Overdue

I have been long overdue in catching up my blog.  I hate to inform you that this posting will not be much of an update, just a quick explanation of why it has been awhile.

IN wrote such a positive post last time that I didn't want to to post anything after, as I don't have anything encouraging to say about my last appointment, other than my doctor was kind and truly listened to what I was sharing with him. This delay was suppose to be just a few days, but then I got busy.  I had to take care of daily life stuff.  These errands and chores made me feel very pained after, as I overexerted myself.  I took a day to rest.  On Tuesday I had take the car in for it's regular maintenance stuff, rotating tires, and more.  By the time I came home I had one of the worst migraines, so I went straight to bed and didn't even eat dinner that night.  So all I had on Tuesday to eat was a small snack while I was running errands.

Wednesday I woke up to my husband crawling back into bed because he has a stomach flu of some sort.  I had intense cramping from my Endometriosis, and a Massive migraine and couldn't even help him much.  We slept off and on all day, and as the day went one I started to develop a fever so now I had the bug too.  My husband went back to work on Thursday while I stayed curled up in bed sipping on water.  In the past 3 days I had had a small snack for lunch, a couple pieces of toast and a bowl of chicken noodle soup and kept only the toast.  I still feel crummy, but my migraine is almost gone and for that I am thankful.  Sadly, I still have a few small errands to run on Friday, so I may be a bit more delayed in writing.  Hopefully soon I will be up to filling in on more details.  Goodnight all.
 

Insane Pain, but Still I Have Hope

The last few weeks have been a whirlpool of pain, lost hope, and frustration.  After all my cyst, and after a crappy appointment on Friday I hit rock bottom.  As you read in my last blog, I then had the hardship of Mother's day to fight with.  I was a wreck.  I then received a phone call about an hour before I was suppose to leave for my ultrasound 2 saying that they would refuse treatment unless we paid everything today, everything meaning all the back payment.  I was frustrated and annoyed.


I fought though.  I had spent a large part of my Friday explaining how I was still in the process of sorting things out with our insurance and that since THEY had canceled my Thursday appointment with my doctor, which was suppose to be where we figured out what to do with this insurance complication.  I was GUARANTEED that it wouldn't be an issue and once things were sorted out we would figure out what we owe. When that call came I was shocked, and I was MAD!  I was not going to pay out $450 just to have an ultrasound and wait to be paid back when I was unprepared to pay it.  I found an inner strength  I never knew I had and stood up for myself and interfiles alike.  I confronted that what they had done was wrong and after a long battle they finally agreed for me to only pay half of it. 

I got in my car to drive away feeling so frustrated, broke, hopeless, and sad that this would probably be my last chance.  That all was about to change though.  I got my ultrasound and even though things were not as good as one would hope, but things had progressed a LOT!  There was hope.  This is finally helping.  I still have a ways to go, and I still have the battle with insurance to deal with and have to figure out the financial stress of things, but they are moving forward and for that I am grateful.

Today I had nowhere to go and I was able to finally sleep a solid 5 hours of sleep.  It has been an insane amount of time since I have had that much sleep at once.  I feel so refreshed and that is an amazing feeling.  I am still in a lot of pain from my cyst and from just having endometriosis, but I am rested and I have regained a hope I had lost. 


I also have found a great community of support online on twitter.  It has also been a great source of strength and encouragement and I am thankful to have found them.

After the Storm

My senior picture and my Mother's Senior Picture. 

Mother's day.  *Sigh*  My heart is so full of emotions I can't even express them.  I boycotted Facebook most of the day, but then realized I have some pretty amazing women in my life and so I needed to celebrate their motherhood and I got on FB.  I was showered with status about being a proud mother, about praising mothers, about what wonderful things the children did for their mother's, yet I still weathered the rain and did what I needed to do, what was right.  Don't get me wrong, I love these women and meant my words of blessings and happiness, but this day is so hard on so many levels.

