Nesting

I'm going to have a little downtime in a few weeks. While some may welcome it, I equate it to clipping a bird's wings.

I'm not one to sit still. If a movie or show we love is on, I'm sewing or cooking or painting or drawing. I'm riding my exercise bike.

I'm a natural multi-tasker and I am good at it and thrive on it.

So, the idea of lying on a couch for a few days, maybe even a week, has me a little freaked out.

To help me with my vegetative state, I treated myself to the entire DVD sets of Ghostwhisperer and Absolutely Fabulous.

And, because I'm going to be looking at our house more than usual, I've been nesting.

Steinvic gave me his Kohl's cash from Christmas, and so did my Mom. I used these to buy new sofa and love seat covers for our living room. Our throw pillows looked tired, so I broke out the sewing machine and whipped up eight new ones.

Then, I won $104 from a $10 bet in Keno last week, so I used that to buy new fixtures, tile and paint for our master bathroom...total cost, $132.

So, we're having a little mini home makeover, for about $38 out of pocket.

The bathroom has a "city" theme that I liked when I first moved here, but since Steinvic moved down from C-bus, I've spent the last three years wishing to make it a more elegant, grown up bathroom. So, I'm painting over the funky skyline mural I'd created with warm browns and tans and burgundies. And I'm pulling up the floor to replace the crappy linoleum (that never looks clean) with awesome Armstrong peel and stick that looks like the Grand Canyon. Last weekend, I painted the vanity chocolate brown, replaced the tired cabinet handles and t.p. holder with new, modern silver ones. I managed to get the medicine cabinet door off, taped off the mirror, and spray painted the old, blue frame a metalic silver.

I am so excited...

And scared. I'm having surgery. It's my second surgery for endometriosis. I'm stage four, and about six years ago, had a laporoscopy so the doctor could biopsy the mass that had grown on my right ovary, and to excise the endo tissue that was wreaking  havoc on my system.

In the last six months, I've been able to tell that the mass had grown back. I've felt the same pain, lethargy, nausea...all the symptoms that make some days and nights pretty tough.

When I went to the doctor (this is a way better doctor than I had for the first surgery) in November, I pointed to my abdomen exactly where I felt the most discomfort. In my exam, she could feel another mass. An ultrasound showed that my right ovary was huge and that I've also got a fibroid mass in my uterus.

She recommended a full hysterectomy. But I don't want to be in menopause at 41.

I suggested a compromise - since I'd gotten about 5 years out of the last "tune up," how about yanking the "bad" ovary, repairing the fibroid and seeing if I can get another 5 years of relief? By then, I'd be closer to natural menopause anyway, and maybe ready for the hysterectomy.

She agreed. I was so glad Steinvic went with me to talk everything over. Him being there gave me the confidence to whip out my amateur M.D.  degree. :) He has been amazingly supportive and wonderful, both about the process, and through all the episodes of pain and nausea and general bleh.

The down time is about 2 weeks (plus 4 more weeks of non lifting) instead of 6 weeks for the full deal.

So, I imagine I'll be here a little more. I'll have time. I do spend time every day on myfitnesspal, and I have a rockin' blog over there with lots of readers. I still love this place, but it's always been a little lonely here.

I'll post pics of the makeover soon...I've got painting to do today!

No Babies

Two things happen when you’re a woman and you get married, and it doesn’t seem to matter if you’re 24 or 40. The first is that suddenly, everyone expects you to reproduce.

The second is that everyone loses their manners and openly asks you pretty direct questions about it, like, “When are you and Steinvic going to have a baby?”

If someone knows us well and asks us this, I don’t mind so much. I know that when family members ask, it’s because they love us and they all have kids and they think it would be super-cool-neato-mosquito for us to share the experience.

However, they momentarily forget that Steinvic and I are not young (we aren’t old, either, but for our comfort, a little too old to start our own family) and that Steinvic already has a wonderful son, Young Man.

