I've been hiding from my blog lately

I have a confession to make: that last entry? Was written weeks ago. I had it sitting in the queue as a draft, and I published it so what followed would make sense, but also because it allowed me to go two more weeks without facing the internet.

I'm sad. I'm very very sad.

And I'm kind of baffled at how sad I am.

My health is pretty darn good, not perfect, but OK. Bear's job is going really well, I've got great friends, I love my work at church. And when my health was at my absolute worst, when doctors were telling me I was crazy and refusing to help me, I was sad, but I worked hard to keep my spirits up. I was sad, but I was never depressed.

I think I'm now depressed.

Not clinically, of course. Just moping through the day with a big black cloud over me. Just whining and pouting and feeling rudderless.

I'm one of those people who always believed they'd leave a mark on the world. I believe(d?) that I will do something important, make a difference, contribute. I'm not so sure right now. I have had such a record string of failure that it's a little hard for my brash ego to keep on puffing up.

I obviously didn't get the part, but that's not even the straw that broke the camel's back. They decided they wanted to go with a married couple to play Mary and Joseph and this is irritating to me on a few levels. First of all, it seems lazy. A married couple should have chemistry so no one has to worry about acting that out. Latter Day Saints are also so very protective of the marriage vows, that many people can't stomach the thought of two people that are married to different people to even *pretend* they're married to each other. Even if there's no physical relationship involved. I keep ping-ponging between two frames of mind about this: I can't take the rejection personally because they obviously wanted a couple to play the parts together; or I would have felt better if someone else just had the hands down better audition rather than losing out on a technicality.

Anyway, that was a bummer. But like I said, not the straw that broke the camel's back. I think that was just time. I've been healthy for six months, and I have been able to accomplish absolutely nothing. My time on Lupron is over, I can already feel my symptoms coming back, and I have nothing to show for it.

I've been trying to write like I keep whining about, and it is just not working out. I just don't know one thing about the structure necessary to wrap words around.

*sigh* I'm not sure if I even have the energy up to sufficiently whine. This had just been an incredibly hard year, and I am spent. Between my illness and surgery and doctors telling me I'm crazy, and psychiatrists, and pain pills, and hormones and hot flashes and rejection from every job out there, and not getting the part in the play, and family drama, and everyone around having babies (seriously - 2 SIL's, 2 close friends, and 3 ward members), job uncertainty, buying a house then not buying a house, losing 40 pounds and gaining 40 pounds all in 8 months, family drama some more, and having no apparent purpose in life....blargh. Sucks.

I just don't know what I should be doing with myself right now. With not being able to have a baby, I've had to really search for what brings me fulfillment and purpose during this time. But this year every single thing I've tried has not worked out or failed spectacularly, so I'm left feeling utterly lost and without moorings.

Endo was like, the best diet EVER!

Thanks to my long struggle with endometriosis, I managed to waste away 40 pounds. I was wearing clothes I haven't worn since my first year of marriage and they were still falling off of me. While I'd be lying if I said I didn't love the weight loss, it was also fairly scary to me because I knew that it came from being technically anorexic. I would try to eat and I could barely make my way through one of the little McDonald's hamburgers that come in a happy meal. I'd cook an enormous meal and take literally two bites before I'd be gagging.

After the surgery I started to be able to eat again, but I was trying to be really careful. I knew that if your body is starving, it's going to store every new calorie as fat. And I really liked my new look, even if it didn't come about very healthily, so I wanted to do what I could to preserve it.

Then the hormones kicked in and all bets are off. Suddenly the Lupron is making me an insatiable garbage pit and I can not get enough food to satisfy the constant cravings running through my mind. I've been known to eat two dinners and then want dessert. I'll find myself wandering through the house looking for food to shut up the voice in my head screaming "MORE!" The nights are the worst. I crave sugar so badly my teeth itch.

So obviously I've gained some weight back, but I'm still not back up to my largest point. I look fine. I'm still wearing all my own clothes, some of them are still falling off of me and others aren't so much. But I'm really starting to develop a complex. I lost so much weight so quickly and I'm putting so much weight back on so quickly, that it kind of shocked the sense out of me. I always prided myself on being pretty happy with how I looked even though you could never pay me to put on a bikini in public - but not anymore. Now I'm all too aware of every calorie I put in my mouth. I'm debating keeping a food diary and trying diets.

And I'm panicking about the precedent I'm setting. Here I am on Lupron, hormonally eating. Once I get off it I'll start fertility drugs which will cause me to hormonally eat. Then I'll get pregnant (knock on wood) which will cause me to hormonally eat. By this time next year I'll be such a fat butt. Ug.

I really hate that I've turned into one of those girls. Who publicly talks about her weight and diets and blah blah blah. And here I am blogging about it. Oy. What a cliche.

Enter Dr. BFF

On Friday we had our first meeting with the doctor who will do our In Vitro. It was terrifying. Not because we didn't know what to expect or because we were afraid of what we'd find out, we've already been through that part of it all, but because we are both pretty comfortable where we are right now and the thought of venturing back out into that war zone is ... oh gosh. Am I sure kids are worth it?

If I didn't have religious convictions that taught me the importance of family, I think I'd just get a hysterectomy and move on. I'd go back to school and either be a professor of something or a writer or a therapist and enjoy all my extra income and the undivided attention of my husband.

But, I do have religious convictions, so I have to find a way to close my eyes and step back out there and try to stay safe.

We looked at a bunch of different options, including a doctor in Beverly Hills who charges based on a sliding scale, and a few doctors who do the whole shared risk "money back guarantee" thing, and cost wise as well as comfort wise, it looks like Kaiser is who we'll be going with. Mainly because they're the closest to home and if there is one thing I AM NOT DOING it is living through the dreaded two week wait away from home. And because they charge $11K for everything including drugs up to ICSI and assisted hatching. Those are extra.

Until we actually met the doctor, those were pretty much our only criteria. We've learned that in this medical game, we are beggars and can therefore not be choosers.

Today we drove an hour away to Fremont in the Bay Area and met with Dr. BFF. His offices were posh, his receptionist sweet and friendly, his nurse concerned and capable and a fellow crafter who was interested in my project du jour, and not a baby or parenting magazine as far as the eye could see. We waited in an exam room while he reviewed our history and Bear got his first view of The Wand. He could not look away.

Dr. BFF called us in and asked us to tell him our history and experiences in our own way, aside from the clinical stats he held in his hand. I went right into doctor-speak with dates and ratings on the pain scale and whipped out my films and records, which he was obviously grateful for, but what he wanted was for us to get to know each other. He asked us where we each grew up, where our favorite place to live was, our opinions on the Red Sox and urban vs rural living, what Bear's time in South Africa was like, how surprising it was to him when a blond blue eyed mormon boy spoke to him in fluent Korean, and his most romantic vacation with his wife.

He looked at the photos from my first lap and his jaw hit the ground. I told him that Dr. I'mnotlooking said I was clean as a whistle and Dr. BFF said, "looking at this I find that extremely hard to believe." I could have reached right across the desk and kissed him on the mouth then and there, but he continued to earn my undying devotion by telling me what I was looking at in the photo.

