab states…)

I don’t know why this news led me to drink wine shots. I could be like the Average U.S. citizen and not even notice or give a shit. But no…