So, those are the answers we give to the questioners. “We have a baby! He just happens to be 20 years old with a beard!” or “Nope, we don’t want to be the only 60 and 70 year old parents at graduation.” (Please note: I am not criticizing my fine 40 & up friends who choose to have children now. This is our personal preference for our lifestyle.)

However, if I’m honest, since getting married, a third thing has also happened: all of the well-rehearsed, sincere responses to the “when are you having babies?” questions have finally sunk in.

I actually now realize that I am not having children of my own.

I’m ok with this for many reasons. I’m not selfish, but I LOVE my free time and have no idea how I’d ever get away with simultaneously painting my toenails, watching girl stuff on TV and creating something artful between toe polish coats like I do now if I were a mother. (Of course I wash my hands after touching my toes – c’mon! I would not create art or anything else with feety hands.) I also know that I would be a complete wreck every time my child was not in my sight and I can’t imagine how edgy that would make me. I might be the kind of mom who got too involved. I might be too strict and expect too much of my child, or perhaps I’d be too permissive – either doing the same or exact opposite of my own upbringing. I might be a complete, psycho mess. I sometimes kid Steinvic, saying I’d be a crap mom, but what I’m really saying is that I don’t know if I could deal with the emotional challenges and major responsibilities of being a parent. I don’t think I’d abandon a child – even though it runs in my family – but I might do something worse for my child, like stay. (I know that sounds odd, but some people should not be parents.)

Not to mention that physically, I likely can’t have kids. (Which, by the way, is another one of the questions that near strangers ask that I really can’t believe: “What’s wrong?! Can’t you have kids?” with no pause or sensitivity whatsoever.) Since surgery, I’ve had about four years to get that through my head, even though I know that with the miracles of science or adoption, I might still have been able.

So, while I know that I’m not having babies, and I am logically fine with that and emotionally very happy to have Young Man in my life, it is bothering me, ever so slightly.

What has dawned on me recently is that I am realizing just what I’m missing. And maybe it isn’t marriage that has triggered it, but more things going on around me. That a good friend of mine – just my age – recently had a baby and plans to have another this year. Or that J’s kids are so wonderful and creative, with such great personalities…they really give her purpose and happiness. Or the way that Young Man looks at Steinvic sometimes. I see it and it goes straight through me – he really, really loves his Dad.

I will never know what it is like to love and be loved by someone who is part me and I won't have the chance to raise a person who could go into the world to experience life and love and do meaningful things. And I guess that realization is what is giving me a little pause.

But I’m okay. I realize that chapter is finished and for now, I think I’ll put a place marker there and set the book aside for a little while. Just long enough to rest my eyes. And then I can think about it again and about what I might do instead of parenting that could fill those pages.

Catching Up With You

Part of the reason I'm not posting here with the delicious regularity I was previously posting is that I got a warning type note at work. Could have been for the professional association blog I administrate, but also could have been from here. Which means that I can't access this blog from work, from fear of being found out...or fired. So, thanks for being patient while I try to work computer time into personal time... (shouldn't be a challenge, but somehow, it is!)

Things are going fine here. I had lunch with J and her precious ones this week and she immediately said that she could see a difference in my face. I call this, "losing my moon face." It was one of the things I've hated most about the condition I now know is excess estrogen. In addition, since going off the Pill, I don't feel anxious, don't feel depressed, have only had one spell of pain (previously, the endometriosis gave me pain about four of seven days a week), haven't taken a single prescription strength naproxen, haven't had a headache, and...embarassingly (but I'm putting it all out here) a fine layer of white "fuzzy face" on my jawline (thank G*d I'm blonde), which I was in constant maintenance to eliminate, has completely disappeared.

So, no pain, no nutso feelings, no fat face and no micro beard. Sounds like going off the Pill is a winning decision. So far, so good. I am taking a supplement that is all vegetable derived and is supposed to help detoxify the body of excess estrogen. I plan to keep taking it for at least these first three months...the approximation of time it takes to get normal after extended Pill use.