"This is what healthy peritoneum tissue looks like, smooth, see? See how yours isn't smooth? Look right here, see that? That's called a window. That tells me that the endo has buried deep inside your organs. I can't believe your doctor would have gone in that deep, especially since that thing right there is your ureter, so I would think that you would have continued to feel pain even after the surgery. I'm guessing on your right side, probably especially when you try to have sex."

Bear and I literally sat there with our mouths open. He just described the past four years of my life by looking at a small photo of my organs.

He then went on to give us a list of all the IVF Clinics in town and told us to check them all out, set us up with a plan to make use of the time I have on Lupron to get everything all prepared to jump as soon as my cycle starts, gave us phone numbers that he could be reached at so we wouldn't have to drive in for special appointments to discuss test results, told us that we might be candidates for insemination after all (which would cost us a whopping $20), commiserated with Bear about embarrassing semen sample stories, and hung out with us at the nurses station until his nurse came back to get us our next appointment.

When we left his office, Bear and I didn't say a word until we got to the car. Like we were afraid to wake ourselves up from a very good dream.

Screw you Dr. I'mnotlooking. Now I've got NP Dollface.

Today brought my second dose of Lupron and a new doctor. Or Nurse Practitioner to be more accurate. She was a dream. Took me at my word and kept me on my treatment. Then she asked me the dreaded fertility question. Give me a break. Is there any woman anywhere who can go through two laps and still think she's got plenty of time to mess around with her fertility? I'm fully aware of the fact that I'm a ticking time bomb, thanks.

She really earned my love when I complained of the hot flashes (which have started up like little champs) and she whipped out a pen and paper to make me a list of herbal supplements I could take. Then she dragged me out of the exam room and into her office so she could get me information about the RE's in the area and inform me that Kaiser Northern California does in fact cover some parts of IVF. In Southern California, once they determined that IVF was my only hope, I just got a good luck and don't let the door hit you on your way out. Can you imagine? All this time we've been stressing about how to pay off law school and house and baby at the same time, and there is a long shot that someone else will pay for the baby! Hooray! I'm trying not to get too excited, because Kaiser is still a business, and why would they cover everything if they didn't have to, but if they only paid for the medicine that would still be outrageously cool.

I just got back from Youth Conference, which is where we take all the little Mormon teenagers 14 - 18 up to the mountains and talk to them about good values and then watch as they have a big dance so they can meet cute boys and girls who believe the same things they do. It's great fun. I was thoroughly shocked to discover on Friday night that a switch seems to have been flipped in me and all of a sudden I'm doing freaking AWESOME! I was out there dancing my heart out with the kids like I was 16 again. They all commented on how they can not believe how hyper and crazy I was, when really it was more like me rejoicing that my body wants to move again. I just read in my Lupron literature that the estrogen goes up for about two weeks so symptoms may get worse at first (Yup.) But then the estrogen levels drop precipitously and symptoms should alleviate. (Sure 'nough)

I feel crazy good. And Bear keeps beaming from ear to ear and saying "I've got my wife back!" Now I'm back to the job hunt and amazed that I honestly feel like I can work a job now. I do still have some weakness and exhaustion, but good old Dr. Hero says that's from the inactivity and I just need to rehab. Plus I'm withdrawing from the years of pain pills so every once in a while I feel like crawling out of my skin while simultaneously having a panic attack, but that's getting better as I'm weaning myself off the pills. I basically am off pills entirely for pain, and right now I'm just on 1/2 a pill a day for the withdrawal and pretty soon none at all.

So, to sum up: WHOO FREAKING HOO!!!

Dr. Hero saves the day

To recap: we left off with me getting my first dose of Lupron from Dr. I'mnotlooking's office and recovering from surgery and a chest infection.

Now, some interesting developments:
A couple days after my shot I emailed Dr. I'mnotlooking to ask for more pain pills. I take 4-6 pills a day, which is far inside the recommended dosage. I could take more if I were so inclined. But I'm not. While I'm sure the Lupron will in time work wonders for me, time has not yet elapsed, so I'm left with all this pain to deal with and so naturally, I go to my doctor for help.

He returns my email by replying that he does not feel comfortable prescribing me any more pain pills, he wants me to go to a pain management specialist in San Francisco, and a psychiatrist. This is LITERALLY (as in, I counted) the sixth time he has told me to see a psychiatrist for my pain.

So I take a deep breath, say a prayer that I will be able to compose a reply without chucking my computer out the window, and write back to him that "My pain is real. What do you expect me to do while I wait for the appointment with the pain specialist? You are my doctor and I trust you to treat my pain."

With my guilt trip successful, he says he will prescribe, but this will be the last time until I see the psychiatrist. I found out later when we picked up the pills that he got in one final 'screw you' by only prescibing 50 pills. So if I take 4-6 a day, that gets me through...10 days. That's really helpful.

By this time I'm sobbing and hyperventilating and ripping out my hair. How dare he? How dare he treat me this way! I trusted him enough to let him look at my Va-nay-nay and this is what I get?

Right then and there I pick up the phone and call the dang psychiatrist. If nothing else, I'll have someone to talk to about how awful my doctor is. And maybe if I keep this appointment, that will keep my doctor happy enough to continue to treat me. It's all so humiliating how I have to continually debase myself just so I can get the minimum standard of care.

The receptionist joked that the soonest available appointment was in an hour, and I snapped it up. My sister chose that unfortunate moment to call and so she got to hear all the emotional saga live and her response was, "So is the psychiatrist the doctor's brother or something?"

The psychiatrist, who I will call Dr. Hero, was tall and in his late 50's. He had a very good-natured almost big-brotherly vibe to him and at our second appointment he called me "kid" about seven times. I took to him instantly. I told him the whole messed up saga, even explaining in microscopic detail the inner workings of endometriosis and why I was right and I'mnotlooking was so SO WRONG! And in the interests of full-disclosure, I even told him all the red-flags that sent I'mnotlooking down the crazy path. His response:"Sure sexual trauma can cause a painful pelvic exam, but it doesn't explain any other symptom of endo." I was in love.

Before I even got halfway through my story he told me to get a new doctor. He said that some people are only in it for the babies and can't handle any other aspect of OB/GYN, and that many doctors (most of whom happen to be older males) don't take women's pain seriously. He told me to get a new doctor and make her a woman.

But won't switching doctor's be suspicious? Won't that stall my treatment? It's worth the risk.

Does that mean I'm not crazy? You're not only not crazy, but you are totally sane, managing tremendous pain the best you can, and none of this is your fault.

He scheduled me for five sessions, but after our second session on Tuesday, I don't think I'll be using them all. Once he got me fixed up with a new doctor and thoroughly explained to me why I wasn't crazy (scar tissue is evil), there really wasn't that much to say. I kept bringing stuff up (Baby showers suck! well of course they suck. Just don't spend too much time thinking about them so they only suck for two hours instead of 30. My family's a mess, wanna talk about my family? You're doing great. You don't need me.) but we ended up mostly just shooting the breeze for an hour.

I'll see my new OB/GYN later this month when I go in for my second shot o' hormones, and hopefully she'll be kind and not white-knuckle stingy with the scrips. The Pain Management Clinic doesn't have an appointment until July, and considering that I'll have been on Lupron for five months by then, if I'm still in this much pain than we might have to revisit the whole crazy issue.

Here we go...

On Wednesday I went and got myself shot up with Lupron.

So far, so good.

