2011 Book Challenge

Still working on my goal of 45 books for Dragondreamer's Lair book challenge. I have a total of 32 books read plus 2 audio books completed so still need another 12 or so depending on how many more audio books I get finished. I have given up on just using audio books when I work out. Right now I am listening to "Bitch is the New Black" by Helena Andrews.

I think you can access my list of read in 2011 by clicking on the title of this post.

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Negative... what else is new.

My world could change or crumble with a phone call

Today I am waiting for that yes or no call from the doctor. I had a followup from my surgery yesterday (all good) and when I told her my symptoms over the past 3 weeks she thought a blood pregnancy test was in order just to make sure that I am not one of the 1% that HPT's don't work for as I have never had a positive even when I probably should have.

Here's hoping that the nausea, fatigue, constipation, headaches, lack of concentration, and weepyness over the past 3 weeks along with a super light period are for a positive reason.....
and not just a manifestation of some other issue such as depression or thyroid.

I'm terrified of the answer since with a positive our life will change. With a negative I'm afraid of letting my emotions take over.


Supposed to know before 2pm today.... Yikes.

Edit 3:30pm: No phone call, the big question now, do I call or assume it is negative?

Oh how you taunt me...

Oh how you taunt me, you silly pee stick. Today is cycle day 26 and I woke up with a migraine so as a desperate attempt to find some sunshine today I decided to use FMU to see if we actually caught the egg that I supposedly released. Depending on the light there is a slight line but I took the darn thing apart and it must just be an evaporation line. It's not over yet but if my headache is any indication it will be on Sunday. Yay, just in time for the worst day of my cycle to be while we are flying to Florida for my Grandmother's funeral. Gah!

Holding on to a thread of hope...

The Truth About trying

Two good things have come my way....

I actually got a CD22 progesterone test done yesterday and the nurse called me today with the results. I wanted to get it done so that I had the info when I go back for my last followup with my ob/gyn from my surgery in a few weeks. The level was 15 for a non-medicated cycle. From everything I can find it seems like that means I ovulated on my own this month. I didn't chart and I wish I would have but oh well, too late now. Of course now to keep my mind off of it for the next several days....

The other good thing was getting some work issues resolved that I have been dealing with for 6 weeks. It's been very trying since the item that I needed to take care of expires tomorrow but it is resolved and in the best way possible so I am a happy camper today.

Better get walking, I'm doing a virtual walk to Lake Michigan with hopefully a completion date by Thanksgiving but I am already behind so off I go!

Have a healthy day!

Answers?

Well Maybe? The lap, which was more complicated than it should have been due to a blood vessel injury, showed that I do have Endometriosis. Shouldn't really be surprised by that as I have read that since my mom had it I was 5-10 times more likely to have it depending on the source that I read. It wasn't in any spots that would allow it to be completely removed but she did free the organs and things that were stuck together so that alone should help with my pain level. The good news is that it was not on my ovaries or tubes and the tubes were clear. Now to decide what to do. We are thinking a 3 month course of Lupron if we can afford it.

Off to the dr today for a follow up and to see if she will release me for work. She said I could go back if I could drive without narcotics and until yesterday I hadn't made it a full day without any narcotic pain meds though I did take some at night to sleep. Today I am trying again to not take any and have actually gotten up, taken a shower, and gotten dressed. It looks nasty outside so I guess I won't be trying to go for a walk to the mail box. Right now though I am ready for a nap. I have 5 orders waiting with due dates of at least next Wednesday so I really want to try and get back in the work groove.

Hope all is well out there is cyberland.

tomorrow, Tomorrow...

The sun's already out but hopefully the answer will be coming out tomorrow. I have surgery set up for sometime in the morning and they are looking for the answer to the abdominal pain but also will be checking to see if my tubes are clear. It seems like it took forever to get to this point but I'm waiting for it to be over...

Weird Space

Well hello there... it has been awhile. Things have been a bit crazy around here. I ended up in the emergency room again so now I am waiting for the surgery scheduler to call and set up a time to do a lap with a tube test. I chose to skip Lupron for now as we don't even know if this is endo or some other problem. Seems crazy to treat with nasty hormones when I have had such a bad reaction to hormonal birth control in the past. The pain from the surgery might last a few weeks but the hormones may mess up something all together. My ob/gyn has thrown around the I word a lot in her notes so the scheduler said that there is a possibility that our insurance company will deny to pay for the surgery. A letter of medical necessity might change their minds but since that isn't always successful we just won't know until it's all scheduled and authorized. I am scheduled for a 21 day progesterone test. Not sure if I will do it on the 11th or if I will just wait for another cycle. I almost think I will just wait because getting pregnant right now is the least of my worries, however, if this is endo than supposedly pregnancy helps with the pain. ;( Right now I would just love to have a few days of no pain and no period. These days I am only close to pain free during my period. Not typical of endo which is the other reason for not choosing Lupron. My doctor said something about just having bad Mittelschmerz. But 5-8 days of severe abdominal pain with almost continuous pain throughout the rest of the cycle? Vomiting/nausea and pain all the way up to my shoulder? If that is the case, please, take my ovaries because I can't deal with this anymore.

