Upcoming Surgery

I now have 3 blogs that are almost finished, but I'm starting another new one. Why? Because this topic is overwhelming me, so I want to write about it now. 

I need another surgery for endometriosis. I am scheduled for an endo-specific MRI in 3 weeks, and then I'll schedule the surgery after that. My last surgery was in 2018. Now in 2026 my surgery will be more advanced. I learned a few things to share here:

1. The last time I had surgery, I had an ultrasound first. That ultrasound did show possible adenomyosis, but my doctor never talked to me about it. It's likely she wasn't trained in it. My new doctor told me about it after reading the notes. I also learned that my ovary was tied to my fallopian tube with endo adhesive, and it's possible that they are stuck together again. So I had another ultrasound a few weeks ago, and it still shows probable adenomyosis. I was becoming suspicious of adenomyosis on my own because 1-3 times per year I do tend to bleed heavily for more than a week during ovulation. Last month I bleed through 2 periods and two ovulations before it finally stopped. 

My ultrasound also showed free fluid in a place where I had endo removed before, so it's probably endo. It also showed that my right ovary is 3x larger than my left, and the cyst that was previously removed must have grown back. My last surgeon warned me that she couldn't remove all of the endo on my ovary without removing the ovary, and when endo isn't fully removed, it grows back. 

2. My doctor suggested this new type of MRI that's specific for finding endometriosis. It can't see it all, but it should help locate some of it before she does surgery. She said this helps her prepare, and possibly schedule a second doctor to help if the MRI shows it on my colon. Regular MRIs cannot see endometriosis, but this new version might. It might also help diagnose what type of adenomyosis I have, which could help me choose treatment plans. 

So what is adenomyosis? Basically, it's like endometriosis (it's not identical, it's more of a cousin), but growing inside of the uterus instead of outside of it. It cannot be seen during surgery. Modern imaging might be able to detect it. Apparently the only official way to diagnose it is by surgically removing the uterus and opening it up to see if it's in there. Adeno causes extremely heavy bleeding and increased pain with contractions (like during the period). It's also a known cause of chronic fatigue, like endo is.

3. After the MRI I'll have surgery, but I hope to delay it if possible. I'm going to attend a wedding and work my job for a couple of weeks because it's a busy time of year at work. Then I'll do the surgery, and I'm expecting I'll need at least 3 weeks of recovery time, maybe more. If they find something very urgent that needs to be surgically handled, then I suppose I can't wait. My pain really has increased too much and I know something is wrong, so we'll see what they find. But I have to wait weeks for the MRI anyway. 

My new doctor is much more advanced in endo surgery than my last (I'm not saying my last doctor was bad - she did as good of a job as possible in that situation), and she told me that if I choose to travel to one of the best surgeons that she will help refer me and get me in. I'm torn on this one, because she may be capable of doing a really good job for me and she's right here in town. I really don't want to have to travel. She was trained at Mayo and is using the latest techniques, and she gets all the continuing education available. She isn't an endo-specific surgeon, but she is much more focused on endo and more highly trained than the average gynecologist. The surgeon we choose is extremely important, because if the surgeon isn't capable of removing ALL of the endo, the endo will come back and we'll need more surgeries. That's what happened to me, and it's normal. The best surgeons reduce the risk of needing multiple surgeries. 

This doctor, if I choose her (and I probably will, depending on the MRI results,) will do a different surgical method than my previous surgery called a Peritonectomy, or Peritoneal Stripping. I understand that the recovery period is longer.  In this version, she will remove the top layer of my internal skin. That will help remove the roots of the endo that might be invisible to our eyes and cameras. The tissue will regenerate, but I understand it's going to be a slow and painful process. 

I can't find a good website to explain the peritonectomy surgery, just various studies about it which are not in lay-people terms. I did find this video that briefly explains why it should be done:

4. Treating the adenomyosis? This is what I'm really unsure about, especially since I've been trying to treat it naturally for so many years, and because of where I live I've lost access to treatments that were helping (like acupuncture!) I have 2 medical options: remove the uterus, or insert a progestin-only IUD like Mirena. I'm not willing to remove my uterus unless it's trying to kill me, and it's not that bad right now. I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of the IUD, but I understand it. I already use bioidentical progesterone, but it can't make it into the uterus where it's needed to treat the adenomyosis. An IUD is used because it can release Progestin inside the uterus where it can do its job. Natural progesterone can't be used because the half-life is too short. I would need to replace the IUD very frequently, which is unsustainable and very painful. Synthetic Progestin has a much longer half-life, so it makes the IUD sustainable. 

But am I willing to use Progestin? I really don't want to because I'm too familiar with the side effects, and I tend to be extra sensitive. I don't know for sure, but I think I prefer the heavy bleeding and pain over the change of personality from the Progestin. I don't like the increased risk of ovarian cysts from it too. I don't like how it changes our sense of smell and cause weight gain too. I'm not a fan of the risks. 

I have read that there are newer treatments for specific types of adeno, such as a new type of ultrasound machine that can help shed it off. I don't know what type mine is, and I don't know if anyone locally offers that treatment. I need the MRI results first. 

What can I do naturally? Well, maybe I need to stop eating goat cheese and be totally dairy-free again. Maybe I need to increase my fiber. Maybe I need to go totally carnivore. Maybe I need to reduce my sugar intake to zero again. Maybe I need glutathione IVs again. Maybe I need to drink more red raspberry leaf and hibiscus, except that my blood pressure already runs low. Maybe I need to do daily castor oil packs. Maybe I need to go back on my previous herbal blend pills. Maybe I need to travel for an acupuncturist who knows what they're doing. The thing is, I've done all this since 2013. I was able to improve about 50% at best (which is really good!) If I've slipped into some bad habits and that's why my symptoms are increasing, then I can fix that. But the fact is, I was never able to fully manage naturally. And I was working with excellent natural doctors. 

So, I'm undecided on what to do about the adenomyosis. My head is too tired, and I think I'd prefer to get the MRI results first anyway. 

There's more and more research about endo coming out - such as the estrogen and histamine link, the mast cell link, the new saliva biomarker, and so on. Maybe adeno will be similar and we'll find ways to help manage it soon. 

Alexia Evellyn - Hold On

Sometimes we just need power ballads to help us find our strength to continue being women,,, because this isn't easy. I'm numb to the emotions of the pain after all these years, but I still have to feel the pain. I just surrender to my period every month and don't try to live my life until the worst passes. I'm a veteran at this, but I'm so tired of it. I'm scheduling my whole life around my periods, and so I don't like to plan my future because I never know if I can really be available for it. 

I dreamed last night that I was locked in a prison cell with no way to manage my period, so I laid on the floor and let it all bleed out into a giant pond in my cell. It actually felt like a pretty good analogy for my life. And so, am I crazy to want to keep my uterus? What if I explored the idea of letting them remove it so I can be free? And then I'll never be able to have children... that's not the life I want. All I ever wanted in this life was a loving husband and children. I'm not ready to abandon that dream. Can you understand the distress this puts me under? It's enough to break a woman. And I think I did break a few times already. And yet, I don't stop dreaming of the life I wish I was living. A simple life full of love and family. Maybe, just maybe, after this surgery I can make it reality. 