My nurse was fantastic, I literally didn't even feel the needle prick, and by now I'm so used to being poked and prodded that I wouldn't have cared even if I did. The worst part about the whole thing was just having to have a period before they'd give me the shot. And periods could not suck more in my world.

For the past few days I've just been cold chillin', waiting for the dreaded side effects to come around and kick my booty. Every time I find myself the slightest bit warm I ask Bear, "Is it warm in here or is it just me?" I keep waiting for the hammer of hot flash to drop down on my head. I have had a little bit of heart palpitation, but that's an easy one to live with. It never lasts long and it's not terribly uncomfortable.

The antibiotics did their job, and I'd now say I'm completely recovered from the surgery. Unfortunately I'm not yet recovered from the endo, so after all this I'm back to my regular old invalid life. I have been trying to limit how many pain pills I'm taking, mainly because I'm a little concerned about being able to leave them behind.

Let me clarify: I don't think I'm addicted to prescription drugs. Foremost because I avoided narcotics like a bill collector and the pain pill I do take every day is known for it's low addictive quality. On this one issue I'd have to agree with the doctor and say it's all in my head. I'm concerned about leaving the pills behind because I have been in so much pain for so long that I have no faith that the pain would ever not be there. I can't imagine what it would feel like to not be in pain. Will I even recognize it when it comes? So I'm afraid to not take a pill because they've almost become a security blanket, not to numb my feelings or get me to escape reality (my tolerance is WAY too high for that) but simply to do their job and take the edge off the pain.

I tend to be a little overanalytical, ever notice?

So every day I'm trying to go a little longer between doses. When there was no end in sight and every day only brought more of the same pain, there was no reason to be a martyr and feel bad when there was a way out. But now that I'm on the Lupron and there is theoretically an end to at least the pain symptoms, I feel like I need to work harder at taking the bare minimum of pain relief I can get away with. To wean myself off, and so that I can monitor my progress. If I dope myself up constantly, how will I know if it's working? Or not?

So with that being my thinking, the past few days haven't been terribly pleasant. There's a reason why pain management doctors tell you to never skip a dose, even if you don't feel like you need one right then. Once I cave and take the dang thing, it takes a while to work. And while I'm waiting I'm holding my guts and whimpering.

#@$%**^%^# Doctors!

So apparently that cold I came down with last week was not, in fact, a cold. It was a raging chest infection brought about by the intubation and anesthesia.

After ten days of having glands so swollen I couldn't swallow, I finally called to try to go to a regular doctor. I thought I had mono again. I had it once in college and apparently it's been going around at church, not to mention that recovering from abdominal surgery would be the perfect time for something so opportunistic to take hold.

But no. Something else opportunistic took hold.

I was trying to get an appointment just to get my throat cultured. The nurse came on the phone to ask about my symptoms so they could send me off to the right doctor, and with each question she got more and more agitated. I'd had surgery 10 days ago? There's been a heaviness in my chest? I'm coughing and wheezing? I'm achy all over? Oh Dear. Let me get my manager.

So the manager gets on the phone and asks me all the same questions. Are your glands swollen? Both sides? Are you dizzy and weak? Oh Dear. Let me send an urgent message to Dr. I'mnotlooking and have him call you back.

Having the advice nurse and her manager both freak out at the urgency of my problem freaked me right the freak out. I thought I had a sore throat, and the nurses are running into stat mode like I'm on the verge of death.

A few hours later Dr. I'mnotlooking calls me back, asks if I'm allergic to penicillin and sends off a prescription for antibiotics. La di dah, calm as you please. In fact, when Bear went to pick up the prescription they hadn't even filled it yet because the Dr. sent it in as NON-URGENT.

I've been on the antibiotics now for four days and this thing is not going anywhere. My glands are a little less swollen, but they're not normal yet and this cough and wheezing are just as bad as ever. But I'm finding reserves of strength that are getting me through it that come from pure unadulterated rage. One minute I'm insane and making up my symptoms, the next minute I'm stupid for not reporting my symptoms sooner. Even Bear blew me off, telling me that I must have just caught what was going around.

It's maddening. MADDENING. If I wasn't crazy before all this, I'm sure I will be afterwards.

Today's a better day

The appointment yesterday actually turned out to be totally anticlimactic. He looked at my incisions, satisfied that I wasn't infected, wrote me an injection order and got the hell out of there.

Although he couldn't resist one last dig and asked me if I wanted a referral to a psychiatrist. By that time I'd spent so much time obsessing and analyzing I'd come to the conclusion that psychiatric help might not be the worst thing I could pursue. I'm not caving in to Dr. I'mnotlooking's suggestions that the pain is in my head. I've just realized that living with a chronic disabling illness and infertility is extremely stressful, and if someone's going to pay for me to talk to a therapist, why not? Therapists are so blooming expensive and getting insurance to cover it is such a chore, that Dr. I'mnotlooking may have accidentally handed me a real bonus.

Of course, the first thing I plan on covering with the shrink is Dr. I'mnotlooking.

As for my upcoming medical treatment, I'll be getting an injection of Lupron once a month starting on the first day of my next cycle. Which means that I will shortly be going through menopause.

Part of me could not be more thrilled since I know it's what will cure me, but I really don't like the idea of hot flashes and night sweats. Bear has the night sweats enough for both of us. Once I start this medicine we're going to have to change the sheets every night so we don't sleep in puddles.

I have a friend who's very in to herbal cures and I've been thinking about following her recommendations to reduce the menopause symptoms. Does anyone have any experience with this or know if it's a problem to take anything while taking Lupron?

The pain from my lap is slowly disappearing, although my abdominal muscles still seem to be as weak as a baby kitten, but now that I'm weaning myself off the vicodin, I'm remembering all the pain that got me here in the first place. It is all kinds of suck that I have to deal with all my endo symptons and the lap symptoms. And as if that wasn't enough, I seem to have come down with a cold. I've been laying in bed sniffing and coughing and moaning from the pain on my abs. Sniff, cough, moan. Sniff, cough, moan. Sniff, cough, moan. I'm just a world o'fun these days.

Now that I'm able to sit up more, I'm trying to inspire myself back into the creating. I'm almost done with a baby blanket I've owed my friend the good twin for nearly a year, and Bear's brother is about to have his first, so I gotta get to work on that one, but I've also joined the "use what you have challenge" over at simplesparrow. The goal is to only make stuff with what you already own. No new purchases for the entire month of April. Between the yarn stash and the fabric hoard and the paper collection, I'm feeling this won't be such a challenge for me. But hopefully it will get me moving on actually making some things.

Alright, that's enough disjointed rambling for today. Back to bed.

Well apparently I'm crazy after all.

Hey folks,

Thanks for all the comments and emails this week, I really appreciate the support. Boy Howdy have I needed it.

[deep breath]

OK, here's the story. Remember how much I hated Dr. I'mnotlooking after my first visit because he kind of alluded to the fact that I might be making up the pain because I was crazy?

Yeah. It got worse.

Dr. I'mnotlooking came to see me just as I was waking up from the anesthesia, when I was still in that point where I could hear what was going on but I couldn't move or speak or open my eyes. And this is how he welcomes me back, "Good news Tresa! We didn't find any endo, you are clean as a whistle."

GOOD NEWS?? GOOD FREAKING NEWS???

