Endo, Endo, bobendo...

March is Endometriosis Awareness month! It has been my experience that not many people really understand Endo or what it does to people (women). As one of many women that suffers from this hormonal/reproductive/immune system disorder I always jump at the opportunity to talk about it and share my experiences. Unfortunately I am part of that group of women that went 10+ years without being diagnosed correctly (we are a majority unfortunately) all because of the still all-too-common misconceptions regarding Endometriosis... even amongst physicians, sadly enough!

This being a "womanly" disease (as I've heard it be called, I kid you not) I guess not everyone feels comfortable talking about it. I used to be one of them and then I realized that it was partly because of this "taboo" attitude that many have about it that it is still as unknown and misunderstood/diagnosed as it currently is!

Endometriosis has not put me in any grave danger, nor will it kill me. For that I am very grateful. It has, however, stolen much from me. Had I known how much trouble, pain, money, and time it would eventually cost me, I would have been less embarrassed and more proactive and demanding of my doctors YEARS ago.

Had I been diagnosed in my teens (when all heck broke lose for my body) I truly believe my life would be very different right now. It would have saved me from much pain, many useless trips to the ER, missed days of school/work/life, and most importantly... I would probably be a mommy by now. I wish Endometriosis had been mentioned to me. I wish I would have had at least a clue as to what was wrong with me instead of being patted on the head, told it was "normal" and handed a bunch of pain meds... For this and many more "I wish"-es, I try to be that person for others.

I could go on and on about this forever, but as I have a mountain of homework and dinner to fix, I will keep this post short. Instead of posting a humongous amount of information that may or may not be read, I will pose this question: What (if anything) about Endo would you like to know? Go ahead, ask away! I will answer any and all questions to the best of my ability, whether with plain old info, my own experiences, or both!

Why I love my puppies...

I can always count on them to make me laugh! This comes in handy especially when I'm having a bad day and feeling like crap... like today :(

Sirius loooooooooves yogurt!


Luna does too! So much so, she ran off with the container stuck on her head!


...then she crawled into her bag of food!

Seriously, how can you not love them?!?! Mini also participated but for some reason I can't upload her picture, but whatever... she had yogurt all over her face too! :) Anyway, my dogs are just the coolest, no? :)

On a side note- surgery is about 2 weeks away and I am sooooooooo looking forward to it (weird, I know) so I can start feeling better. If everything goes without a hitch I shouldn't have to stay more than a day in the hospital, which will get me home to my pups sooner. Sirius is the best non-narcotic painkiller, so I'll be looking forward to getting home to him.

I'm toxic... still.

It's been over three years since I was last able to donate blood. (I used to do so quite frequently, I have always loved it for some odd reason... Ben thinks I'm crazy) I couldn't donate because of all the hormones I was on while TTC, then because of my surgery, and then because of the Lupron (a chemo agent)! Last month I became eligible again (it takes 6 months for the Lupron to completely leave your system) and I've been soooooooooooo looking forward to today's blood drive at church!!! Finally, something my body could do correctly and make itself useful for, right?

So I get to church and start going through the paperwork as per usual. I get to the "deferal due to medications" section and there was Lupron, but no biggie right? It's been over 6 months, I'm set! My blood is clean and good to go! EXCEPT that right next to Lupron (it used to be the last one in that section) now was Aygestin... I just started taking Aygestin about 2 weeks ago because my prior Endo treatment plan was giving me horrendous migraines.

Apparently Aygestin is new to "the list." It's level of toxicity is equal to that of Lupron and means I have to wait until 6 months after my last dose before I am able to donate. I was soooooooooooooooooooooo MAD! I seriously went back to my car, texted Ben and cried all the way home. It was like Christmas being canceled...