Chronic Illness Is Not the Problem: You Can Be Complete

In my ME/CFS support group on Facebook, one of the most common questions I see asked is: "How well does your spouse accept your illness?" Illness can validate or break a marriage. Reading the comments is always interesting, because there are two types of answers. The more common answer is that the spouse is really moody, rude, uninterested, and distant. The other answer is that the spouse is extremely supportive, loving, encouraging, and willing to do as much as possible to help. 

When we enter into a marriage, we vow to love each other "in sickness and in health." It's really hard to comprehend what "sickness" means in a marriage when it becomes a chronic (long-term or permanent) condition. It's easy to think you love a person so much that you'll endure their short-term disabilities, because you know they'll return to being fully functional again and they'll always meet your needs. How many people enter into a marriage with any concept of what it means to take care of their spouse if they get sick and they never get better? What if your spouse, one day, stops meeting all your needs because they can't physically do it anymore? Will you still love this person who can't meet your needs?

It's a tough situation, and it's one that is more and more common because the rates of chronic illness keep increasing. I think the problem is that when a couple gets married to have their needs met, there are so many ways in which they can fail each other. We all have needs, and it's reasonable to have expectations of your spouse that you both discuss and agree upon. Humans are designed to be dependent on each other. 

I have observed that the couples that withstand chronic illness are the ones who live with gratitude for each other, despite all circumstances. They didn't marry to meet their needs, they married because they want to take care of each other so they could share life fully together. They don't have separate burdens, they emotionally carry the burdens together. They choose to be united partners in all things, even when it's hard. They trust each other to fully love each other to the best of their ability. They each fully commit to being emotionally and spiritually open with each other, including the healthy spouse expressing to the sick spouse that it's tiring. They don't "protect" each other from their emotions. They're fully honest and they find ways to ease each other's pain through trust, compassion, care, and dedication.

I have observed, and experienced, that the couples who can't withstand chronic illness are the ones who feel the need to compartmentalize to "protect" the marriage. "Being ill is your thing, not my thing, so my thing needs to be doing all the work since you can't." Or, "Being ill is my burden, I don't want you to carry it, so I need stay away from you when I'm not feeling well enough." This way of thinking creates resentment, a lack of trust, and emotional distance. The resentment from both people will fester until it erodes any love there ever was. I believe that the illness doesn't cause the marriage to fall apart, it only reveals how weak it was. A marriage built on meeting each other's emotional needs is very weak, because relying on another person to make you feel emotionally stable is weak. 

Life isn't easy alone, so it's common to think that finding a partner will make life easier. It doesn't, because having a partner means you have to care about needs beyond your own needs, and treat them like your own needs. Both people in a relationship need to be equally committed to giving themselves fully to each other. That's not easy. If you don't love yourself without a partner, you will doubt yourself even more with a partner because a partner will expose all of your shortcomings. 

In my observations, marriages that fail due to chronic illness didn't actually fail due to the chronic illness. It failed due to the emotional immaturity of one or both partners. It failed because one or both of the people couldn't love themselves well enough to properly love the other. No one is prepared for illness, but that doesn't mean we can't learn to adapt our lives around illness. It requires a lot of maturity. 

I have had to work extremely hard on my emotions to endure all of this. I found myself trying to escape into books, series, and video games to avoid my pain. I tried to confront my pain and it led me to feeling suicidal. I practiced focusing on positivity for a while to encourage myself to "win" and beat my illness. I dedicated my time and energy to God in order to avoid working on myself alone, begging God to control my life for me. I bargained a lot, looking for anything that could save me from the reality of living my life with so many limitations. And the truth is, 50% of that was because I didn't feel secure in my marriage, and I felt the need to become obsessive about fixing my health so I could feel secure again. It didn't work. I didn't feel insecure because of my illness, the illness just revealed the problems. 

Accepting my body and my illness without worrying about what anyone else thinks has reduced my stress considerably. If I had a partner that could accept it with me, that would be beautiful. As it is, being alone has freed up so much of my energy. The anxiety and emotional stress is greatly reduced. I'm able to work on building up my own emotional security. I'm in therapy, I'm doing workbooks, and I'm reading a lot. I've come to discover that I was handling my illness well enough, but I wasn't handling how he reacted to my illness. I found the DBT workbook to be really natural and easy for me, and it's a workbook meant to help people through trauma. I think I've developed the skills intuitively, because I respect myself enough and I'm very introspective. My illness isn't feeling like trauma anymore. I just feel like this is who I am. I have physical limitations, but so what? I'm a complete person regardless of my physical abilities. The issue is when my partner doesn't treat me as complete. 

Getting divorced has made me feel 50% less need to obsess over my health. That's good and bad. The good is that my stress about it is gone. Stress makes everything way worse. The bad is that I'm being less dedicated to taking care of myself. My illness requires me to manage it with extreme detail, but I have been relaxing a lot on the details. As a result, my symptoms have been increasing. I actually do have more energy now, but I'm more inflamed, in more pain, having increased metabolism issues, facing more brain fog again, very irregular periods, and so on. I just want a break from extreme management of my health... my illness feels like the abusive partner in my life. 

So, I've been bleeding for 17 days in a row now, and not on my period. Now my period is supposed to start any moment. It's always something. On top of that, I can't fully swallow anything without food particles getting stuck at the top of my throat. It feels like extra effort is required to swallow. Is it time for another thyroid test? Probably.

Absolutely - "Nowhere to Hide"

Think I need to get up and run

What would I become if freedom begun at the tip of my tongue?

I'm just wanting to feel something pure and real

But I'm holding back 'cause I'm not sure what to pray for

Lord, help me

I'm tearing everything in my view, pushing everything off the tables

Tearing everything right off the walls, might look unstable

But at least

After everything has come down, I might have a chance at relief

Maybe then I'll make something new, it's not you, it's just me

Muse - "Dead Inside"

(In my opinion, this is the best song Muse ever wrote, because it captures the human experience so perfectly, even beyond a broken relationship, and the final catharsis in the song is what makes it so powerful.)

Feel me now, hold me please

I need you to see who I am

Open up to me, stop hiding from me

It's hurting, babe

Only you can stop the pain

Don't leave me out in the cold

Don't leave me out to die

I gave you everything, I can't give you anymore

Now I've become just like you

My lips feel warm to the touch

But my words seem so alive

My skin is warm to caress

I'll control and hypnotize

You've taught me to lie without a trace

And to kill with no remorse

On the outside, I'm the greatest guy

Now I'm dead inside

Children, Family, and the Future

 

This video by Teal Swan matches my observations. She lists reasons why societies around the world are having fewer and fewer children, making very strong points. I am not interested in summarizing this video, so I encourage you to watch it first. 


I'd like to tell my story, as a 38 year old Millennial woman without children, now divorced (as of 2 weeks ago), following some of her points. 

My parents are Boomers, and they were successfully able to raise us 2 kids with everything we needed: financial stability, a "village" to help, and emotional validation. I never learned any of the negative traits from them that she speaks of in this video. I never felt suspicious of their habits, and I never felt traumatized by their choices of how to raise me. I grew up with neighbors who helped and I could trust. I grew up learning that I could trust people. My parents were disciplined with me, but encouraged me to be myself, express myself, and try new things. They gave me every opportunity they could to help me learn new skills. As an adult I have learned that I'm in a rare situation, because my parents are still happily married and they provided everything I needed to help me be an adult in good mental and spiritual health. They did, however, teach me the "path to success" meant for both men and women equally that has failed most Millennials, despite working very well for Boomers (college ► career ►investing and compounding interest ► financial independence ► marriage ► children.)  