He ran off and I start bawling. I wasn't awake enough to speak, but my tear ducts worked just fine. My sweet nurse Jill was trying to find out what was wrong and I slowly slurred out an explanation that this was most certainly not good news.

If they found absolutely no endo, then that means they removed no endo. Which means all my pain and all my symptoms are staying with me. With no end in sight. This also makes me look like a psycho hypochondriac and Dr. I'mnotlooking think that he was right all along. And since I've had to beg and plead for every prescription and treatment I've gotten so far, now it's going to be nearly impossible for him to take my pain seriously. And of course, no end in sight.

Then I started doubting myself. Maybe it was all in my head. Maybe after my first diagnosis and initial lap I just convinced myself I was hurting because I felt like it was supposed to. Maybe I'm nuts. Maybe I need attention. Maybe I don't want to get a real job so I made something up. Maybe Bear would be mad at me for everything I made him do for me - bathing and fetching and supporting my lazy butt - all for nothing.

I was pretty much inconsolable.

Once I was a little more coherent I asked sweet nurse Jill to get Dr. I'mnotlooking so I could talk to him again. Maybe in my drug induced state I misheard him. Maybe he said that I was clean as a whistle, NOW.

When he finally came back he repeated everything just as I thought I heard it the first time. I asked him what other options there might be to explain this much pain. He said, "Well, I can't really answer that. I think you need to find yourself a good psychiatrist."

Then I asked him if we could still continue with a treatment of Lupron as we planned and he said, "I suppose so, I think Lupron is pretty safe and probably won't hurt you to take it even if nothing's there." And then he got out of there as fast as he could.

For those of you unfamiliar with how endometriosis works, or women's health in general, let me tell you why his behavior was unbelievably craptacular, to the point that, in my opinion, he has no business practicing women's medicine.

1)Quite frequently, endometrial adhesions are too small to see with the naked eye. This is why they like to follow up surgery with a drug treatment. The Lupron should dry up anything that is invisible. So not seeing anything, ESPECIALLY after a previous diagnosis, doesn't automatically rule anything out. The really crappy thing is that Dr. I'mnotlooking himself explained this in our last visit.

2)Endometiral adhesions are chameleons. And many doctors just don't recognize what they're looking at. In some cases endo has been found on the skin, on the lungs, on the spine. Sometimes they're bright purple, sometimes they're bright red, and sometimes they're the same color as the organ it's on. A hunt for endo can't exactly be completed in half an hour, as Dr. I'mnotlooking tried to do.

3)The symptoms one woman experiences with endo are going to be entirely different from the symptoms another woman experiences, and those symptoms are not at all linked to the degree of their disease. It's just like having babies. Some women can crank out a 10 pounder unmedicated, and others climb the walls with a 5 pound baby. Everyone tolerates pain differently, our immune systems are all different, the disease effects us all differently.

4)Doctor's know next to nothing about this disease. They can't even agree on what causes it much less a treatment or understanding of how it works. The experts who research this for a living admit that everything is up in the air about this and whatever a woman says she's feeling, that's how endo works.

5)Doctor's know very little about women's health in general because until very recently there was no urgency to study it. There weren't many women doctors or female politicians pushing for attention, and it was too convenient to pat a woman on the head and chock it up to "hysteria". Notice how similar the words hysterectomy and hysteria are? There's a reason for that.

While chronic illness and infertility is extremely stressful and I have no doubt a psychologist would help me, it's CERTAINLY not going to replace proper medical treatment, which is exactly what Dr. I'mnotlooking is suggesting. He's implying that I'm crazy and have no medical reason to feel what I'm feeling and that just could not be more wrong. I do believe in a mind body connection and I'm sure he's seen this before. It's apparently very common in victims of rape and incest. But considering that he's never once asked me a question about my history, he has no business suggesting this. Telling me this pain is in my head should be an absolute last resort, not something brought up on our first visit and certainly not just as I'm waking up from surgery. It's terribly sad when the patient is more educated about her disease than her own doctor is.

My post-op is scheduled for tomorrow and I have no idea what to say to him. Part of me wants to chew him right the hell out and get a new doctor. Another part of me thinks that he's not going to listen anyway, so I might as well save my breath and just do what needs to be done to get the Lupron prescription. Starting over with a new doctor at this point could be even more suspicious and who knows how long I'll be living in pain before someone else will take me seriously. I don't know. But whatever I decide to do now, you better believe that once I've got what I need I'll be writing his superiors.

update

Hey everyone this is Bear. Tresa is doing well. There were a couple of snags that she will tell you all about, but for the most part, she is going to be fine. This is just another step in a long trip to parenthood. Until then, my punk rock girl and I will be traveling around the world and eating fudge banana swirls. Late.

T minus three days and counting

Dudes. My surgery is on Friday. FRIDAY! How did this happen?

Ever since I got my date I've been in hyper-list-making mode. Lists for the grocery store, lists for projects around the house I want to finish before the legions of people start traipsing through, lists of things to clean and craft projects to prep and supplies to buy and comfort foods to make and errands to run.

I've been scrubbing my house like we're putting it up for sale. I'm normally extremely anal about house cleaning (Wha? Me? Anal?), in fact, that's the only thing Bear and I ever fight about, but being disabled due to chronic pelvic pain makes you reexamine your priorites a little bit and I decided that I could stop scrubbing my baseboards with a toothbrush every week, at least until I was healthy.

One of the few good habits I got from my mom is never leaving for vacation without a sparkling clean house. That way you won't come back to any nasty surprises like moldy laundry or gross smells, but more importantly when your back and needing a vacation from your vacation, the last thing you need is a mountain of dishes also needing your attention. A clean house is relaxing.

So in that spirit I'm back down on my hands and knees ignoring the pain in my back and the dizziness in my head and scrubbing for all I'm worth. For at least the next week I'll be stuck in my bed aching from head to toe. The last thing I need is a view of dustbunnies in every corner of the house.

On the recovery front, I'm anticipating a week in bed. I know that's not what the doctor's necessarily suggest, but the doctors don't have to relearn every function of their abdominal muscles including pooing. The last time I had a lap the doctor operated on a Thursday so I could be back to work on Monday. Shyeah. That was a bad idea. Every time I bent down to get a file, every time I opened a file drawer, every time I moved as I sat straight up in my office chair with ergonomic back support, my guts screamed at me that I was killing them. At about noon I finally gave in and told my boss I was going home. And then I repeated that scenario every single day that week. I kept thinking that one of those days I'd get better, and yet every day I'd try to lift a box or cough too hard and run home crying.

So this time, my butt is not moving from the bed until at the very least Wednesday, but I'm not doing one dang thing until next Saturday. Mark my words.

Also, I asked Dr. I'mnotlooking about my chances of having a laparotomy instead of a laparoscopy. Since I was diagnosed with Stage III endo at the ripe old age of 23 (it only goes up to IV, and that's hysterectomy time), and then went on to try to get pregnant for the next few years which meant no birth control pills which meant the endo was growing largely unchecked for four years and was a record breakingly aggressive case, I'm guessing that he's going to take one look inside me and shudder. The difference between the two surgeries is that the laparoscopy that I'm having on Friday consists of two small insicions and it's all done with a camera and a cauterizing wire. The laparotomy is where they slice right through my abdomen, open me up, shuffle me around, remove some organs, clean them off, and then try to put everything back where they found it. For some reason Dr. I'mnotlooking won't do a laparotomy on Friday no matter what he finds. If he determines I need the more aggressive surgery, then he'll close me up, send me home with all the same pain and symptoms I've got now plus the pain of the surgery, and then reschedule me for another day.