The challenge now will be to find a doctor who isn't prescription happy, who won't get weirded out by my desire to actively manage and research my health (though trust me...I'm not going to become a fanatic. I just feel smarter now...) and who will help me navigate my way through pre menopause.

I know this post is long and winding through the fields of estrogen, and I promise that this isn't what this blog will become. But it's heavy on my mind. I feel a responsibility to inform my obviously naive OBGYN to the downfalls of prescribing estrogen heavy birth control pills to patients with stage four endometriosis. I had surgery for that, dammit, and no wonder the symptoms came back...the very thing I had surgery for is fueled by estrogen. In a word, duh.

So...I guess...three weeks out, I'm better than I've been in a long time. I don't think it's all in my head. I think that I was headed for a bad spot in my wellness...the weight was packing on, the energy was zapped, the migraines frequent. I was becoming less and less me, and more and more the list of symptoms you hear at the end of a commercial.

I hope that wherever you are and whatever you're doing, you feel the best you can. If you don't, empower yourself. I'm by no means a know it all on this business...there are legitimate reasons to take the Pill! And I am not anti medicine. But I am pro knowledge, and that is a pretty comfortable place to be...

Home Again & Prophetic Dreams

So, I planned to post more on vacation than I did, but what can I say? The Internet connection was a little funky at times and we were busy.

But, we had a great time, got lots of sun, had a nice overnight in Nashville on the way home, and this morning, we went back to work. Young Man headed back to Columbus last evening and started a new job this morning: landscaping! I hope it wasn't too tough of a day for him...

Right now, Steinvic is at a Reds game with our friend, and I'm working on getting the house back in order.

I had some strange dreams on vacation, and before you think I've lost my marbles, let me say that I'm not trying to say I'm psychic, that I believe in ghosts, that I can communicate with the dead, that I'm special or anything like that.

But my Grandma visited me three times in my sleep on vacation. The third dream was a message for Young Man: watch out for spiders while you're landscaping. She showed me doorways where spiders were lurking and was specific in telling me that he needed to be careful. Okay...

The second and first dream, though, contained messages for me. And the message was clear: "Get off the pill! It's killing you!" In the first dream, she was wringing her hands with a dishcloth, just like I'd seen her do a million times in her comfortable kitchen.

In the second dream, she was more emphatic and aggitated. She was holding this very white baby, who I've seen her hold in my dreams before...the baby looks like he is made of china...he is so white and smooth. Somehow, I know his name is Samuel. In this dream, he is screaming and she is rocking and bouncing him, and she is telling me again, "Stop taking the pill! It's killing you! Do you hear me?"

It was so real, I woke with this lump in my throat. I got online and found all this information about the particular brand I've been taking, and about the symptoms of having excess estrogen, and about how the pill isn't a good solution for people who have endometriosis, even though it's commonly prescribed as a "fix."

I read the list of symptoms and there wasn't one that I haven't experienced. I felt this rush of heat to my face, and thought...how could I not have figured this out before? I've had four different doctors and none of them...no one listened to my symptoms and concluded that maybe the pill was hurting and not helping? Every single one of them ratched up the prescription, giving me stronger and stronger brands, never thinking that they were making me worse?

I went on the pill in my late teens and it was supposed to help with cramps. And aside from a few months, I've been on it ever since. I'll be 39 this year. No one ever said, "Hey...you've been on this almost 20 years. Lets give your body a break!" or "You know weight gain, depression, anxiety, splotchy skin, rashes, abnormalities in appetite, pain, swelling, bloating and fatigue are all signs of excessive estrogen, and since the pill contains estrogen, it's not the best solution for you?"

I know the Internet is full of false information, but this is info from reliable sites. I'm no dummy...I'm careful in my research.

So, I did something kinda crazy. I quit taking it. I didn't call my doctor first, I didn't wait and see, I just did what I felt urgently I needed to do.

This morning, two days off, I was really nauseous and dizzy. Hot and then cold. No appetite today. I'm better now and hungry, but not ravenous...not like usually, where I feel these waves of starvation and shakiness.