In my heart and soul I never wanted to live according to that path, mainly because I knew I wanted to be like my mom, who didn't have to have a career (she worked when needed). What I wanted was to be an educated stay-at-home mother to many children. I never had a problem with working, in fact I like working and I tend to choose physical labor jobs (by choice because I enjoy it), but I never had any aspirations to pursue a career that would take me away from home. So my goal was to find a man like my father: a spiritual leader, breadwinner, and foundation of my family. 

I married at 19 years old, thinking I was going to have children in my early 20's. It's exactly what I wanted: a happy marriage with many kids. The man I married wanted that too, so I believed him that we would make it a reality. The trouble was that we couldn't get our careers going. We never had enough degrees to land a good job, the jobs we took weren't meant to last, and endless other problems. Before I got sick I was applying for every job I could, but this was during the 2008 bubble burst, and the economy was a mess. I was lucky to work 3 part-time jobs, all of which paid me about minimum wage. I was working 60-70 hours per week, and if I stopped working to have kids, how could we ever pay rent? Rent on our awful little house that had a black mold problem that heavily contributed to why I got so sick. Meanwhile, we were living on his student loans. He had a full-ride scholarship and an assistantship, but we took out student loans to pay for our rent and groceries. When he graduated and returned to work, he was able to piece together an income to support us. His struggles were legitimate. I got sick, very sick, to the point where I quit my job and was unable to work for a year and a half. It would have been impossible to live on just his income alone if we had to pay rent or a mortgage. Thankfully, we had the benefits of the "village" that Teal Swan talked about, so we had a free place to live. I was too sick to have children at this point, and my doctor even warned me not to try because my body was far too weak to endure it. He warned me that pregnancy could be extremely risky on my body. I'm summarizing many years, but understand that we never made ourselves stable enough to have kids. 

My dreams of being a stay-at-home mother with a breadwinner husband were dissolving into an impossible fantasy as the years went on. If the "formula" that Boomers taught us had worked, I think we could have been ok. We had everything stacked against us: my college degree did not help me find work (I had one job relevant to my field and it paid me $9 per hour), his career was built on a field that the average person no longer had money to pay for, and the job market was very dry. If that formula worked and we both could have started building careers in our 20's, I never could have afforded to stay at home raising kids anyway. And no, I never had the energy to work full time AND raise children. What a joke - what woman actually wants to live like that? I don't want to live in constant burn-out while failing to raise my kids well enough. I don't want to pay someone else to raise my kids for me. That was never part of my idea of "raising children." I didn't want that life. I preferred NOT to have children than to be unable to raise them properly. 

When I decided I needed to exit the marriage after 18 years of marriage, it was because I realized I had built absolutely nothing I wanted out of my life. I spent about 10 years simply trying to manage my illness, so I was distracted with something very important, but time kept moving on. I didn't see children as a possibility anymore, not even adoption since we didn't have the means, so what else did I want to live for? Why did I work so hard to heal enough to live my life if I had nothing I wanted to live for? I had ideas of other life paths that could give me some purpose, but they all required money, energy, health, or resources I didn't have. And all I could think about was how I just wanted a family with children. I felt so lost and alone. All I saw was constant stress and I felt useless, uninspired, bored, and spiritually hungry. I couldn't see any future for myself if I stayed on that path. I am not blaming him or criticizing him. He was honest and pursued life exactly as he said he was going to, and he fought to build the life he wanted. He succeeded in his priorities in life, exactly as he told me he would. The problem was me needing things that didn't align.  

So I saw the only alternative path: Move back in with my parents. Let go of broken dreams and start over. My Boomer parents fully support me, and they understand how insane society is. They see how impossible it is to succeed now. They understand why couples can't have children anymore. They didn't judge me at all, and honestly, I don't know how many other Millennials could say that about their parents. I'm extremely blessed. 

I'm 38, but I'm still interested in starting a family. I do NOT want to be a single mother. Bless all you saints who manage as single mothers and love your children so dearly - you are the most wonderful women to find that kind of strength for your children. I don't know if I'm really capable of having children due to my health, but I'm stronger than when my doctor told me not to years ago. Endometriosis tries very hard to rule my life. I'm tired all the time, and that could be a major problem with raising children who rely on my endurance. I don't know if society or the economy will ever make it easy to start a family, even adopt, but I also feel like family is more important than every other aspiration or desire in life. Building a family, with or without children of my own, should be at the center of all my decisions. Nothing, not even career, is more important to me, and I feel like I've lost way too much time to constant life problems. 

This is what I do know about my life as it is now: it's mine, I don't have to focus on how the cards have all been stacked against me anymore. I'm burned out on complaining, disappointment, fighting for the impossible, and pursing dreams that cannot become reality in a healthy way. I'm exhausted from not living my own truth and always hiding in waiting for the right time. I'm tired of not being a priority. Something I've learned about myself in 18 years of marriage is that I'm creative and adaptable. I have the ability to find my way in any situation, even when I clearly didn't belong in the situation. But I'm burned out on adapting constantly. I'm exhausted from finding creative solutions to keep surviving. I'm so bored of needing ways to "escape." I'm done with shutting off my brain and emotions. I know I can be fully present when I'm where I belong, pouring into my own cup too. My cup has been dry for so long. 

If I didn't have a home with my parents, I honestly don't know if I would have survived myself. Without my parents' support, I wouldn't have had a life path to take that would inspire to me keep living and trying. If I continued with him, I would have been a total zombie. I wouldn't have really been living. His life choices worked really well for him, and I don't blame him, because he deserves all the happiness he can build for himself in this extremely difficult climate. He needed to make the choices he made, but he wasn't capable of fully supporting me through my circumstances and crises. He really did do the best he could, and it wasn't his fault. My needs were too great for both him and me, and I couldn't continue like that. I'm genuinely happy for his successes. It's my turn to have my own successes.

I agree with Teal Swan in her video about the roles of women and men. I am simply a very traditional type of woman: I want children with a man who can provide. It's really difficult for men though, and it doesn't make any sense to me that both people in a couple have to work full-time if they don't want to. I know married women begged for the right to work full time and have their income count towards the total household income, but did they think it through? I agree women are fully capable of working if they want to. I know women who do jobs better than men. But isn't it counter-productive to society to need every individual person to work, especially since we have to keep creating tons of meaningless jobs just so every individual person has a job? We keep creating junk no one needs just to sell just so people have jobs. Now our oceans and lands are full of trash we bought and never needed, just so some worker could make some money. We've lost sight of working to fill a need in society, and working so one parent can stay home and raise children and continue our species. I'm so fortunate to have a job that is very meaningful and gives me purpose, but how many people have to take any mind-numbing job they can get that doesn't help make the world function better? Our unsustainable society is built on earning personal income, not built on creating families and raising children so future generations can exist and thrive. We can do better, and I'm sick of being a part of this system.  

This has been, by far, the greatest challenge of my life. More challenging than being bedridden with major health issues. Oh, but then you add in all my illnesses and then life is just impossibly stupid. What's the point? Well, I believe in the value of all of life, including my own, even when we cannot fit in with how society was built. I will find a way. I keep adapting. I lean on hope, gratitude, and faith. I don't keep anything that wasn't meant for me. I can do this. I will not compromise my values and live a life that doesn't align with truth. 

