Dear Pain,
I feel like I've been pretty tolerant of you throughout the past couple years. I don't yell and scream, or curse your name or ask why you chose me to be your buddy/punching bag. I mean, I've really been downright cordial. I don't think it's asking too much for you to treat me in the same manner as I treat you. I mean, make up your mind! I don't think that is asking too much. Which pain would you like to torture me with? Pick one and stick with it!
After what felt like a very long and annoying time, I was finally able to get my Depo (medroxyprogesterone) shot today. It was a bit of a twilight-zone day for me filled with mistakes by the drugstore (like not putting the prescription I had just paid for in the bag), me having to drive to and from the doctor's office and drugstore twice, and some odd people along the way, but at least it's done. It should have been a frustrating day, I have had more than my fair share of screw-ups by insurance, pharmacies, Medicaid and even PennDOT, but if you know me, it's not really in my nature to do a lot more than just laugh at the stupidity of it all. I mean, what else is there to do? It's a habit that got reinforced in college when my roommate, H, and I used to just laugh at the idiocy that would occasionally surround us. I have had so many bizarre screw-ups after I've done everything correctly at my end that I think I HAVE to last or I would just go crazy. At least for the first time in 15 years, my driver's license has my last name on it correctly. Maybe in another decade other things will get straightened out?
My last post was telling you that I've made steps in a positive direction (yay!) which is HUGE over the past few months. That post was all good news. I don't have bad news to go with it, but I'm afraid too many people are going to read and think that everything is fine now. In case I haven't said it already a thousand times, endometriosis is not curable. I am going to have it. Tomorrow, next year, at least until menopause... I'm going to have it. With that comes decisions about hormones... which I am also going to be on until menopause to keep the endometriosis at bay. And those hormones are not really supposed to be long term solutions. They come with a long list of side effects! Plus the supplements to help my body fight off the endometriosis that I guess my body wants to produce.
There are some words in life that I think encompass too broad a spectrum to be meaningful. Cold... are we talking 40 degrees or -15 degrees. It makes a difference. Love... there are so many different variations and levels and intensities of love that sometimes I think having one word doesn't do all the people we love in different ways justice. PAIN. Pain is not a word I thought a whole lot about before I developed endometriosis symptoms. I'd wager a lot of money that I had a different perception of menstrual cramps/pain than a lot of women, but we don't have any way to convey that accurately. It is also completely subjective so what is painful to one person may not be to another. When I first developed symptoms, the best way for me to describe my pain was to say that it felt like I was having menstrual cramps and pain associated with my period that just never went away. But I realized that that was not enough to explain how badly I was feeling because most people probably don't experience excruciating pain one day a month.
I try to stay positive and think about my goals and about what I can control but sometimes when I think about the setbacks I've had that I have had no control over, it can be overwhelming. I feel like a big cloud of bad luck has been just hovering over me for a few years. I never thought about luck before getting sick. I used to think that a setback would only serve to make me a stronger person in the long run... but when you pile a bunch of them on without giving a bit of relief or showing me SOMETHING good that has come from them, it gets to just be too much. So please don't respond with cute little quotes like "A setback is just a set-up for a comeback." Or "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Just... no.
Since my first surgery, aside from all the daily endometriosis stuff and procedures or things associated with that... my grandmother had a stroke... my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer... I had a kidney stone that led to a bladder infection and UTI... a family friend committed suicide... I got a random infection in my toe... my aunt passed away... and today we found out that my mother has cancer. (And no, the irony of my previous post actually talking about cancer does not escape me).
