zeptember

It’s still easier for me to refer to my illness as ‘george’ when I am discussing the illness, hence the subject line. It’s simpler to say ‘george is late’ than to say ‘i started bleeding later than expected’. It’s more polite in a way - people don’t want to go right into a conversation hearing about blood. But hearing about a person being late to something, that’s tolerable.

Tuesday, August 12: Warned the lady I sit for that I was feeling severely fatigued and achey and I didn’t know if I’d have to go home early or miss work that week. Started pre-medicating with Ibuprofen 600 as of Monday or Tuesday. One per day.

Wednesday, August 13: The lady and her husband were late to work because of me - well because of a misunderstanding. I told them I’d call IF I couldn’t make it in to work. I didn’t call, so I went to work. Still very fatigued and feeling crampy but less so than the previous day, so I went. Turns out they were just covering their asses and wanted to be sure I’d show up, so they waited on me. They didn’t appear upset with me.

Thursday, August 14: Got my energy back - took the baby on two walks that day. I started spotting around 10pm and was sure george would arrive full on by morning.

Friday, August 15: George is officially due but doesn’t arrive. But all day I was tired and had mild to moderate cramps again. I was still taking Ibuprofen but took 2 over the course of the day on Friday. I had very light spotting on and off.

Saturday, August 16: Woke up at 6am with severe low back pain. Decided to ride it out instead of getting up and eating some food just so I could ingest Ibuprofen (taking Ibu on an empty stomach causes me severe stomach pain - causes most humans stomach pain). Got up because of the pain every hour after that until 9am, when I got up for good, ate some breakfast, and took an Ibu600. More spotting and light cramping on and off. Pain ramped up a bit Saturday night, especially in the low and mid-back region. By about 9pm I took a Tylenol 3 rather than deal with the pain.

Sunday, August 17: Up again from back pain and this time uterine pain too, every hour from about 7am to 10am. Full on bleeding and cramps started by 10:30am.

So my question is, did george arrive one day early, on Thursday, or did he arrive two days late, on Sunday?

In either case, I’m happy to report that I still have a full week clearance around the wedding. If I continue to be good to my body, george will not be early in September or October, either.

I know a lot of women must fret a bit over the whole getting their period on their wedding day thing. But the general populous of women don’t outright panic over getting their period on their wedding day, because most women can just take birth control pills or the morning after pill to stave off the menstrual cycle, or they can just not even care if they get their period because it’s such a non-issue for them.

But for women with endometriosis, I’d wager a lot of us look at our looming wedding day in abject fear that it could be ruined, all because of the pain and heavy bleeding we go through.

It is because of my illness, and also because of my father and my brother, that I spend about half of the time not looking forward to my wedding day, and just want it to be over with.

The other half of the time, I promise, I really am having a blast with my man planning for our wedding. We’ve gone on several wine tasting excursions because we want to serve locally produced wine. We’re about to burst with anticipation because next weekend is a big sale on last year’s surplus Halloween stock at a local boutique, and the weekend after that are the Scottish Highland Games, where my man hopes to get the rest of his wedding ensemble put together.
We have worked together on creating our own wedding invites and reply cards. My chosen sister gave us a sinister idea for favours that we ran with like children squealing in the park. We tasted cake until we were bored with the ordeal, because nothing was appealing enough to us as the expensive cake we wanted. So we finally gave in to that. Funny thing is, the expensive cake wasn’t expensive for being a wedding cake (the dreaded ‘wedding tax’ just because it’s for a wedding) - it’s not a wedding cake at all!
It’s just that the design and shape of the cakes this particular baker does is so much work that she has to charge accordingly.
We can’t wait to show people what we chose for our wedding cake!!!!

Back to the reality I am in at the moment - bedridden from the Endometriosis pain and hopped up on Tylenol 3…
Because the pain and bleeding did not start on time last Friday, this has fucked with my weekend and at the same time denied me the upcoming work week.
Had the bleeding and pain started on Friday like it was supposed to have, then I’d have been bedridden Friday, Saturday, maybe Sunday, and feeling better by Monday, then returning to work as scheduled on Tuesday.

But no.