As it is now, I am happier than I have been in many years. I feel a great deal of relief. I don't feel daily stress anymore. I can give my limited to energy to what I want to give it to, and I no longer need to give it to things that don't serve me. I returned to a job that has been phenomenal for me. I have a great living arrangement. I have access to some of the best beef in the country (my diet is mostly red meat.) I have some seriously great friends in my life. I have the option to focus on gratitude without worrying about anything. I don't have to defend myself to anyone. I don't have to justify my needs. I don't have to fight to be understood. I have peace. It's wonderful. I'm where I need to be right now, and I feel aligned and centered. I need to heal more before I built my future, and I can heal in peace.

But how many women have this luxury? From what I have seen, very few. 

For instance: I've been talking to more and more people through my job who have been diagnosed with Endometriosis. The good news is that there are more surgeons who can diagnose it now, so women have more access to the surgery that can diagnose it. As I talk to these women, something very striking stands out to me: women with endometriosis are veterans who know war. We're told not to talk about it because it's uncomfortable for everyone else and we have to learn to integrate into society despite our mental and physical pain that dominates our lives. The fact that it is uncomfortable for everyone else is proof that our medical system is failing us. It's proof that our society is failing us. It's proof that we should not be treating every individual person as equally capable of thriving in how our society is structured today. It's proof that our government services are seriously lacking and allowing people to fall through the cracks or suffer. It's proof that our lack of family structure and reliance on individual success isn't working. When a woman is unable to work like a healthy man at a full-time job due to pain, fatigue, extreme bleeding, major brain-fog, PTSD, medical trauma, and emotional trauma... what then? Parents, never stop being a support for your children. Villages, come back together and help take care of your people. Government, stop spending money you don't have on things we don't need, and instead use our tax dollars to allow villages and families to support each other again. 

We're hardly a society anymore. We're a collective group of individuals. We're failing both men and women. We're failing children. We're failing the future of humanity. 

And on top of all this immense stress of simply just being a cog (person) in society's poorly-build wheel, we have to advocate for our health and avoid all the toxicity in the world. We have to work hard to stay physically healthy and not lose our health to the terrible food available to us and all the toxic synthetic chemicals in everything. We have to make choices as if we're surviving an apocalypse:  we have to choose the safest, cleanest, foods. We have to avoid plastics, preservatives, excess sugar, food dyes, pesticides, synthetic fragrances, and so on and so forth... my whole blog is about this topic. 

So, women, I beg you all to breathe. It's ok to acknowledge that we're all struggling this much. You're not failing. We're literally trying to survive an apocalypse. Families are dying, our physical and mental health is dying, children aren't being born, our ability to have healthy relationships is dying, and most of our consumer goods are toxic and poisoning us. Affordable food is very bad for us. If you're surviving, you're doing exactly what you need to be doing. 

I'm writing all of this while my pain from endometriosis keeps increasing. Soon I will NEED to lay in bed with a heating pad to manage.

...And after many hours of being in bed with my heating pad, I'm back to finish this post. Except it's 11:30 at night and I should sleep. I wrote many desperate sounding statements it this post because I felt my pain increasing the whole time, but I don't disagree with anything I wrote. I will say that my hormones feel a lot better now and I no longer feel the need to express much of what I wrote. Funny how that works. The 24 hours before my period starts is always a time of deep inner reflection and creativity for me, often making me feel every ache in my soul too deeply. Oh my goodness, womanhood... it's a lot. The world has more to offer than I can experience because I'm too busy being a woman. That's ok. I was never meant to have the world. I was only meant to have my life in this world. Peace. Don't yearn for what isn't meant for us. 

I bought this heating pad and I've really liked it for managing my pain

Click the link to see it on Amazon - don't worry, I'm not an affiliate trying to sell you anything. My old one was too small, heated inconsistently, and wasn't getting the job done anymore. So I decided to try something larger. It's much better, and I like the heat the stones provide. The trouble is that the stones are icy cold until it's heated up for several minutes first. 

Endometriosis Awareness Month: A Glimpse Into My Reality with Endo

It's endometriosis awareness month. 

First, here is an awesome Facebook post with some info about what Endo is and what it is not:

I'd like to write about my current cycle in honor of raising awareness. 

A little personal history, for context.

I've had extreme periods since I was 17. When I started to use menstrual cups, I counted how much I bled on the first day of period over years. I normally filled my size 2 Diva Cup 3-7 times full in the first day of my period. The average person fills their cup 1-2 times full through their entire period. Along with this heavy bleeding was excruciating pain. Full body pain. I could move a toe and feel it cramp up my leg and trigger pelvic pain that felt like someone stabbing me with a knife repeatedly. I also had relentless diarrhea, which was super painful. I could sit on the toilet and feel my heart rate skyrocket to the point where I was seeing stars, seeing my vision slowly go black, and I would gasp for air. All while my body purged itself beyond my control. Yes, I've fainted from all this. I took up to 12 ibuprofen on the first day of my period for years, and it didn't work well. I kept taking more hoping for any pain relief at all. I was like this for years and years. Finally, a doctor told me my liver was in poor condition, and I admitted taking all these painkillers (and a daily Allegra D) to him - he warned me to stop because that was causing a lot of damage to my liver. So I was left with no real option for managing my allergies and pain in the conventional way. (I always refused birth control as an option for religious reasons, but also because I read all the side effects and didn't want them. Doctors did drop me because I refused birth control.) 

In 2013 I started to work with a Naturopathic Doctor in New Hampshire. We did a lot of work to improve my health. By following his advice, over a few years my periods slowly became about 50% less intense. My bleeding reduced down to 1-3 full Diva cups on the first day (still heavy, but manageable.) My pain was still intense, but he made a tincture for me that actually worked. It blocked estrogen receptors, which did reduce my pain a ton, but it also knocks me out. So when I take it, I sleep for hours through the worst of my symptoms. He put me on natural progesterone and hormone-balancing herbs, which made a big difference over time too. He changed my diet, which made a big difference. My PMDD was not as long or severe, my cycles were more regular, I didn't bleed as heavily, I was more stable during my periods with less fainting issues, and my level of fatigue wasn't as strong anymore. But I stopped getting better. Everything improved about 50%, which was miraculous to me, but I stopped improving more. 

In 2018 I was first diagnosed with POTS, and the next week I had a $14,000 laparoscopic surgery to look for Endometriosis. My surgeon was a local gynecologist doing the Davinci Robotic surgery. She was sure she wouldn't find endo - in fact, she was doing the surgery just to help me stop feeling convinced that I had it. She told me it would be a 30-minute surgery. She was wrong. It was 3.5 hours long, and she did find endo. She took a biopsy and confirmed it in the report, but refused to give me a "diagnosis" in my chart. Why? I don't understand that part, seriously. So when doctors see my medical records they only see the surgery, but not the result. Anyway, she removed endo from my Pouch of Douglas / Cul-De-Sac, which was probably where the majority of my pain was coming from. She also found it on my uterus and ovary. She was unable to fully remove it from my ovary without removing the whole ovary. The problem with endo is that if you don't have it fully removed, it grows right back. She also found that my uterus was tilted backwards. In the year after the surgery, my periods were the lightest they had been in my life. My pain was a little better too. But the results didn't last longer than a year. 