I know that coming off mega doses of hormones might suck, but you know what really sucks? The suspicion that I've wasted a lot of years feeling bad...and that I put my trust into doctors who didn't deserve it.

Probably more personal info in this post than you're used to getting from me, but maybe there is a lesson learned in this for someone else. I'll let you know how it goes!

Curing Myself

I love reading about health and wellness: scientific breakthroughs, super foods, organic findings...all that stuff. I know you have to be careful about some of the places you find this information, so I stay away from fanatical, faddish sites and sources that are designed purely to sell something.

I have endometriosis. I don't think I've discussed it here because...well, I'm not in the habit of discussing my innards in general! At the same time, endometriosis is a real disease that affects a lot of people. It's painful, and at the very least it is a nuisance. At the very worst, if you're trying to start a family, it can be devastating.

I've never been in the start-a-family-camp (though I think kids are great...just never made a place for my own in my life) so I don't have those concerns, but when my doctor found a large mass in my abdomen during my annual exam a few years back, it was startling to say the least. "It's either cancer or endometriosis," he announced, "but don't worry...we'll take care of it." He handed me a release form and told me to schedule diagnostic surgery right away.

I'd been in a lot of pain and throwing up on and off for a few months. Of course, I feared the worst. Poor Steinvic...quirky as I am, I'd been pretty normal up until that point, but the thought that - after all I'd been through to get to a happy place in my life - cancer was going to become part of my story was too much to take. I was a wreck for a month until the laparoscopy that diagnosed the endometriosis. Steinvic was supportive the whole time. He drove through an ice and snow storm for two hours to be there for that procedure.

Thank goodness it wasn't cancer, right? Right! But endo has a whole bunch of fun tricks she pulls out from her hat, and I've been trying to kick her stupid butt ever since I was diagnosed. However, there is no cure for endometriosis and you can do only so much to reduce the symptoms.

So, I'm reading Allure magazine this month and there is an article about a former model who had breast cancer. The article mentions that she'd been diagnosed with endometriosis and that no one had told her that it could be a precursor to breast cancer later in life.

No one told me that, either, though a study I once read indicated that endometriosis could be a precursor for some other female cancers.

Also, no one told me to avoid soy and processed soy, as these can make hormone levels soar, increasing the endo symptoms. But I found that information out on my own, too. As a vegetarian, I was gobbling soy like crazy and it certainly wasn't helping my cause.

So, I start thinking...the link for the model was estrogen - she started her period at an early age and had endometriosis - two indicators that she had a high level of estrogen in her body. What about foods and supplements that could control or reduce the amount of estrogen our bodies produce? I found this and thought, hmm... if the things on that checklist are really truly indicators that your body is on "estrogen overload," then I'm a candidate. There are nine - NINE - things on that list that I've been treated for. No doctor ever put those things together.

I'm not a hypochondriac. The fact is, though, that I haven't felt my best for a number of years. I am on a perpetual diet, hanging on to an extra 15 pounds even though I eat healthily and I'm energetic and fairly active. I've battled depression and been treated for migraines. I'm incredibly peppy, but I believe it's sheer will...I don't want anything to hold me back. But I would love to feel better. According to that list, a lot of the things I have experienced can be caused by an over abundance of estrogen.

So, estrogen-reducing foods have entered my life as of today. I am armed with broccoli. I ate oat bran hot cereal with dried cranberries for breakfast. I took Zinc and B6 today. I baked yams last night (and I added fresh sliced ginger, because it's so freaking good) and I have dry roasted walnuts to snack on. If there is extra estrogen in my body, I'm making it go away.

I am not fooling around.

And soy and I, for the time being, are probably going to part company, except for maybe the occasional cookout, but even then, my veggie burger could easily be replaced with an amazing marinated portobello mushroom.

Here is to being healthy! The excitement from thinking that I might be able to cure myself - to feel better through something as simple as eating a certain way - is a really good feeling!