I'm sure you are all thinking I'm crazy. Why get so worked up over not being able to go get poked by a needle and bleed into a bag for 7 minutes? Odd, I know. I guess it doesn't really make very much sense to anyone but me. Being able to donate again was one of the "bright sides" to having given up trying to have kids. It also meant my body was finally good at something again, and not a complete failure, like I often feel because of all the problems it gives me most of the time. It was my way of feeling "normal" again after 3 years of feeling anything but normal.

Oh well... I'm not sure how long I'll be on Aygestin (seeing as it is one of only 2 options for a long term Endo management plan) but until then OBI will not be wanting any of my blood. It's really too bad actually, since I've got O+ blood which is rather useful, but I guess not so much when it's all toxic and whatnot.

Maybe I should get a t-shirt with a biohazard symbol on it, lol.

To puke or not to puke... that is the question.

NO, I'm not pregnant... just adjusting to some new medication and dealing with some Endo-related nasties.

Does anyone know how to make never-ending nausea go away? I'm taking Phenegran, but seeing as that puts me to sleep I can only take it at night. For the past week I've been puking/on the verge of puking (depends on the day) all day, every day. Its not fun. Saltines have become my new best friend and my trashcan at work now plays a whole new role... I've given up on food, especially milk...

I hear Vitamin B-6 is supposed to be good, and my dad mentioned something he read about sucking on lemons? Now that sounds like a sure fire way to make yourself puke, but he swears that's what he read. I haven't tried it... I don't know that I will. Anyway, if anyone out there has any suggestions, please... enlighten me.

Thanks in advance from my oh-so-unhappy tummy.

PS> On the upside, I've been so preoccupied with retaining the contents of my stomach that I barely think about my foot these days! Ah, there's the silver lining I was looking for! :)

These are a few of my faaaaavorite things...

I'm having a "sad day" and so I thought I'd cheer myself up with a few of my favorite things, like the song says to do, you know? So here goes, this is what I've spent most of today doing while trying to ignore the pain...

* Watching my pups sleep and have their cute little "puppymares", where they bark at their dream-land foes! (See previous post)

* Curl up with Edw-um... I mean the Twilight Series! ;)

* Play my newest GC game, "Paper Mario & The Thousand Year Door" (so much fun, highly reccommend it!)

* Baking my fave kind of bread (bannana, hold the nuts!), and enjoying the smell permeate my house, yuuuuuuuuuum!

Ahh, there is nothing like some warm comfort food to soothe the soul and aching tummy...and now "I don't feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel sooooooo baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!" ;)

Hooray for books!

Thank goodness for them, for this weekend would have been hard without one. I'm not feeling so hot and have spent the better part of the weekend on my couch or in bed. Fortunately for me, BRISINGR, the 3rd book of The Inheritance Cycle was released Friday/Saturday at midnight and I've been steadily devouring my way through it. Right now Ben has it and is catching up so we can sontinue reading outloud to one another. It's SO good! Ah, I love weekends spent curled up with a good book, albeit in major pain, but nevertheless good times.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I heard (well read, actually) something that made me see red. Someone on a support board (an online community site)gave out some false infromation concerning Endometriosis. Granted, it was well intended and meant to give hope, but nevertheless still NOT TRUE. Someone else (probably this girl's doctor) told her that once she got pregnant, the Endo would "go away forever!" Um... NO! That's SO not true! It's one of Endo's greatest myths and its appalling to me that there are still members of the medical community spouting out falsehoods like that! I mean we're talking old-school type thinking that has led more than one doctor to suggest pregnancy to TEENAGE girls as a cure!!! What the ?!?! Ok, so... this is my Endometriosis Awareness deed for the day... NO, pregnancy does NOT cure Endometriosis. Smack anyone that tells you so! Then send them to ME so I can smack them too! Heehee... no, not really, but I'll still lecture them, and that may be even worse, because Alex can get VERY verbose about this subject. If any of you actually want to know the reason why this is a myth, just ask and I'll explain. For now I'll spare the rest of you the big long shpiel. Ok, phew... just had to get that out of my system... ugh...