After my surgery, I was still bloated from all the air they pumped into me and my scars were bruising. 

In the last few years, my periods have been slowly getting worse and worse again. My PMS has been turning back into PMDD again. My cycles are less regular. What has changed? Well, a lot of stress in my life. I've stopped using the herbs as regularly. My diet has loosened up a little. And I think, most importantly, I've been unable to have regular acupuncture treatments in the past 2.5 years. Acupuncture made a huge difference for me.

I've always had to call in sick on the first day of my period. I never improved enough to be able to work on the first day of my period. I had to miss very important events in my life because of it. And despite all the medical care I've been though, all the extremely strict diet and lifestyle changes I stuck to for years and years now, and all the praying and therapy I've tried, nothing helped enough to give me a "normal" first day of my period. It always made me so sick that was bedridden with major pain, fatigue, and vertigo for the day. 


And now, for the present.

So let me talk about my current cycle, to give a glimpse into the turmoil I live with every month. I use the Clue app on my phone, and I pair with my Oura Ring. I'm not good at tracking all my symptoms, but I am very good at recording the first day of my period. So let's look at Clue for this month:

Each dot represents a tracked symptom per day. The red phase was my last period, and I only tracked for 3 days of it before I forgot. I bed 5 days, I think. The days with 2 dots are because of information my Oura Ring automatically sends to Clue: sleep and body temperature. Then the blue phase, which is ovulation, you can see extra dots. That's because I bleed dark purple thicky sticky blood for 3 days during ovulation. Then, when the 3 dots appear again, is when I started to record my PMS symptoms. I had symptoms for a few days before I started to record. I had acne, bloating, mood changes, scalp tenderness/ sensitivity, and fatigue issues, but they were not bothering me enough to think to record it. So I've had about 10 days of PMS symptoms. What does that mean for me? It means gaining a pants size in bloat, relentless hunger (even eating high protein with some extra carbs), very sensitive mood that causes me to feel everything too deeply, moments of unprovoked anger, days of irritability, feeling super anti-social, withdrawn into my head and difficult time being in reality, random cystic acne around my mouth and on my chest, ringing in my ears, deep fatigue that caffeine can't cure, nights of insomnia and then nights when I sleep 13 hours, very achy deep throbbing pain down my legs, vertigo and dizziness that makes me really unbalanced, sharp throbbing cramping all over my pelvis, feeling a bowling ball growing in weight in my pelvis, unpredictable bowel movements, throbbing aching teeth, swollen tender breasts that hurt to touch, sharp nerve pain in my breasts, inability to completely empty my bladder, and I'm sure there are symptoms I'm forgetting. 

 My period is late. "Late." I've had years with my average cycle lasting 30 days, and years when it was 35 days on average. I've just been in a 30 day average cycle this year, so now this looks late. 

The problem with me being late is that I've had many days of symptoms that marked what should be the beginning of my bleeding: major cramping, vertigo, and fatigue followed by an improved mood. All the symptoms that tell me it's time to lay in bed with my heating pad and stop doing anything else. Except that my bleeding didn't start. I've been in this state for about 5 days now, feeling on the verge of starting my bleeding. I had two shifts at work that were difficult for me to endure, but I didn't get bad enough to have to go home sick. I was mainly concerned about fainting, so I drank lots and lots of salt and took licorice root pills to keep my blood pressure high enough. 

Since I can't read my symptoms reliably, thankfully my Oura Ring gives me a clue that I can almost rely on:

(I recorded my period start day one day earlier last month, so the apps don't agree. That's because I started bleeding a tiny bit the day before, but without all the symptoms of my first cycle day. So I recorded a different day in each app to help me predict my next period.)

Ok, look at the body temp graph. The line is my baseline average body temp. Each day marks if I was higher or lower than my average. I tend to increase by a half degree to a full degree in the last 5 or 6 days of my PMS, and when I see my body temp drop below average, I'm usually ready to start bleeding. So you can see why this month is confusing: 3 days ago my temp dropped, but not below average. Yesterday it did drop below average, and I had all the symptoms that said my bleeding should start (including my breast pain going away.) But I only bled a tiny little drop all day. Ok, so today my temp was below average again. I checked my Diva cup this morning and it had a small stream of very dark black blood on the edge. I haven't bled more since then. 

I called in sick to work today. I am only writing this blog because I drank enough green tea to help warm me up, and I hoped the caffeine would encourage bleeding. The reality is that I'm sitting very still at my computer to type this. I'm taking lot of breaks to breathe and rest. I'm getting really dizzy at moments. I'm getting immense pain for brief moments. There's no way I can stand up for 5 hours to do my job like this. And I won't improve until I bleed. I am in limbo. I'm unable to function until I bleed. 

This is a glimpse into my reality with endometriosis. When I say it dominates my life, you can see why. I get maybe 1-2 good weeks per month where it doesn't limit me or control me. 

Florence and the Machine - You Can Have It All

This album was about her ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage that nearly killed her. She wrote many songs about the grief and the reaction of her fans. It's an album that will make you cry. This song, although about miscarriage, reminds me a lot of my experience with endometriosis. "Am I a woman now?" Is this what it means to be a woman? The loss of a child/ inability to have a child. Being controlled by our bodies. How to exist in the circumstances of our bodies?

Entering 2026!

Out with the old year, in the with the new year!

The view outside my window Christmas day. The fog froze to the trees! So pretty.

But first, I'm sure that Facebook and Google collaborate to manage my Facebook feed for me. I told my Oura Ring, Clue App, and Fitbit that my period started. Now 50% of my feed is about endometriosis! It's not necessarily a bad thing, right? I get to learn all sorts of facts from surgeons and doctors making reels about it. But there really is no such thing as health privacy anymore. While I heavily rely on these apps to help me understand what is just PMS versus a sign that I'm actually about to start bleeding (therefore be sick in bed for most of a day), I also know that I'm a data mine that I'm paying to contribute to. I pick and choose my battles with technology. Do you all think it's worth using technology to monitor your health, knowing it's never going to be private? Oura probably helps me the most, but Clue's tracking is the best. Fitbit is almost useless, but I do it anyway. 

I should write an updated blog about my Oura Ring, since it's changed a lot over the years with all their updates. I do find it very helpful in some ways, and less helpful now in other ways.

It's the last day of 2025! I woke up in 2025 in Gaffney, South Carolina. In the middle of the year I said goodbye to the South. I will wake up tomorrow (2026) morning in Bismarck, North Dakota. 

Some observations from 2025:

❄ I feel less symptomatic in the cold weather. I know it seems backwards, because my body runs cold from poor circulation, but the heat triggers more symptoms for me. I can always warm up when it's cold. I can sit in front of the fireplace cuddling with a blanket. I can wear a big snuggly hoodie. I can drink hot tea. I can use my sauna or sit in the bath. When it's hot and humid, how do I cool down? I sweat very easily with pins and needles prickles all over my body from the heat, and my heart races like crazy. I sweat just from standing up and my heart starting to race. Cold water triggers symptoms for me, unlike warm water. Removing clothes makes me too cold from the temperature change, which causes my nerves to ache. The cold weather might make me shiver, but I can manage it. I can't manage heat. 