As truly crappy as it would be to have to go through this surgery only to go through it again and worse a few weeks later, I'm almost hoping that's how it turns out. At least if they completely open me up I'll know that they're being thorough. No chance a whole mess of endo will be hiding on the back of my stomach or near my spine waiting to screw me over. And since I'm looking at coughing up 10K for a baby, I don't want to take any chances that this stupid disease could foul that up.

I probably won't post again before the surgery, too much stuff to clean after all, but I'll have Bear post afterwards to tell the Internet I'm still alive and kicking.

Why do you always get sick on vacation?

After the past couple of crazy weeks, I finally have a few days off in a row to rest, take care of myself, and pursue my own endeavors. So what happens the first day? Sore throat. Wicked bad sore throat. The kind where if I'm not constantly swallowing and eating ice cream and downing liquids then it just might close up and I might die. It hurts a little bit.

One of my two spoiled rotten cats is sick too. Cheetara's been sniffling, she has a weepy eye, and I can hear her wheezing. She's normally my cuddler. She's the one I call my teddy bear because she wants to sleep in my arms every night. And if my arms are busy with a book or with Bear, then she'll back her little fuzzy body up into mine and spoon me. But now that she's not feeling well, the cuddle factor has been upped dramatically. Whenever she goes into heat it's the same routine. She just wants to be held and wants me to make her feel better. Which I understand because currently? I just want to be held and want Bear to make me feel better. So Cheetara and I are making do with each other. She sneezes and I cough and we both snuggle down under the blanket with a heating pad - me underneath it and Cheetara balancing on top.

In other news - Dr. I'mnotlooking's office called me a few days ago to schedule my surgery and a few appointments before that. I got out my calendar and flipped immediately to the back. I was just grateful I wouldn't be shunted around from department to department and doctor to doctor like I was last time. The last time I had this surgery, I also had to wait about six months to get in, which I was expecting to have to wait again.

Imagine my surprise when I got my lap date and it turned out to be - March 10th. That's three weeks away. THREE WEEKS!! THREE WEEKS AND I'LL BE HEALED!! The doctor's office called back a few days later to reschedule and I nearly flipped. "Oh, no," I thought, "I don't care if someone made a mistake. You gave me this day and I'M KEEPING THIS DAY!" But they only meant to bump me back 45 minutes. Which is actually even better for me because then I get 45 more minutes of sleep. Although, who am I kidding. Like I'll be sleeping the night before.

So now that this timeline is so rushed, it's forcing all our other timelines to compress. Now we have to buy a new car so I can go out and get a job. Barf. A JOB. Sigh. The money would be really nice, and it will probably be good that I'll occasionally be leaving the house, but I've grown to really like it at home. I like getting up when I can and writing and creating and being a homemaker and going to sleep when I'm tired instead of when I should.

But, I also like the idea of owning my own house and having a baby, so it's back to work for me. Hopefully I'll be able to find something around here that makes it worth it.

I’m being well taken care of after all, just not by my doctor

This past week has been quite an emotional roller coaster. I’ve been sobbing and panicking and in tremendous pain, but I’ve also been supported and loved on all sides.

This happened to be the busiest week I’ve had in months, probably years, as every single day was filled with at least one if not two or three activities I had to show up for. For everyone who regularly goes to work an eight hour day and then comes home to deal with dinner and cleaning and running kids around and maybe an activity or two of their own, three measly things to do is quite laughable, I’m well aware. But for me, having one thing to do in a day is a busy day. As I write this I’m expecting my reading student to come over any time now and just an hour of reading with a delightful 10 yr old boy is stressful to me right now because it keeps me out of my pajamas and out of my bed.

Midway through my busiest week on record, I have the legendary Doctor’s appointment from hell. OK, not hell. Unpleasantville. And I have to spend the rest of the week on ALEVE instead of my normal much more hardcore drugs, which of course doesn’t work, so I’m writhing around largely unmedicated and in utter agony. In that condition, I obviously had to cancel the rest of my obligations for the week so that my friends and associates don’t have to see me turn possessed.

When my closest family members and the doctors that are supposed to be treating me continually show such a profound lack of understanding or compassion about my disease, it always shocks me to no end when I find it somewhere else. And this week I found it all over the place, just no where near where I was initially looking.

A friend from church not only took me to the doctors and waited for me with her two young kids in tow, but after she found out about how badly I was suffering, she brought me a pound of See’s chocolates and called to give the sweetest and best “cheer-up, you’re doing great!” speech ever. Another friend from church dropped by to check on me and gave me a kindhearted lecture that he shouldn’t have to hear about my setbacks from other friends. I should go straight to him so he could help! People were calling constantly to check up and offer to bring me popsicles or fetch prescriptions or to tell me that they loved me. Our Canadian friends took a break from their frantic packing schedule (they left for a cruise first thing the next morning) to call me once and then visit me later just to lend moral support. And then once I was finally able to get some medicine on board and feel well enough to leave the house and go to church, there was such a rousing chorus of “Hooray! Tresa made it to church today! We’re so happy to have her here!” that I felt deeply loved from head to toe.


Discovering how many people care about you and learning of the kindness in humanity, it almost makes all this garbage worth it. Well, at least bearable.

Panic attacks tend to be counter-productive

What with Dr. I’mnotlooking’s decision to give me no pain killers that I couldn’t just go out and get on my own without the office visit and dealing with the leftover lube they toss all around my lower extremities, I’ve been crying pretty much non stop since I left his office.

Not because he hurt my feelings beyond repair. We unfortunately live in an area rife with drug abusers and the training he has on what to watch out for sounds exactly like a real person in real pain. That’s why addicts are known to be such good manipulators and liars. I still say that you should not let your fear of abuse prevent you from treating your patients, but hey, what do I know about what his bosses are harping down on him about?

Mainly I’ve been sobbing my fool head off because I am freaked the freak right the freak out that I’ve going to have to experience every moment of every painful twinge and cramp and ache and just suffer with no relief in sight. And the amount of pain that is staring me in the face? IS TERRIFYING.

I imagine this is how expectant mothers feel about their impending labor. They’ve been pumped full of birth horror stories since they started ovulating, they don’t know when it’s going to start, but they know that it will start and that when it does the pain will be great enough to turn a beautiful loving mother into an irrational snarling she-beast bent upon revenge and destruction.

I just also have the added privilege of knowing precisely how bad this pain could get. Considering that I have vomited from the pain when I have been fully medicated, considering that while on drugs too strong for a doctor to feel comfortable dispensing to a highly coherent patient in obvious pain I had pain so great I literally, LITERALLY as in “in the literal sense”, could not breath and my heart started fluttering, considering that while on Vicodin I’ve sweated and snarled and crawled and grabbed and writhed with the best of them....

Well, there just aren’t words to describe the joyous sense of anticipation that fills my days.

