Living with endometriosis

During a flare-up. Bloating for weeks and it’s terrible.

Me normally, no flare-up.

So yeah, I inadvertently got diagnosed (unofficially) last summer. The extreme pain got too great for me to handle and I was desperate. The fun thing about endometriosis is that you can get it at anytime, at any age apparently. Mine got triggered by having the Mirena IUD for some reason, and then it was a full-on ride to pain town for years. 😦 It does not respond to painkillers, at all. I have burned a hole in my stomach from trying to use ibuprofen with Tylenol to try to function, and it never worked.

On bad days I am vomiting in pain with extreme bloating and discomfort. I have chronic fatigue with terrible back pain with flare-up days and my stomach is in a turmoil with IBS-like symptoms. It’s miserable.

On good days I can function, I am not dizzy and incredibly fatigued, my stomach looks NORMAL and sometimes even *gasp* Good??

Sadly, even with a new medication (Visanne) that I started taking about 5 months ago, I don’t have all good days. It started off terrible- horrible periods that hemorrhaged, awful cramps, bloating, back pain, exhaustion- and then for about 2 blissful months I had nothing! It felt incredible!

And then it immediately relapsed and now I have bad weeks again. 😦 the doctor I am seeing- who is a specialist- said to hang on and it should be getting better, but so far it has NOT gotten better. My bad days aren’t as bad as they were, but they still suck a 100000% worse than those good 2 months I had.

I am starting to wonder if Visanne is enough, or I should start looking at other options, like a surgical intervention. This is a life-altering disease, and causes severe, chronic pain and discomfort. I hate living with it, and it greatly affects my personal quality of life.

Relevant to anyone but you

Had a good week, a decent weekend…And a terrible day. So, out of 7 days, 1 was an absolute, pain-filled misery. Good? I’m struggling with some health issues, and STILL waiting for an abdominal ultrasound to hopefully figure out why I’ve been experiencing absolutely excruciating cramping and bloating…For a year now. And it has been getting steadily worse and worse each month. Add in severe IBS symptoms and bingo, that’s me.

My fancy boy

Joy…I blame the Mirena IUD I had. I have no idea why, or how, but it’s just wrecked my hormones or something and now I have endometriosis, ovarian cysts or fibroids, or none, or all of them. 😦 It’s horrendous. I am suffering hugely, and I am going to start getting on the dr’s office about this starting NOW.

Anyways, I guess it’s good that happened on my day off (happy Thanksgiving to meee….ugh). My lessons last week were really good actually! Oats was great, and while we didn’t jump anything high or amazing, it just felt good and consistent. Something my jumps have been lacking since, oh, July? Ha.

My dressage lesson was lovely on Friday! We revisited the exercises from last week and to my pleasure, Oats seemed to remember them? He was even sharper this time! It makes me feel very hopeful about our counter-canter and flying lead changes happening sometime in the future…A girl can hope can’t she?

We also volunteered this weekend at the Victoria Goodlife Marathon for five hours to set up race stanchions. It was a loooooooong day riding in the back of the Budget truck, haha. My dad came for dinner that day too, and then on Sunday it was riding, and then out to the farm for a nice turkey dinner. My Monday was a total heinous disaster of pain, but I am hopeful that I can get some answers to my health issues soon…

Eat your feelings

Yesterday marked up to 24 hours post-anesthesia and while I initially shrugged off the effects, yesterday morning showed me exactly what was up with my body. I got up fine, poured coffee on the counter instead of into my coffee mug, carried my mug up to the bedroom to feed Buster and sloshed it onto the stairs…

Buster Bunny and the newly carpeted stairs.

Decided on wearing a different headband while I was doing my makeup, tossed my headband on the dresser, where it promptly slid behind the (super heavy, impossible for me to move) dresser. Shit!

Ok, moving on then. As we walked to the car (we went to vote yesterday AM before work), I was carrying both Ian and my travel coffee mugs and because I still didn’t have great hand-grip control, I immediately dropped his coffee on the pavement and it cracked open and spilled EVERYWHERE.

So, no coffee for the long-suffering husband yesterday morning.

We voted with no problems, and then I fell off the sidewalk going to the car. Smooth.

I figured I’d see how the rest of my day went, and when I found I could run on the treadmill without falling off it or killing myself, I was a-ok! I thought, good to run on the treadmill *requires coordination* then I was fine to drive to the barn and ride.

And it was totally fine, thank god. Phew! Oats was great, super amped and ready to work. Good pony. The weather wasn’t too bad, and I had an enjoyable and productive ride (no lesson, as I wasn’t sure how coordinated I’d be after anesthesia). He was focused, going forward, and we did a LOT of bend/counterbend with some struggle at the canter.

Love my pony!

Feeling really crummy today though. The side effects from the Mirena I had seem to be continuing, with intense cramping, bloating so grotesque that I look at least 5++ months pregnant, and some spotting. I feel so gross and miserable! I see what I am in the mirror right now, with an actual gut hanging over my shorts that I know is temporary and hormonal, and yet it still drives me nuts. GRRRRRRRR.