Here I was, motherless and childless.  A women trying and failing to be a mother.  A women who desires to share these struggles with my best friend, my rock, my hero.  I see all these celebrated mothers and what can I do?  I have wonderful women in my life who truly are amazing.  They, however, are not my mother.  I have children in my life whom I love, they, however are mothered by somebody far greater than me, as I seem to be unfit for motherhood.   

The hard part and the frustrating part is through the struggle of this day, I was deemed silly for having such thoughts.  "You're young." "There is plenty of time." "You have a mother-in-law at least." "Just believe and your time will come."   I applause the effort to cheer a person up, but how can you promise me that I will have a kid by just believing?  Do you want to fly?  Well if you just believe it you will.  What a load of crap.  I know God has the ability to make ANYTHING happen, but that doesn't mean He will.  Yes I may still be young at 26 in the general idea of young, but add infertility to that number and time is running away with each day and so there really is not plenty of time.  Each day I fail to become pregnant is one more day of excruciating pain and sickness.  I don't want more time with that.  I am thankful for my mother-in-law and love her dearly.  She is so sweet, but she isn't my mom.  Shopping for her (since my husband works I do what I can to help him) was a stab in my heart, and violent reminder that I am motherless.  I am childless.

The hardest of all I hold onto deep inside.  I cannot express myself to the people "closest" to me for lack of understanding and for insensitive comments meant to comfort, but instead just add a deeper cut.  The cut is healing, but the wound is still fresh, so I write.  I hide behind a screen and a keyboard.  I use it as a shield to avoid the things that hurt.  I use it as a weapon to fight back against the attacks.  I use it as a comforter and bare my heart, soul, and tears.  I grow stronger and I awake the next day ready to battle whatever may come my way. 

Guest Writer to Bring on Hope

In a desire to create more support and encouragement for those with women health issues, infertility, and pain I have asked some people to share their thoughts, stories, struggles, and hopes.  I hope to encourage and support all who are reading and the readers to come.  I hope that this is just the beginning and that those without this will become more aware, and those fighting through pain and infertility will find encouragement and support.


My first guest author will be from Arielle Dance.  You can follow her on twitter @A_healthyDANCEr. Here are her words...

 I am debating how to really start this and what to share. So many of the women who write blogs tell the basics: diagnosed at 15, had 5 surgeries since 04 and 2 were excision. I could complain about the pain, nausea and all the complications that have come with endometriosis. I could even talk about the Lupron treatment from hell and the birth control pills that landed me in the ICU with blood clots on my lungs. I don’t want to really talk about that, although I don’t mind answering questions about those things. I want to focus on something prettier, more fun, more joyous.
I want to talk about our survivorship and our advocacy. I’ve had this disease since I was 15 and it wasn’t until I was 20 that I learned about the wonders of being a survivor. I met hundreds of women from across the world on social network support groups and realized that all of us have a different story and many were unimaginable. We always think we have the worst case ever or that no one understands us. But truthfully there are millions who understand. Granted, no two cases of endometriosis are identical, but knowing that millions of women experience what you feel to some extent is important. I consider us all survivors. Not that this disease is terminal but this disease can definitely kill dreams, kill relationships and kill hope. But we survive it all and even when we think we’re going insane, we continue to survive. Many endosisters can’t survive. They give up, lose hope and fall to the hands of escape. I honor the struggles of fallen endosisters and I celebrate the surviorship of those who have remained strong and undaunted.
Another aspect of endometriosis that many of us do without much thought is advocate. We know how to stand up and speak out. In spite of all our pain many of us manage to educate others, post pictures to bring awareness, wear yellow, share our stories, and stop letting our health care providers make all the decisions about our health. We advocate and educate... we are testaments that this disease sucks and information should be shared with as many people as possible.