I’ve been on the phone all day and night calling for medical records, calling former doctors and asking them to intervene, crying to family and friends in the medical field and asking their advice, and I think we’ve worked out a pretty good battle plan. I’m going to fill that damn Naproxyn prescription (although the pharmacist will probably just point me to Aisle 8, 2nd shelf from the top), I’m going to take it and the second I start to feel pain, I’m calling his office. If that doesn’t work I’ll go to urgent care and make him look bad in front of the emergency room doctors who will sure as hell know what Ultram is, and if that doesn’t fix it I’ll go to my family practice doctor with my medical records and demand some damn pain treatment.

Today my greatest battle is just staying calm. As any stupid person can tell you, the first thing you’re supposed to do in situations like this is....say it with me if you know the words....”JUST RELAX.” But that’s kind of impossible to do knowing what I know. It’s like trying to take nice deep breaths while you see a grizzly bear barreling towards you. But more stress is the absolute last thing I need to get through this. Besides an uncaring doctor, but that’s implied, right?

Any spelling mistakes are the fault of these stupid tears.

Finally.

FINALLY.

5 years since my last operation, and 2 years since we expected coverage, our health insurance kicked in. I just got back from my first visit with my new Gyno. And I'm BAWLING MY FOOL HEAD OFF and sitting in my jammies and canceling all my plans for the day because I plan on laying on the couch in the fetal position with one or both cats and watching cheesy cheesy guilty pleasure movies like "Don't Tell Her It's Me" while I sob into their fur.

It's really not anywhere near as bad as I'm making it. But my feelings were hurt in one area, and instead of being so excited about the progress I'm making and all the nice people I met who were so good at their jobs and so willing to help me, I'm licking my wounds and panicking about the pain I see coming my way.

First of all, our provider is Kaiser which brings it's own little set of trials and blessings. I had them when we lived in the O.C. and they were responsible for my last lap. Their best quality is that they are so stinking cheap for copays and deductibles. My $48,000 surgery cost me 15 bucks. Their staff is awesome and capable and so sweet, they cover everything I've ever needed including 3 tries at IUI (which they advised me not to bother with since I am a Hopeless Case), and they believe in well-patient treatments so they're awesome with pediatrics and they offer all kinds of free clinics and education and alternative treatments.

But, if you are unique in any way, you are on your own. To be in the Kaiser system you will take the treatment they give you and you will be grateful and you will NOT DEVIATE FROM THE REGIMINE! No, they will not treat your endo with surgery until after you have taken every single freaking infertility class they offer. No matter how bad your pain is or how obvious your symptoms are they will not treat your endo with surgery until after your partners sperm count is measured on three seperate occasions and until after you have had an HSG (regardless of the fact that they'll just do another HSG during the lap) and there are four separate appointments to accomplish each measly step and you will take the appointment they give you and be grateful, even if that means you have to wait a month to see some nurse practioner who will only prescribe you an antibiotic so you can take that before your HSG appointment which can't be scheduled for another month. In short, RED TAPE HELL.

So I was a little hesitant to go back to them. But once Bear did the math, which is just about his favorite thing, we realized that with as often as we planned on using our coverage, the smart money was on beautiful no-deductible Kaiser.

Last week I took a deep breath and dove back into the Red Tape Fest. In Kaiser land they won't even look at you without a medical record number. They can't do anything without it. Not book an appointment, not a visit, not a hello. It took me about four hours lost in phone menus and web pages, but I finally found a delightful woman (I tell you, their staff is legendarily awesome) who couldn't have been better and got me an appointment the day after my insurance kicked in. Hooray! I thought to myself.

Of course, even four hours of searching is way too smooth. I should've known there would be a snag. I show up to my appointment today and they type my number into the computer, and there's nothing there. So I go to the Member Services office where the best lady ever tried to help me for 30 minutes and we got no where. So on the sly she handed me a temp card and send that if I couldn't get it straightened out right away I'd have to pay for the appointment myself. I could've kissed her. I'd still have to deal with corporate offices and more dreaded red tape, but at least I got to keep my precious appointment.

So once that's all fixed I met with the doc. We'll call him Dr. I'mnotlooking since he wouldn't look at my breasts during the examination, for my comfort I'm sure, and then he had a weird habit of talking with his eyes closed for extended periods of time. In poker they'd call it hooding - like an extended blink with the eyebrows raised like the eyelids were going to flip up at any moment like windowshades in an old Tom and Jerry cartoon.

He was very sweet, made sure I was comfortable at all times, switched to a smaller speculum when I was in too much pain, and agreed to put me on his surgery schedule (Hallelujah!!) but he also did something that REALLY horked me off.

I'm getting ahead of myself. First of all you have to understand, I live in Modesto. If you've heard of Modesto it can only be one of two things: notable criminal cases, or the raging meth problem. In fact, we very proudly hold the title of largest Meth producer. Salt Lake City tries to keep up, but we've got them beat cold. If you were a doctor in Modesto, I can only imagine that you'd see A LOT of addicts. And if Oprah's programming schedule is any indication, a lot of those addicts aren't so scary street person looking anymore. They look like any other suburban anybody. Maybe even like me.

So in walks this well-dressed, educated woman, who he's never spoken to or seen before, complaining of constant excruciating pain, claiming to have a history of endo but with no real proof and it was probably the case that the last three patients he saw were asking for heavy narcotics. My chart lists that I occasionally take Vicodin (extremely occasionally - that crap is EXPENSIVE) but usually Ultram/Tramadol, which HE'S NEVER EVEN HEARD OF, and then I ask for a prescription for the pain.

He didn't exactly call me a pill-seeker, but he didn't exactly not either, it's more like he just expressed a distaste for prescribing narcotics especially since we haven't had time to get into the "social, chemical, or psychological factors that cause chronic pelvic pain" or in other words since he didn't have the time to talk to me and make SURE I wasn't a pill-seeker. He actually had the balls, after I cried and hyperventilated my way through the pelvic exam because it hurt too much when he inserted THE SWAB!! to ask if I could get by on 800mg of motrin. Which is FOUR FREAKING ADVIL! Of course not! 5 years ago I had Stage III endo and it's been growing largely unchecked since then. I've been disabled for two years with pain. If FOUR FREAKING ADVIL would ease the pain then would you call that disabled? So he writes a prescription for Naproxyn and I say OK because I've never had that before and if I had just said that Motrin wouldn't cover it, then he wouldn't really try and push another OTC on me, would he?

So guess what Naproxyn turns out to be.


FREAKING ALEVE!!!!!! AAALLLLEEEEEEEEVVVVVEEEEE. Oh thank you wise doctor. You know in all the years I've been clutching my guts and praying for death, In all the times I've been in the pharmacy reading the back of every freaking bottle hoping that something would at least let me sleep through the pain that night, never once have I looked slightly to my left to find my salvation waiting there for me right on the shelf. Why didn't anyone tell me these things were READILY AVAILIABLE. It's a good thing you went to med school and got all that training so you can tell me EXACTLY THE SAME THING THE COMMERCIALS TELL ME!

You'd think that an OBGYN, who does nothing but deal with women's health day in and day out would be a little more compassionate to the pain management needs of a patient. Granted I just walked off the street, but what in the hell does a girl need to do, suffer in agonizing pain for two months so he can get to know me before he gives me the drugs that will help me survive?