✌ The people I spend my days with have a HUGE impact on how I feel. This actually has more to do with me than them. I tend to unconsciously adjust my personality according to the people I'm around, but I also spend energy keeping a shield up to protect myself from energy I can't handle. Some people are full of anxiety, frantic high-strung vibrations, contagious depression, anger that poisons their every action, and other vibrations that I can feel, even if they don't say it. Negative energy tends to feed on my attention, which requires my energy and strength. I don't want to absorb the vibrations, but I do. I'm built that way. If I shield myself, I drain myself anyway. So it's extremely important for me to choose to be around people who are peaceful, respectful, loving, have good vibrations, and lift everyone around them. Choosing to be alone can be the healthiest thing for me too. I'm introverted, so I need that recovery time regardless of my chronic illnesses. But the right people don't drain me. The right people can help me live and enjoy being who I am, even when I'm in pain or feeling unwell. I have to choose my people very carefully. 

(I'm not saying that people are bad because I don't tolerate their energy well, and I'm not saying that people going through tough times are bad for me. It's all about how well a person can manage their emotions, because unmanaged emotions are what leak out and affect people around them. When a person who understands how to love and respect others is grieving or in pain, their energy doesn't sour and drain me. When someone hasn't worked on their emotional intelligence and is still emotionally immature, they tend to drain me no matter what their life experience is in the moment - it's not because they're bad, it's because I don't have the energy to be what they need me to be to support them.)

💸 The better I feel, the more of a sucker I am for advertisements for things I might be interested in buying. The worse I feel in the moment, the less I care. The internet is a dangerous place for me to be when I'm feeling some mental energy, because I will not use my energy well online. I might not actually buy anything, but I will window shop every sale and seriously consider some items. Then I regret spending my usable energy for the day that way. Totally wasted on being a sucker for social media ads. It's actually a big reason why I'm using Facebook less. I spend time in specific groups on Facebook, but I'm avoiding scrolling my newsfeed now. I do want to know about local businesses and events, but not at the cost at seeing loads of ads and celebrity gossip that I didn't ask for. So therefore, when I'm feeling well enough, I prefer to skip social media and go straight into gaming. If I'm going to spend my energy at my computer, gaming feels way better. If I feel well enough to do something more than sit at my computer, then I should actually physically do something like use the treadmill or clean or cook or fix something, or socialize. I've had more energy available to do things like this since moving back to ND! 

🎶 I love specific music at specific times, but silence is actually my favorite for regulating my nerves. Music stimulates or blocks my senses, which can be really helpful at times, especially while driving or cleaning. But the best way to preserve my energy is to be in silence, without the need to feel alert. I can't recover well unless I'm in silence. I used to use ambient music to help me rest, but mainly I did that to block out everything else I could hear so I could dull my senses. Silence is better. This isn't a negative comment about my husband, but it is just a fact: he always needed something playing in the background. Music, TV, radio, podcast, just anything to focus on. That was fine for him, but I needed a lot more silence in my life. I can get that here in ND.

🐔 I really loved my pet birds. I had 2 cockatiels (that's why I chose the chicken emoji, ha!) One was at least 30 years old, and I've had him since I was 7 years old. The other was 12 years old and she bonded to me. I had to give them to a new home (I don't want to explain, but I had no choice.) I loved them so much. But they were a lot of work, and I often didn't have the energy to take care of them properly. I felt a lot of guilt about how little attention and care I gave them sometimes. As much as it broke my heart to give them to a new home, I also felt some relief. They went to a home where they get more attention. I don't have to drain myself on cleaning their cages, which was a big ordeal! I don't have to run to them every time they call for help. I don't have to be on alert 24/7 for their sakes. I am my only responsibility now. Right now, this is therapeutic. I'm getting to have a break. Please understand that birds are like 3 year olds that never grow up, and I've been caring for them my entire life. They're not like children who have needs that evolve over the years. I'm happily accepting the rest from the responsibility right now. I lost my ability to be alert. I'm burned out. I do know that I'm going to be deeply sad about losing them once I recover though. I don't want a new pet as a rebound... I want a family. I want a husband and children. That's another story. I'm choosing not to feel guilty. My birds are with a good family now, and I'm where I need to be to heal. 

🛣 So many people say it's brave to choose to leave my marriage. I've been reflecting on that a lot, because I don't know if "brave" is the right adjective for me. He wasn't abusive, bad, mean, or anything of that nature. I wasn't completely dependent on him, because I was always able to come home to my parents, which is a great situation (not a last resort like for many people.) It wasn't brave, it was simply just difficult to leave because it required effort. It was easier to stay because it was familiar, and we didn't have problems getting along on a day-to-day basis because we're both nice people-pleasers. But South Carolina taught me that it wasn't actually easier to stay. He said my illness was like the 3rd person in the marriage, but I think his career was the 4th person in the marriage. His career was most important to him, and his career was not easy for me because it meant a lot of instability, uncertainty, and unnecessary stress. It costs a lot of money to move - SO much money. His career isn't stable enough and doesn't pay enough, so the risk of moving for jobs often is too high. He was sad that I didn't make more money than him so that he could afford his career, but the reality is that he always wanted a job that would require relocating to places that I didn't necessarily want to live. A job that is fading away with budget cuts. I couldn't continue living in a high-stress situation just so he could live out his dream, which wasn't my dream. I wanted him to be happy, but I wasn't, because I was only along for the rocky ride. Even if he switched careers, I knew I would be along for a very stressful and uncertain ride. It wasn't brave of me to leave, it was mostly just practical. I needed to realign myself with my own values, goals, and needs. And so as I enter into 2026, I look forward to planning for my own future!

🎇 So as I enter into 2026, I'm choosing gratitude. I'm not entering into the new year with fear, uncertainty, bad vibes, depression, anger, resentment, or anything negative. It's all in the past. This is my fresh start. The future isn't something to fear. The future doesn't need my past baggage. I'm hopeful! 

Another thought... 

As I read through what I wrote, I realize that I might sound neurodivergent. I talk a lot about stimulation, feeling alert, and trying to maintain calm nerves. I have never been tested for neurodivergence, but I've seen the changes in myself from before and after getting sick and know that this illness caused these sensory issues. I wasn't like this until I caught H1N1 in 2012. I've had to do a lot of work on myself over the years to tolerate sensory issues better. In the first few years, lights, noises, textures, temperature changes, and everything sensory really bothered me. Sometimes noises and changes in lights were really painful. I'm not as fatigued now as I was back then, and I have a higher tolerance now, but sensory issues can still trigger some pain for me. My primary issue now is that I'm always feeling "alert" and I need to be able to stop sensing everything so my nerves can calm down. It might be psychological - a defense mechanism, maybe. But I do know that my need to feel "alert" isn't within my control, and when something "alerts" me I get a lot of nerve pain and waves of freezing cold through my body. It's something I hope will calm down with time, now that I've parted ways with the majority of the stress in my life. 