It’s easy to be sucked into the stigmas and shame that surround this “women’s issue”. We are taught not to speak about issues of blood, issues of the vagina or anything that may hinder us from being sexual or mothers. But the advocacy comes when we break through those barriers when we shout out loud that we have endometriosis and everyone ought to know what it is. It’s a breakthrough when you think about it. Soon the day will come when every woman with endometriosis is unashamed to speak out but truthfully many remain silent or misinformed. Some tend to only speak out when they are in pain or going through the storms of infertility. But we should be able to speak up anytime because even when you’re not hurting there are still millions of women who are affected by this disease and millions more who will be diagnosed in your lifetime.
I say all this to remind survivors that there is still hope. Be faithful and keep your head up. I say all this to encourage survivors to be advocates, to stand up and speak out. And I say all this to say that it’s okay to be shy about your health but silence helps no one. Be strong, you’re surviving.

*Arielle Dance is a graduate student with endometriosis who is studying women’s health. She has dedicated her academics and advocacy work to endometriosis. Currently, Arielle is working on IRB approved research on women of color with endometriosis. Arielle has recently begun video blogging about her findings in other areas of research as well as sharing her struggle with endometriosis.* 

 Arielle's youtube page that she speaks of can be found here.

Thank you Arielle for your words.  I hope to keep this guest writer journey going on.  If you are, or know somebody who would be willing to share, please comment below and I can contact you with further information how how to do this.  Thank you all for you time.  I would love to know you thoughts on what has been shared today.  Thank you.

Ruptured Cyst

This has been a long and hard week.  I the could sit here and explain in detail all that had happened, but I do not have the emotional strength to relive every detail.  To make a long story short.  After 32 days of not bleeding, while I knew that I had ovulated I decided to get my hopes up and take a stay at home pregnancy test.  It is very normal for me to have an abnormal cycle and go a long time with a period and also to go  short amount of time without a period.  32 days was a bit early to really get my hopes up, but this was the first time I have actually had a solid positive ovulation test outcome.  I wake up the next day, that I have decided to take the test.  I am trying hard to keep my hopes low.  My endometrial tissue is too low, and my scar tissue is too much, pregnancy is very unlikely.  The timer set, I get my breakfast ready.  My phone alarm starts ringing, and suddenly holding the stick I fear looking.  My heart starts pounding and I fail to catch my breath, could it really be?  Do I need my eyes checked?  So with a positive pregnancy test I begin to hope.  I don't do anything though, something holds me back from making phone calls and from making forward motion to confirm I have another life growing inside my messed up uterus. 

Hours later that night I start to experience very intense horrible pain in my abdomen.  My world starts to spin and I am over come with nausea.  Everything is a daze, but to make a long story short, I ended up with a ruptured cyst and a chemical pregnancy, leading to false labor.  My endo scar tissue created a closed off uterus and I had a bunch of blood and fluid from my period that had no place to go, which created an infection.  It was a long few days, but finally I am feeling better, at least physically.

I cannot even begin to make sense of my emotional state.  I had a friend who completely ignored me during this time, a friend who is suppose to be one of my best.  I have to deal with the sadness of a false pregnancy and the hope that brought me and then got ripped away, the physical pain, and the emotional pain of this set back, and then to top it off the realization that a friend, who I thought cared, doesn't, or at least doesn't care enough to make sure I know they care. 

I go back for an ultrasound on Friday May 6.  All I can do is pray, rest, pray, rest, and pray.  I am tired and I am hurting, and I have little hope.  One thing I do know, I have a God who is bigger than all of this, and He cares and He will get me through this.  I don't have any strength left, but He will get me through.

Dreaming of what could be,

Busted by Reality.

How can I hold on to Hope?

Tears that won't stop,

Sending friends away.

How can I hold on to Hope?

Desires given life,

Killed by a negative.

How can I hold on to Hope?

Missing what I have lost.

Dreading what may be.

How can I hold on to Hope?

Pain has come to rule the day,

Emotions lie to bring on tears

I will hold on to Hope,

Someday.