The thing that really pisses me off is that I never asked for Vicodin. I hate taking Vicodin. When I'm on that stuff, I can't do anything. I can't talk, I can't read, I can't knit. I can lay on the couch or sleep. That's it. Who would really want that for their entire life? Besides an addict, obviously. I was asking for Ultram, which is a few steps down from Vicodin, but HE'D NEVER HEARD OF IT. I asked for anything between OTC and Narcotic and he couldn't come up with a thing.

Bear suggested having my prescribing doctor, my father-in-law, email the doc and explain my past treatment and act as character witness, and possibly introduce him to Ultram. I was also thinking of emailing him myself and telling him that if he'd told me he was giving me a prescription for ALEVE I could have saved him the trouble and explained that I've already tried it and it does nothing for me, can I please have a real drug since you are the DOCTOR and are supposed TO HELP ME.

I might have to try revising it a few times to get the bitterness out.

Who knew there was a diplomatic way to tell someone they're crazy...

Dear Anonymous Comment Leaver who suggests I'm bi-polar,

First of all, let me just say that you managed to come off as a very very sweet and caring person despite the grenade you were handling. I have no doubt that you meant absolutely no offense and found yourself in the tricky position of, "someone should say something, but how do you possibly say something?" On that front you did extremely well. Good work for your diplomacy and thank you for your concern.

I'm not at all offended by your suggestion, but it does make me stop and think about what I've been writing that might paint that picture to someone who doesn't know me.

I too have many people close to me that suffer from one mental illness or another, so I'm all too aware of what these diseases look like up close, so I can say with confidence that I do not need medical intervention.

What I need is a cure for endometriosis.

Bear is in the same unfortunate position. I look and sound pretty close to normal, and so there is no way to truly see how this disease has ravaged me. I'm always trying to give him context clues. "See, you can tell I'm really hurting today because I couldn't tie my signature ornate bows on the Christmas presents." "You can tell today is a bad pain day because there is laundry strewn from one end of the house to the other and just for today I don't care."

What could easily be mistaken for cycles of depression and mania, are almost always tied to my menstrual cycles. I'm ordinarily a manic person. I'm Type A and driven and totally OCD. I cannot sit still EVER. This is not mania, this is me. Everyone who knows me knows I put Martha to shame. I cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner, make a homemade centerpiece out of treebranches, and sew all the table linens myself. When I teach Sunday School I not only teach the lesson but I make intricate handouts for 15 people that consist of handmade jewelry or personally bound books. I'm crazy, absolutely, but my problem is OCD, not bi-polar.

But there are days, many many days, when I am just not capable of my normal obsessive behavior. You're right, there are many days I can't lift my head off the pillow, but that's because it's weighed down with a migraine and my cramps are causing me so much pain that I vomit every few hours. That's when the cramps pull so hard on my internal organs that I alternate between constipation that makes me bleed and diarrhea. When the pain radiates through my legs and into my chest so that I can't walk or breath. When I can't eat or avoid the bathroom for more than an hour at a time because of the pressure the endometrial lesions put on my stomach and bladder.

But I never write about any of that stuff. So how could you know? I purposefully avoid writing about it, and maybe I shouldn't. Dooce seems to have done pretty well with the whole constipation angle, maybe I should rethink. I've avoided writing about all that for a few reasons. Mainly because I didn't think anyone would want to read about it. What is more self-absorbed than a blog? A blog about your non-lethal health problems. But I also didn't want to write about all this because I wanted this blog to be about my life, not my illness and I'm just flat in denial about how drastically my life has changed because of this illness.

I never intended to write an infertility blog or an endo blog, I just wanted to write because I wanted to write. Because I want to write books and I'm scared stupid so this seemed much more approachable and bite-sized. I see now that the problem with this approach is the same problem I had with my middle school diary. I only write when I feel like writing which is usually when I've got some emotions to work out. So it doesn't paint a very accurate picture of me. If you look at how long I've had this blog and how many entries there are, it's apparent that there is a lot of between the lines that I've been leaving out. I'm going to have to work on that.

There are many days when I am depressed. Absolutely. But I work hard to keep myself honest about that because of the experiences of my loved ones with the disease. I'm constantly asking myself, "how many days in a row have I been more unhappy than happy?" "Am I depressed about unreasonable things?" and the answer is no. I'm doing great, considering. I'm happy, I smile all the time, I've never stayed in bed due to depression, when I am upset, I'm upset about something specific. I'm sad because I didn't have the strength to scavenge for tree branches today, or because my cramps hurt too much to sit at the sewing machine, and therefore my manic productive self will have to accept the fact that I'm just flat out not as capable as I used to be. And that is depressing. Unbelievably depressing. Focusing on my future in this disease is depressing. But then my menstrual cycle marches on and my hormones allow me a productive day, and I get through it.

Truly, thank you for your concern for a total stranger that you would first of all read my entire blog, and then take the time to write out such an eloquent and thoughtful comment. I truly hope you'll come back and let me get to know you without the Anonymous label now that you know I won't totally bite your head off and throw you to the ground.

What I did on my blog vacation

I haven't blogged in nearly a month! Shoot!

When you work from home, or in my case, when you used to work from home and now you are disabled from home, you lose all concept of time.

I never write checks anymore, when I do have to buy something on my own I always use the debit card and then balance in my online banking account.

I don't go to school where I'm forced to write the date on top of every assignment. And unlike my Bear, I'm not constantly filling in medical charts that require everything to be dated for legal reasons.

In short, I am never aware of where the time goes. I live in the now. The now that consists of making sure that my pain is managed so I can breath, I'm not overlapping my pills so I don't vomit all over the place when I have company over for dinner (more on that later), I keep my Bear in clean socks and underwear, and I take meat out for dinner. Those are my responsibilities right now. That's it. And that's more than enough for me.

I've taken to creating enormous and complicated To Do lists. I've always been a list maker, it helps to keep me feeling in control. And since I'm normally the most productive person on earth, at least when I'm healthy, they're usually quite necessary. Now my To Do lists list every single activity I might spend time on in a day. "Eat Lunch" is usually on the top of the list. "Return emails" is another favorite. When I was healthy, those were two things that I wouldn't have even considered before, but now they're something I can actually manage once or twice a week, so they make the list so I can have the satisfaction of crossing them off.

I actually had a couple of rrrrealllllly good weeks, so that made my lists more ambitious. One of my favorite things to do on earth is fuss over my house. I already have blueprints in my mind of the house we want to build someday, and even in our junky apartment, I'm always thinking of changes I want to make, furniture I want to build, solutions to little home problems that keep OCD me awake at night.

Our Canadian friends had some family coming into town, so about a month ago, Canadian girl asked if I'd help give her some ideas about what to do with her place. I barge in with my palm pilot and my tape measure, and grill them about their personal style, their taste, their budget, their goals. I came up with some ideas, and we set about making them happen. I thoroughly took over, bossed them around, and made all the decisions. It was so much fun! Bear just kept following behind me, skaking his head and casting apologetic looks at Canadian boy. Something along the lines of, "Dude, I'm sorry. You had no idea what you were getting yourself into."

There have been loads of changes I've been wanting to make to our place, but with no concept of time and no deadlines whatsoever, there's been absolutely zero incentive for me to leave my bed and sit at the sewing machine. Until Canadian sister came to town. I'm so fussy about my house, that even when a total stranger comes over, I want it to be all perfect. So I made curtains and a valance (which I've always hated but this one is freaking awesome because the fabric is all mod and gorgeous) and replaced my copper silk dupioni bedspread that got shredded with a plum faux silk dupioni that can actually go right in the washing machine. And with two cats and a very sweaty man, that is a super big plus.

