Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (U.S.)

As Google reminds everyone, today (January 19, 2015) is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  I am not even going to try to write a way that Martin Luther King, Jr. relates to endometriosis, but today is the day our nation sets aside to honor the Civil Rights Leader and I usually find myself wondering what would be different if he had not been killed.  His words, along with his spirit, were powerful. 

So, for those who may not have done so recently, take a moment and read the full text of his most Famous speech.  If you have not heard it given by him, I would suggest clicking the link and listening to his own words in his own voice because I'm sure it a voice more powerful than most of the population's.  It should go without saying (though I will now say it) that I did not write or contribute to the following in any way.

Where I've Been

I know some people are wondering why I haven't been writing more since my mother has been feeling better and things are starting to calm down.  It is simple.  In order to get me feeling better (I was feeling BAD by June/July), my doctor added a prescription that I had taken prior to my surgery.  It has helped my body "calm down" but I have always hated taken it because I feel constantly drowsy and I also feel like it slows down my cognition when taken during the day time.  It has only been very recently that I haven't felt like I need to continue taking it during the day.  Hopefully I can now begin to wean off of this medication and slowly get my energy back.  BUT... (and this is a big but!) I am feeling pretty grateful to be able to worry about my energy level again finally and not feeling the amount of pain I had been constantly feeling.  Honestly, I just have been feeling bad since January and trying to "get by" rather than improve and live and smile.  At one point I realized it had been a long time since I last smiled and that's pretty depressing.  It is a little thing, but I am SO looking forward to going to the gym with much more consistency this month (my one goal for the next month) because I feel great when that is something I can do!  There have been a lot of negative things going on and now the absence of negative things feels pretty positive!  I will take what I can get.  

5/29/14

Not having a great day, so I'm disinclined to write anything, but I realize the bad days are important to document.  I am having worse pelvic pain today but again, I didn't use a valium suppository last night.  I see the correlation, it happened last time I tried to go without for a night during a stressful period.  This time it was not by choice though.  I ordered my prescription but didn't even think for a second about Memorial Day weekend, so that was two days that mail wasn't moving.  So I don't have the valium suppositories but they should arrive any day now.  It takes about a week and I ordered them last week so hopefully they will be here in the next day or so.  It's a bit disheartening, which I think I said last time, that I feel so much worse by not taking one medication.  The pain is so drastically different when I don't use the valium.  And I don't mind that at all, but I would be more comfortable if it took more than just one night to feel so different.  I woke up ready to jump in the shower and then the pain hit and I took my regular pain meds but an hour later I'm not feeling much of a difference so I may need to take more and hope I don't get overly drowsy.  Then maybe I can at least shower.  For right now, I'm just watching tv I don't care about and looking at a bunch of different things online to distract myself.  I don't like bad days but they do remind me of how far I have come that now they are pretty infrequent.  I have discomfort still usually but not like this so I'm trying to just not think about it too much; just do what I have to do to make it through to when the valium is delivered and I'm back on schedule.

Doctor's Visit (May 2014)

I went in for my doctor's appointment today.  Didn't learn anything earth-shattering or life-altering.  Dr. K said that if I am not feeling worse, with everything that is going on, then I am doing well.  She knows I feel discomfort and some bloating.  She reminded me I need to see about an ultrasound or aspiration/biopsy for a node in my right breast.  That showed up on a CT and I'm glad she reminded me because that whole thing must have somehow disappeared from my mind.  I normally follow-up with what I need to but I hadn't even thought about this.  (I could just make an appointment for the same time as my mom and we could hang at the hospital together!)  No change in meds for now, although I am going to go back to the first pharmacy for a month for my Valium suppositories to see if the difference has just been in what I'm doing or in the way the valium was made.  Suppositories are not pills that come out of a bottle, so each pharmacy mixes them up by request, (or basically by prescription) so there may be more of a variance than in just basic pills.  Each order goes to a compounding pharmacy, so I'm going to try the one I did better on for a month now in order to determine if the difference is just me/stress/overdoing it or if it is in the pill.  I will continue to try to do as much as I can without overdoing it.  My back has been killing me since I got home.