Now, with the pain starting today, I am bedridden Sunday, Monday, likely Tuesday, and feeling better by Wednesday but not sure if I can return to work Wednesday or Thursday.

When I only work Tuesday - Thursday right now, this means I lose pay this week. This in turn gets me pissed off at the company that fired me all over again, because although a settlement was reached, they still have not PAID it out. I am still waiting for these goddamned people. They still hold the upper hand and have the last word as it were. They are still harassing me in this regard. They are still abusing and taunting me.

And I want them to combust for it.

I hope they get caught up in a hostile takeover and then parted out.

Haven’t worked again today.

The depression really slammed me yesterday. Just suddenly I was FUCKING DEPRESSED.

Is it the codeine pill I took Tuesday night? Is it just PMS? Is it due to the forbidden foods I’ve been reintroducing in order to get the stupid blood test for my allergist? Is it because I’m panicked again over my ability as a professional astrologer? Is it all of the above?

I also started getting george pain pretty strongly at 12:02pm yesterday but he never did show up. The depression worsened throughout the day as the pain stayed constant yet just enough to be annoying. On a whim, I bought tickets to see Siouxsie live at the Fillmore, even though I don’t have the money for such things. This of course made the depression worse.
At the last minute, I got off my ass, threw on a dress, did my hair and makeup, and went out the door.
On the way across the Bay Bridge, I had to fight the very strong urge to pull over, get out of my car and dive off the bridge. My brain was SO broken that when I argued against such plans, my brain came back soothingly with, “Oh it won’t hurt, do you ever hear of people killing themselves by jumping off this bridge? NO. It’s always the Golden Gate bridge. You’ll be fine. You can just go for a swim. It’ll be nice.”

Of course I didn’t listen, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. :p

But the urge was compelling. Very strong. WTF.

I didn’t get to San Francisco in time to meet my friends for dinner, so I went without. No big deal, I’ve not been hungry lately, anyway - just craving chocolate and sugar mainly. My friends met me outside of the parking structure and we walked to the Fillmore. When we got there, Rasputina was playing. I’d never seen them before. I had instant cello lust. I played cello in 4th and 5th grade. The only reason I stopped was because we had to move to a new school for 6th grade, and they didn’t have a strings department, only a band department. Thus ended my career as a cellist - my mother was too poor to *buy* me a cello of my own, let alone pay for lessons.

Siouxsie was great. I enjoyed seeing her and yowza, does she still got it. Catcalls galore, all night, from every inch of the gender spectrum, for our beloved Auntie Siouxsie.

When the show got out, my friends and I parted ways. I was in such pain from standing and craning my neck and dancing that I needed to take an Ibuprofen600 on the way home. I felt better emotionally and physically when I got home.
Woke up this morning from the dream I posted about in the last entry and well, spent the rest of the day today in a depressed funk all over again.

I will say though that I did spend a lot of time outside today. I sat in the backyard and took pictures. I even took my cat out there on her harness but all she did was meow and howl because she was afraid. Her tail was all bushed out, too.
My friend came over later and we talked out in the backyard in the sun.

Here’s some pix I took of the backyard today:

“The sun is up, the sky is blue, it’s beautiful, and so are you…”

This is right outside our front door.

After my friend took off for work, I went and retrieved my car - it was parked a couple of blocks away - and I went and got a mini pizza to further test the reintroduction of foods. I SWEAR TO {INSERT DEITY HERE} I DIDN’T EXPERIENCE ANY DOOM.

I’m absolutely fecking baffled by this. I swear, I have been severely ill in the past from eating pizza dough or a dinner roll or anything with wheat and yeast in it, especially the yeast. So I have no idea what the deal is. I’ve probably been consuming yeast in some form or another and got my gut reacclimated to it, I guess. Would sugars do that alone? I wonder.

This would explain the weight gain over the past 2 years. Time to cut everything out again - this time for the purpose of weight management!

…

And now I feel better that I’ve emptied my head. My man is on his way home from work, so that helps, too. Tomorrow is a new day. I will do what I can tomorrow, knowing that this is downtime, be it emotional (depression, stress, anxiety, PMS, etc) or physical (the endometriosis), it does not matter. I’m in downtime. And I need to take care of myself. And the work will have to wait, and I will just have to TRUST myself that everything will happen as it should, in its time.