Eivor - Let It Come

Sometimes

I overthink the most simple things

I go blind

I don't see the solutions in front of me

But today, the sky looks different

And I am wide awake, my heart is quivering

(Let it come, bring it on)

There is something in the air, it's liberating

I can feel it moving

This time, it's coming for me

Something I've been waiting for, I can't explain it

I can feel it moving

This time, I'm ready for it

It's time

To trust the voice in me

Synchronize

Every part of me to this moment

Today, the sky looks different

And I am wide awake, my heart is quivering

(Let it come, bring it on)

(Bring it on, bring it on)

(Bring it on, bring it on)

(Bring it on, bring it on)

(Let it come, bring it on)

There is something in the air, it's liberating

I can feel it moving

This time, it's coming for me

Something I've been waiting for, I can't explain it

But I know I'm changing

This time, I'm ready for it

Ready for it

This time, I'm ready

Let it come, bring it on

Stop Watering the Fake Plastic Trees

I moved back home to North Dakota. I'm 38, living with my parents in their basement, and went back to my former job that I loved. I came home without my husband. I'm happier than ever. Purging the stress of my life has been incredibly healing for me. It's not curing me of my diseases, but my ability to live with disease is improving immensely. 

The phoenix of the Northern Lights directly over my house! I have never seen it with my own eyes until now, and I'm treating it as a sign that I can finally see my life clearly.

My priority in life is building peace, meaning reducing stress.

What motivates you to carry on in life? In my experience, people tend to answer status, wealth, skills, education, building an empire, or anything that gives people pride and a sense of accomplishment. These things are not my primary motivators in life. I'm not saying they're not important and that they don't motivate me at all, but I have learned that I don't wake up daily with motivation to keep advancing in these areas until I have my other basic need met. My basic need is peace in my personal life. What motivates me above all else is building a life of peace.

What peace means to me is having a consistent, stable, secure relationship with my loved ones. Peace means putting energy into building meaningful connections with people I love and care for and having it reciprocated. It also means not living with daily stress over things I have to accomplish, but instead flip it around so that the daily things I have to accomplish come from love and joy. I want my peace to come from a healthy marriage, because I'm built for marriage. I'm highly motivated to do work, chores, or tasks, or whatever for those I love. When it's for love, it's not stressful, it's purposeful. I'm quick to give my time, energy, and money for those I love. Because this is my nature, I need to be very careful about only choosing to love those who love me back without draining me. My perception of my marriage was that it was based on managing stress and avoiding conflict, not about building peace together. I did my part of the daily work to keep the peace, not out of love and joy. I need to build peace through deep connection without resistance, meeting each other's needs, and creating joy with each other. That's why living with my parents is working out brilliantly for me now. I love my parents, they love me, they are always consistent, and I feel very at peace here with them. Peace gives me security, and peace and security together are the foundation of what I need to be happy. Being happy because I have peace and security means I feel open and available to pursue my other goals in life without stress. I'm not unusual, especially for women, but I'm spelling it out like this because I think it needs to be said so plainly. So many people like me are trapped by looking for satisfaction through their work and status, not by looking for peace and security by loving relationships. My satisfaction in my work means nothing to me if I don't have peace at home with those I love.

My relationships have been in poor health for years due to my high stress level and lack of peace. My stress level was so high because my basic needs were not being met, and all the stress caused me to freeze up while waiting for my needs to be met. Years went by in which I felt frozen, in waiting, starving for love and connection, but feeling trapped and unable to build love and connection. My relationships with my friends and family all suffered because I felt too frozen up and unable to act. I also acted very defensive, dismissive, uncaring, rude, and distant because of it. My stress was so high that I couldn't give any of myself to anyone. I didn't like who I was or how I was acting, and I knew the stress was ruining me. I needed to end the stress and find peace again so that I could start to love again. I had to move home and live with my parents to end the stress. And over the past few months I've felt myself enjoying the company of people again. I've been able to be patient with people again, instead of defensive and dismissive. I really need peace in the foundation of my life, and I really needed to free myself from people and situations that drain my peace and caused me stress. 

It's not just unresolved relationship stress that destroys my peace. I've been learning how everything artificial degrades my peace. I've known for years to avoid artificial fabrics in my clothes and artificial ingredients in my food, because they make me feel sick. I'm finding it's also the same with artificial relationships, artificial information, artificial intelligence, artificial art, and so on. All the fake information, half-truths, synthetic images and videos, and misguided propaganda on social media and news media is enough to make me sick. The trouble is, it's making everyone around me sick too, and it's poisoning my relationships with real people. It's difficult to hold conversations with people when they think they are educated because of everything they absorb from social media, but aren't interested in hearing other information or points of view. I really value the scientific process and critical thinking skills so we can find the truth on any matter. I want to live in truth. I really enjoy speculation, theory, and creative fictions when they're properly labeled as such. What I can't stand, however, are lies that are told as if they are the truth. Living in these times that are dominated by lies makes it difficult to safeguard my peace, but I can do it as long as I live an honest life at home with my loved ones. (I'm not leaving social media, because there's still so much good it does, but I learned to stop engaging with lies. I unfollow, and move on. I love to learn about the local community through facebook. I enjoy following my friends. I like to learn from trusted people. I like the private support groups. There is a lot of good on social media, but it's getting overrun with a lot of artificial and misinformation.)

So instead of wasting time scrolling through all the deception and energy-draining propaganda on TV and social media, I'm choosing to use my personal time on playing single-player video games, reading books, drawing, listening to music, stretching, going for walks, doing chores that keep my space organized and clean, cooking new things, reading scientific articles (I love National Geographic), and so on. I'm trying to choose peace over anything that amplifies my stress. I'm choosing activities that require focus, not contribute to my brain rot. I'm choosing to spend time with people who can hold a conversation without distraction or looking at their phones, talk honestly and from their hearts, and also want connection instead of just to use me. 

I need PEACE. I don't need to live a life constantly on-guard against lies, manipulation, expectations that don't align with me, and indulging in junk entertainment and junk food. 

So all that said... 

Did I make the right choice to leave my stressful life behind so that I could work on my peace? Is it helping me manage my health issues? Is my health improving at all?

I wrote in my last post that yes, I'm seeing improvement in some areas with my health. I'm not profoundly better, but I'm not crashing as hard when I spend energy. I'm working harder at work than I have in years, and I do come home and have a crash, but they're not as serious as they used to be. I'm able to find the strength to get up and prepare a meal for myself and eat. My heart rate is still jumping up really high when I get up too fast, I'm still experiencing vertigo very easily, I'm still sweating like crazy at random times, my finger tips still go numb randomly, I'm still having adrenaline attacks at night that wake me up violently, and so on. I did really well for a couple of months when I first moved back here, but I think that was my body letting down and relaxing. Now that I'm working again and trying to keep up more of a routine, I'm having more symptoms. But I can see that I'm a lot more resilient because I'm not spending energy I don't have on stress or people. 

Another factor is that my anxiety is gone. I'm calm. I'm not worried about anything. I'm rational, focused on each moment, and not drowning in thoughts. I'm feeling a lot more creative, curious, patient, and interested. I'm not on the defense anymore. I'm not trying to always prove myself. I'm just me, in this moment, calm and collected. 

Something that concerns me very much, however, is the intense gut pain I keep having in the same area. Sometimes it's the pain of lasers cutting through me, sometimes it's sharp razor blades, and sometimes it's a giant sword through my entire gut. I don't know if it's endometriosis, actual gut problems, scar tissue, or something else. It's been intense enough and frequent enough to make me consider seeing a specialist. We'll see. My new Medicare plan begins in January. 