Please tell me that some time it will get easier!

I thought I was prepared. I knew it was coming. I knew that they were trying. Why is it that a simple "We're Pregnant" can still rock my world even though I am so, so very happy for them! The couple that is pregnant has tried for 5 years for their second child and the poor man's fertility method worked out of the blue for them (3 cycles on the pill and then boom on the 4th). I'm trying so very hard because I am really really thrilled for them but at the same time I am just so very sad for myself and my husband. We have come to terms that we won't be parents unless we come into some money in the future. We just don't have the funds to move forward with adoption or anything else right now and probably never will. So here we are... and this place is just as painful as it was before the work I did on accepting our situation. This sucks.

April Challenge

I was trying to think of what goals I wanted to set for April and got stuck on a few so I decided to let the month dictate.

A=Accountability -- I am going to log my food again, make my trackers public, and post it on another message board that I am part of on a daily basis/regular basis.

P=Physical activity -- I will get in 10 min of cardio per day or at least 6 strength exercises each day

R=Read -- I will get back to reading for fun again with at least 15 min per day

I=Intake -- I will log my intake on sparkpeople and aim to be under 175 grams of carbs per day

L=Liquid -- I will drink at least 8 cups of water per day, limit pop to 1x per week, and drink at least 1 cup of tea per day.

Since I am starting this tomorrow I will weigh in just to get a starting number for these goals.

Anyone want to join me or have their own April challenge going on?

Thankful

The mass is a cyst that lost half of it's size between the ultrasound and the MRI. No surgery yet. I have to go for another meeting with the dildocam in about 6-8 weeks and hopefully it will be gone. Since the pain I am having is still around on the right side and the right side cyst is gone the search for other issues is on. I have a call into the Gastro to work on scheduling a colonscopy. Both the PCP and the ob/gyn said that would be the next step at this point. Hopefully I can get in there next week or the week after.

On another note, I have a reunion with some women I went to Jr High with. Before I was excited but now, not so much. I was hoping to have a reason for my pain and now I am worried that if I say yes, I will feel awful that day and not want to go. This part of the issue is what sucks big time.

Still processing...

I went to see a new PCP today and he had the results from my followup ultrasound yesterday. I have to have an MRI on Friday because they found an 8cm mass in my pelvic region. It is on the left side and all my pain has been on the right side so there still is a question of whether or not this will be cause of my pain but since it is pretty much 24/7 these days... The odd thing is that my ob/gyn wrote the orders for an MRI and for the nurse to notify me last night. I didn't hear anything from them today so the new dr ended up writing the order for the MRI so that I could get in this week. Obviously now I have to have the lap to have the mass removed and to see what else might be going on. I just don't get where this came from as I had an ultrasound 7 weeks ago.

Nervous doesn't really cut it right now...

Shouldn't be surprised...

I only made it 9 days with the Nuvaring before my blood pressure numbers were higher than we all would like. They weren't super scarey but I was averaging about 135/99 and that is over 20 pts higher on both sides than it was prior to using the ring. Plus my pulse went up over 15 points on average with several readings over 100 BPM. I have been off of it since Tuesday afternoon and I am still getting higher readings than I would like but hopefully it will calm down soon. I still need to find a new PCP and if it doesn't go down soon then I will have to find one sooner rather than later.

I have done well on 2011 goals with making new recipes and eating at home an average of 5 nights per week. I only missed last week with the new recipe goal but I think I made two new recipes one week so it balances out. I'm sure that at some point I will make more than one recipe in a week again so it's all good.

Work is super slow right now but hopefully it will pick up after the Superbowl. I have two orders that I have to wait until next week to inspect simply because the people aren't ready right now. I don't want to go to my appointment tomorrow because there isn't enough data. Blech. Oh well.

Better get back up off the couch and either use the Zumba for Wii game or get some more cleaning done.

Have an awesome weekend.

Still no answers...