We also have this gorgeous antique dining room table with vintage 50's dining chairs in peach and chrome, but the table was mounted on these tiny wobbly legs held together with ancient stripped bolts, so everytime I put the bowl of broccoli on the table I was taking a chance that the whole thing would come crashing down. I've looked and looked for decent table legs and was just about to drop $100 on silver pipe to McGyver something together, when I ventured into IKEA and found they were selling the perfect table legs for $20! The only problem is that the old legs mounted on the outside of the apron, and the new legs mounted on the inside, so I was left with big gaps at the corners where the legs used to go.

But the spirit of McGyver was still strong in me, so I used it as an opportunity to bring some more color in the room. I got some plaster of paris, dyed it that bright apple green that's so popular right now, made some molds out of a cereal box, and cast plaster bricks that I could mount on a bolt and screw right in place. They look fantastic. And then I used the left over plaster to mold some apples which I buffed up with wax, and now those sit on top of the table as a centerpiece. I'm so freaking proud of myself.

I still want to make curtains for the dining room, bedroom and possibly my studio, get a picture of apples and put it on canvas, and build some ottomans that I can use as storage and cover in brown ultrasuede for the living room. But now that Christmas is around the corner, that will all have to wait. Now I have stockings to make.

Morning of the Living Dead

Would you believe that I have not been to bed yet? It's 10 in the morning, and I'm just now starting to think about tucking myself in.

I've never been a good sleeper. I remember being as young as 5 and sleeping in until noon in the summertime, and staying up late enough to watch Saturday Night Live. There has never been a morning in my entire life when I've woken up and said, "I feel rested. Let's get up and greet the day!" My mornings usually sound more like, "What is that bright stuff and why won't it leave me alone?"

I've honed my morning procedure into an exact science, eliminating all the extraneous time-wasters like breakfast and hair-brushing and I've spent years carefully crafting a wardrobe that allows me to pick clothes for the day in less than 2 seconds, and not end up looking like a slob. Aside from the unbrushed hair. All this in an effort to milk those precious extra seconds of sleep.

Since my endo started taking over my life, my sleep has gotten even worse. I regularly sleep for 14 hour stretches, which then bleeds into the next day, forcing me to stay up even later than the night before because even I can't fall back asleep 6 hours after a 14 hour marathon nap, until eventually my days just completely overlap.

Like last night.

Bear wanted to go out to eat since we had gift certificates and he had a crappy day, so I rolled over and went back to sleep to get as much rest as I could. Meanwhile, Bear puts in an entire 8 hour day, then comes home to find me yawning and wiping the sleep out of my eyes. I slept in until 4:30 in the AFTERNOON!

Part of the problem is my magical magnet mattress. When we first got it I remember trying to drag myself out of bed and physically not being able to. Like I had way too much iron in my blood and I was stuck to the magnets myself. The salesman told me that extra sleep was a common side effect, along with vivid dreams (Hoo Boy is that ever true. Be grateful I spare you.). Apparently the magnets increase your REM sleep, which is when you dream, and they increase the amount of sleep you get in general until your body heals itself.

Excellent, if it weren't for the fact that I'd have to be Rip Van Winkle to get enough sleep for My body to heal itself.

I should really stop complaining though, because before this pad came along I couldn't sleep at all. I'll take too much sleep over too little any day.

What's good for the goose

Bear just got back from a hiking trip with all the teenage boys from church, and I think he's broken. They hiked half-dome in Yosemete, which is apparently a legendarily gut-busting hike, and Bear's only been hiking maybe one other time in his life.

Not to mention the fact that he weighs about 250 lbs, and that's a heck of a lot of weight to carry around no matter what kind of physical shape you're in. All the skinny guys, including Boy Canadian, were doing great! Chugging along, jumping up the rocks, making it with no problems whatsoever. Meanwhile Bear and another former college athlete who still weighs over 200 lbs were dying the whole way up.

It reminded me of the Pro Wrestlers who went on Amazing Race thinking they were so tough they were going to kill everyone, and instead got their butts handed to them because they couldn't carry all that muscle around on the marathon that race always turns out to be.

So poor Bear can barely walk, and the exertion combined with mild dehydration apparently made him susceptible to a virus, so he's now shivering and has a fever and so far he's sweated through three sets of pajamas. He's completely helpless.

And here's where my problem comes in. It's *my* job to be the helpless one around here, what's the big idea? I had to make my own dinner and his, I had to do all my work for church tomorrow by myself, AND, I even had to leave the house on my own to drive all around town looking for printer ink.

It's days like this that I finally realize just how badly this disease has destroyed me. Bear is so good at taking care of me that my needs are all met and I'm OK. But when he's incapacitated? I'm screwed. Eating and getting printer ink, two stupid things that I wouldn't have even bothered to put on a to-do list before, now become insurmountable tasks that take every ounce of willpower available to my poor beleaguered body.

I really wish that my body would cooperate on those days that Bear needs a sick day, but the pain continues unabated, and I have no other option but to suck it up and find a way to deal.

only five months more of hell....

Now that Bear's landed this new sweet gig, we're finding out all the fine details and making all the appropriate plans. What will his hours be? How long will the commute be? Do we need a second car now? How fast can I spend all this new money?

And of course, the thing I've been waiting for for three years now....Health Benefits.

Unlike the company Bear currently works for, which gives their executives insurance starting day 1, this company makes you wait 90 days. Which is pretty standard, I realize, but with the start date still two months away, that means that I have 120 days left to be disabled.

The relief of the new job didn't last very long, now to be replaced with the ungrateful depressed funk.

We were hanging out with our Canadian friends today for the holiday, and girl Canadian, who I love because she's so cute and sensitive and can't say the "Bitch" word, but will talk about her hymen without batting an eyelash, was asking about our IVF plans.

When a job was still some speculative obtuse thing, we planned on doing IVF in a year. Thanks to Bears grandma, we've got the money saved up. So now we just need health insurance to get my endo treated, and to properly take care of the child should I get knocked up according to plan.

But as I was reviewing the timeline now that I have an actual start date, I realized something pretty petty and stupid in the grand scheme of things that actually really bothers me.

Mormons as a community are really tight. And we say that anywhere in the world you go you'll have a family if you have a ward (which is like a congregation). We even refer to our congregation as "our ward family" to emphasize the unity we have together. My current ward really does feel like a family. They all know me and love me and know my history and are pulling for me. Just Friday night I met a woman who knew of me and she immediately started telling me all about her fertility history to give me hope and let me know she was with me.

When my kid finally gets around to coming, it's this environment I want to bring it into. Of course I'll need the help and support, but more importantly, I want to be surrounded by people who recognize the miracle.

According to our current timeline there's no way I could get insurance, get a surgery, recover, go through all the IVF rigamarole, get pregnant, stay pregnant, for 9 whole months, and give birth, all before Bear's training is complete and we're shipped off somewhere else.

When I realized this, I burst into tears. I'm sure that wherever we're sent I'll find new people to bond with and who will support me, but this just struck me as yet another disappointment an an epic series of disappointments, reminding me that I can have NOTHING the way I envision it.