On another note, I found a tea mug that I really love! As you might know, I drink tea all day long.
Amazon.com: DOPUDO Glass Tea Cup with Infuser and Lid, 17.6oz/520ml Large Borosilicate Teacup,Tea Glass, Clear Mug for Loose Leaf Tea, Blooming Tea, Microwave & Dishwasher Safe - Tea Maker Gift for Birthday : Home & Kitchen

I've been trying to avoid using metal in my loose leaf tea, because metal can deactivate some herbal properties. My acupuncturist taught me that, thankfully. I got a little frustrated with the Rishi paper bags for tea, so this pure glass solution is solving all of my tea problems. 

(All ingredients listed below are organic and from Frontier Co-op unless otherwise stated. I buy them from my work place, where we have a huge wall of bulk herbs that I can buy by the weight. So I usually buy $2 or less of each at a time. I don't use exact measurements either, usually just a large pinch of each.)

My favorite winter-time tea has been: 

Cut and sifted ginger

Cloves

Ceylon Cinnamon

Mt. Capra Mineral Whey Powder (I add this to the mug, not the strainer)

  

And my favorite evening-time tea has been:

Blue lotus flower (Anima Mundi brand)

Butterfly Pea Flower

Lemon balm

Damiana 
Mt. Capra Mineral Whey Powder (I add this to the mug, not the strainer)

But right now I need some caffeine and I'm cold, so I made:

Indian green tea

Cut and sifted ginger

Cloves

Coconut flakes

Redmond Real Salt 

Rhodes - Be The Bird

'Cause you can fly

Be the bird

 Fly away

 See the world

 You'll be the news everybody heard

You'll never lose anything you've learnt

 Just promise me you'll keep going

 Just keep going and I'll keep telling you you're flying

(Radiohead Cover) Gin Blossoms - Fake Plastic Trees

Her green plastic watering can

For her fake Chinese rubber plant

In the fake plastic earth

That she bought from a rubber man

In a town full of rubber plans

To get rid of itself

It wears her out

Resurrection / A New Hope

Hello blog!! Yes, I moved. Yes, I have written about it. No, I have not published what I have written. That's not what I want to write about here. I'm not ready to go public about the moving experience yet. 

I moved back to North Dakota 2 months ago. It wasn't possible to stay in SC because that entire situation fell apart. Although there were a few reasons why I chose to return to ND, one of the primary reasons was because I needed to know if I could reclaim my health if I let go of all stress in my life. I came here alone, meaning without my husband, and I'm living in my parent's basement. I'm being taken care of, I don't have the same level of financial stress, I removed myself from the grip of other people's tensions, and I now have the ability to be completely at peace with no intrusions on my peace. I really need to know if I can recover some of my strength in this situation. 

After 3 days of Dad driving the Uhaul, we finally saw Bismarck in the evening. 

So far, it's been an interesting experiment. I have had to do a lot of physical work, but I also don't know if that will ever actually change (or should change.) I had to unpack and build furniture, which took me a while. I'm also helping Dad with some projects. We needed to build a shed, and our backyard isn't flat, so it was certainly a project. I helped with what I was capable of helping with. We drove to Idaho and back to visit my family there. (Yep, within a month, Dad and I drove from SC to ND, then ND to Idaho. So, just a little less than coast-to-coast!) I've stayed really busy. And today I went into my old work place (Terry's!!!) and offered to go back to work, and now I start next Tuesday! Hurray!

Visiting a former job in Boise, ID last month

So keeping in mind that I'm staying busy and active (as much as possible with having ME/CFS and POTS), here are some positive observations:

- I was amazed at how much easier it has been to sleep since coming here, mostly. I've had a few nights of waking up from jolts of adrenaline. A few nights of feeling restless for hours before falling asleep. A few mornings of waking up with a racing heart. A few nights of insomnia. But overall, my sleep has seriously improved. 

- My mind is CLEAR. The anxiety is gone. The depression is gone. The sense of dread is gone. The vibrations of fear that ruled my body are gone. My mind isn't suffocating from too many thoughts racing anymore. Whatever is right in front of me is what gets my attention, and I can focus on it. 

- I'm actually starting to dream about my future, and it's enjoyable and coming to me naturally! 

- I've held my last chiropractic adjustment longer than I expected, considering how crazy everything in my life was. Moving half way across the country, mourning the loss of my birds that I had to rehome, all the physical labor, you get the idea. My last chiropractor was aggressive, but she fixed issues that were probably from my childhood. I do not generally hold adjustments well or for long, but my body is acting more resilient now. That said, yesterday I finally felt sharp pain in my neck that gave me a nasty headache, but there may be more to that.

- I have had a few crashes. In the last 2 months I've had 4 days where I couldn't do anything at all. Many days where I could only work for a couple of hours, but the day wasn't a total waste. That's really not bad for me! That means I've been spending more energy and crashing less often. I have a feeling it's because my mental stress is gone. I'm not wasting energy on the stress of other people. My brain is just calm, clear, happy, and regulating ONLY my own personal energy. And I know this is true because I've had a few instances where I immediately get worse, drained, zoned out, and feeling the old hopeless void when I've had to talk to certain people. 

- My immune system actually seems to be working a little faster. I caught a bug in Idaho and my symptoms developed quickly, and I stayed sick for almost 2 weeks. That's actually a sign my immune system is trying to do its job! I also ate something I was allergic to, and I got hives within an hour, not the next day. Very good!

Ok, but I've also been experiencing classic issues of mine that are not getting any better:

- No temperature regulation! I'm freezing then sweating then freezing then sweating... it's annoying...

- Raynaud's!! My body was red from heat while my fingers were totally numb for a few minutes. 

- My gut caused major neck and shoulder tension that made my teeth feel extra tight. I had to wait a few days for my gut issue to calm down, and all my pain subsided and the tension released. 

- I almost fainted on the toilet last night. I couldn't tolerate being upright. My heart was going to beat out of my mouth and I couldn't catch my breath. I needed to be laying down, but nature called...

- The nerve pain in my heel has been raging again. I'm sure I'm eating too much b6 because I increased how many nuts I'm eating. The solution is to cut back on b6 rich foods again, but the fiber from the nuts is really helping. There's always a problem with every food, it's annoying. 

- The bloating from Endometriosis has been way too severe. Worse than normal. I'm tempted to buy maternity clothes... sigh...

- The sharp razor blade pains in my pelvis has been bothering me more than normal every day. I cannot do certain stretches without feeling intense stabbing pain next to my hip bone. 

So overall, I think this is a lesson that stress levels were making my symptoms worse. The RELIEF I feel has been so healing! I had to start my life over, I had to go through hell to do this. I'll write about that at some point, but I'm enjoying these good feelings too much to revisit that trauma. I do think I'll be able to live a little more than I was before. I think one of the most important decisions I could have made was to choose my own path, alone, and distance myself from that which was heavily draining my energy daily. I was in survival mode for so many years, and it stopped working. I stopped surviving. I had to save my life. I couldn't continue living that life. I had to come home and start over. Going from feeling suicidal for years and only feeling a void in life, to feeling peace and hope and joy... just by leaving a situation that wasn't meant for me. It's incredible.  

It's also just the little things... All of my time belongs to me. I don't have to live by a complicated routine anymore. I choose when to make dinner, how to cook, how to manage my chores, how to keep my space, when to rest and when to move, when to sleep, when to listen to music, when to listen to myself.... My energy belongs to me again. And I'm so looking forward to working again with this renewed vigor (I love my job!) 

Eivor - Let It Come