*sigh*

It’s just convincing my man that this is all good. That’s going to be the problem as we approach May of this year, when the state financial assistance runs out.

*sigh again*

But right now…. RIGHT NOW… I take care of myself in my downtime.

Maybe it’s just that I’m a week premenstrual… yes, ALREADY…

But I’ve been really tired again lately. Especially the last two days, I’ve slept in til 9am and would have kept sleeping in had my anxiety not acted up. The anxiety tells me YOU ONLY HAVE SO MANY HOURS IN THE DAY! GET MOVING! YOU HAVE TO GET SOME WORK DONE ON THE BUSINESS!

But for the past two days, my eyes have felt puffy, sticky and irritated, and I’m just TIRED. When I look in the mirror, my eyes look fine. So perhaps I’ve got some allergies going on.

This morning I got out of bed, got dressed and walked a few blocks to the acupuncturist to pick up a refill on the herbal meds. He doesn’t feel I need the “stomach pill” for the spleen anymore, even with hearing about the liver enzyme issue. But he gave me a refill on the “blood mansion pill” for the uterus, and instructed me to make another acupuncture appointment right before george hits.

One thing that irks me about this doctor is his personality quirk. Every time I see him, he says, “so you’re not working today?” And I have to tell him “No, I work from home, I make my own hours.”
He always says “Ah.” and nods once and looks down at the floor or his paperwork.

It just pisses me off, because it plays on my insecurities. I’m trying to be proud of being self-employed, of being independent of an employer, and I feel like I’m getting hostile energy from this guy when he feels compelled to ask me the same question every time I see him.

*breathe in…. and exhale…..*

I just have to remember that his comment, his judgemental behaviour, his attitude… is Not My Problem.

Lastly, back to the liver enzyme issue - at least my urine isn’t dark brown anymore. That was scary when it lasted like two weeks before the blood test came back to tell me about the high liver enzymes. I’m taking vitamins again, too, and I’ve incorporated more carbs into my diet (more carbs helps with the liver issue). Now, I just have to get on a regular exercise regimen again so I don’t get even fatter from the extra carbohydrate intake. Granted, it’s complex carbs but still.
I’m at 168lbs (76kg) right now.

In February of 2006, I was 183lbs (83kg). When I omitted carbs, gluten, yeast and sugar, I dropped 30lbs - I went down to 153lbs (69kg) - within three months.
And then since 2007, my body’s been trying to gain it all back again.

Exercise good. Walking to the acupuncturist and back again before breakfast == good. Having spent 10 minutes on the bicycle trainer last night == good.
Now I just have to get diligent again about doing my situps first thing in the morning and before bed each night.

Woke up this morning in dying back pain. Had to do the ‘turtle’ or ‘child’ pose, then had to get on all fours, then had to put knees on floor and flop stomach first on bed…. sounds like this should be an exciting sexual encounter, eh?

Alas, welcome to Various Stretches To Ease The Pain.

My man warmed up my rice heating pad and laid it on my back for me. He rubbed my back, too. What a lovely man he is! I love him so.

The headache is a dull pain in the back of my head, now. I’m not nearly so sensitive to light as I was yesterday. I can handle my man walking on the bare wood floor in his boots this morning. I can handle hearing the sound of my fingers on the keyboard.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get some business website work done today.

Oh, and I still haven’t heard from my father. We’ll just see how long this lasts, shall we? It’s like when I lived with him and we got to the point of only leaving notes for each other because he refused to deal with me head on, in person. It doesn’t take much to upset this man, it never has. He’s an Aries, after all. And I’m a Virgo with Aries rising. It’s very easy for two headstrong people like us, to quote my dad, “to lock assholes” over something.

So the game now is to hold out to see who speaks first. Though technically the ball is in his court since I emailed him last. But I’m not also going to phone him. It’s his turn, that’s the point of the matter. And don’t ever try to challenge me on the point of the matter. I will always win.
So I’m just gonna sit back and wait for daddy-o to come ’round.

11:46am Edit: Aggggghhhh massive squid attack… looks like horror flick… pain… setting in… badly… ramping up…

*sigh*

so much for working today