Post-Chemo

(the hospital where I spent my day)

(Remember, looking at everything through endometriosis-colored glasses)

I survived my mom's second chemo treatment.  I feel significantly more tired, physically and emotionally drained tonight.  The tired part I would guess has to do with not being able to sleep the night before the chemo (happened to me last time too) and I know I am physically drained just because it was sitting in not the most comfortable chairs for over six hours.  Sitting for long periods of time still doesn't make my body feel good and by the end of the day my back was just in spasms.  No part is looking forward to having to go back to the hospital again, wait around again, so my mom can get a shot to help with her white blood cell production.  That sounds selfish, I'm aware.  I want to help, I want Mom to do everything she can do to be well, but I am just tired and I want to sleep until Friday and avoid hospitals until the next treatment.  I'm also nervous that I will not feel good tomorrow and will have to worry about pain meds and driving Mom, who shouldn't take herself, and then possibly a long wait for the shot, simply because waiting seems to be the norm in hospitals.  Or at least this one.  So I'm hoping I can sleep tonight and tomorrow goes smoothly.  Even driving not far again tomorrow seems impossible in my head right now but I could also wake up and be more rested and not feel too bad.  So I will see what happens and fingers are crossed.

Chemo Day #2

Today is my mom's second chemotherapy treatment.  I will be going with her and it will probably be a long day, although I found that yesterday was more stressful for me.  (Remember, on this blog we are looking at everything through endometriosis-colored glasses).  I do not expect to feel great and I certainly don't enjoy my mother having cancer.  But we're on to the second treatment and I will see how my body reacts to what will be a long day tomorrow.  I have been told that she should not have a worse time with the second treatment than the first, but who knows what will actually happen.  In the meantime, this all tires me out completely and I know she will need help at least for the 3-4 days following the procedure and that is going to be hard on my body but I got my shot, a haircut, and hopefully food in the house because I imagine it's going to be a tiring week.  I may continue to write daily, I may be a bit overwhelmed and write occasionally or I may write next week when the worst is over.  We'll see what happens.  Positive thoughts and best wishes and lots of love can never ever hurt!  (Along with perhaps an IV of coffee...)

Invisible Emotions

In the past 72 hours, I feel like I have fought a war, won a battle and maybe seen a glimpse of some rays of light.  I have felt: empowered, betrayed, craziness, misunderstood, frustrated, hurt, reassured, saddened, angry, attacked, truthful, determined, supported, relief, drained, loved, tired, annoyed, amazed, understood, reinforced, and loved.  

That's a lot of emotions for any person to go through in a short period of time.  The fact that most of my emotions stemmed from family interactions made it all the more intense for me.  In life, family can probably cause more stress than a lot of things.  With endometriosis, these stresses can become stressors that can cause setbacks if they are allowed in.  I have spent, what seems to me, so much energy trying to simply explain to people what is real for me and how I feel and what is going on inside my body.  It all seems so easy for me because I know exactly how I feel all the time.  I would imagine a lot of people with an invisible illness know how I'm feeling.

Rent

Since endometriosis seems to be renting my body until menopause, I thought it would be appropriate to share some quotes from Rent.  (I'm talking about the movie version).  Rent is a movie that never fails to lift my spirits when I'm feeling down or lets me have a good cry when I need it to come out, and helps me feel inspiration when I need it most.  I think I was feeling or needing all of those things so I watched it this weekend.  (The movie is about people living with AIDS, so any reference to death has nothing to do with me or my thoughts).  Granted, these are out of context and hard to understand without seeing the movie/show but it's my blog and they make me feel good so here are some of my favorite quotes:

Article

I will post news articles occasionally just to give you more to read and learn.  I do not write these news articles, so I trust you to use your own judgment when it comes to how much merit they deserve.

An article I came across at Science Codex: "Screening reveals additional link between endometriosis and ovarian cancer."

Invisible Illness

I have recently begun to think a lot about a term I've heard: Invisible Illness.  These are chronic illnesses (Endometriosis, Lupus, MS, many others) that are not apparent upon first glance, or upon just looking at a person.  Wikipedia has an entry for "invisible disability" which you can look at but wasn't worded well enough for my liking.  I acknowledge that there are many of these illnesses world-wide and I support people becoming more familiar with them and raising awareness about them, but this is my blog so I'm going to keep this post confined to endometriosis.

More Terms and More Understanding Pain Management

This post is a bit of a continuation of yesterday's post, in case you haven't read that yet.  I know before that I mentioned a whether or not a medication is "holding" for me.  I don't know if I've ever explained that...

When I say a medication is "holding," that means that it lasts as long as it is supposed to and is doing what it should do at its peak level.  So for instance, when I use a valium suppository at night, if it "holds," that means I wake up with little-to-no pain in the morning.  That makes it much easier for me to get "ahead" of the pain, keep it under control, and need fewer pain medications throughout the day.  This past week, I felt like the valium was no longer holding because when I woke up, I felt pain immediately.  That means I need to take my pain meds in bed and stay lying down until the pain goes away or I'm going to be dealing with pain all day.