GI doctor had no additional information. He thinks that if the stomach issues return and can't be controlled by the med he gave me that I need to have a colonscopy but he is willing to wait to see if the Nuvaring resolves the pain. My BP is running higher than it had been previously but isn't scary high... then again, it has only been 2 days. Hopefully it is just my stressing about it that is the cause of the increased numbers and not the actual med.

Pain is still there so no miracle cure but maybe it will disappear this month. Still not sure how to handle that but I was watching an older episode of THE TALK the other day. I had purposely been avoiding it for reasons unknown to me except that a friend informed me that it was about Jillian Micheal's adoption and PCOS. I guess that people have been annoyed with her about some comments in regards to pregnancy. She said something to a reporter about "not wanting to do that to her body" and since she was unprepared for that question in the interview she didn't address it the way that she wanted to. She actually has PCOS and Endometriosis. Her body is healthy right now and she had made the decision that taking the hormones she would need to get pregnant weren't worth wrecking the health she has built when she could adopt to achieve her goals. I guess this struck a cord with me because again I have been arguing with myself that going through treatments would be selfish and possibly harmful, especially if I can't even handle the hormones from various contraceptives. If these hormones are the same that would be injected, ingested, increased during the cycles and also any subsequent pregnancy, then it follows reasonable logic that the pregnancy would be detrimental and have consequences such as pre-eclampsia that could/would be potentially harmful to me, DH, family members, and worse of all our possible child.

Honestly, right now we can't do anything due to financial constraints. But I am in a complete Catch 22 when it comes to trying to help out the household. I want to get a part time job or a different full time job but with this pain, it doesn't seem like a good idea to job search until this is resolved. At the same time, the part time job sounds fine but a different full time job would mess with my schedule. I started on this current career path to make it easier for us when we would have children and yet 8 years later we are no closer to that point. So do I change careers again and not worry about the hours? Do I just hope that business will pick up and that I can find my niche in the future? Do I just go back to retail and keep my current professional license active so I can go back full time when things work out the way we wish for? Or do I go back to school and start a new path that would throw a wrench in the whole thing? Limbo I tell you... Limbo!

Lemon Thyme Pork Medallions

I found this recipe in the WW Cook It Quick cookbook. It really is a quick recipe and both of us felt is a keeper for our house. It was nice to finally hit a recipe that we both liked as the last few have sort of flopped around here.

Limbo forever?

Sometimes I feel like my life will be in limbo forever. I realize that isn't possible. Everyday things change. I just feel stuck....

Of course what the doctor said on Friday didn't really help much. She believes it is just a typical monthly follicle that formed a cyst and that this is happening every month or two. She claims that since it didn't change either it is a new one or it just hasn't been given enough time to disappear yet. Three options. Use some form of hormonal birth control to see if that stops the pain/stops the formation of cysts, get another ultrasound in 6-8 weeks to see if the cyst disappears or if there is another, undergo an laparoscopy to see what is going on. I opted for a month or two of the nuvaring to see if I can tolerate it/if the pain suddenly disappears. No guarantee it won't piss off my blood pressure so need to keep an eye on that and just DWI. If the nuvaring doesn't work/can't be used then I'm going to ask for another ultrasound. If there is still a cyst there then it is time for surgery. I'm not sure how I will handle it if it works. Does that mean that I am actually ovulating occassionally? Or is it one of these things where the follicle is forming but not releasing the egg? I don't know.

But, I am strangely holding out hope that the GI doctor has a definite cause on Tuesday.

Grrrrrrr. I had really hoped to be out of pain by my birthday.

2011 Goals

Just realized I never posted my yearly goals over here.

1. Take a family free trip with DH (We haven’t had a vacation that didn’t involve family somehow since our Honeymoon with the exception of a quick weekend for our 5th anniversary)

2. Clean out the 3rd bedroom and get it set up as a guest bedroom or additional office

3. Check off 4 items on my DH’s “I’ve never been to:” list and maybe 1 of them will be a new item for me as well.

4. Keep up with my inperson weightloss support group as long as it is a good tool for me.

5. Cook dinner an average of 5 times per week, even if it means using a stashed item from the freezer.

6. Try 1 new recipe a week

7. Be in a full exercise routine by the end of the year that amounts to a minimum of 150 minutes a week but averaging closer to 240 minutes per week.

8. Keep up with the 15 min decluttering/15 min reading per day throughout the year.

May 2011 be a successful year for everyone!

Maybe I'm not crazy...

or maybe I still am. Tired of being a whiner, I stopped talking about what was going with me because I just thought it was going to be a part of everyday life with no known cause. It has started to seem that way after intermittent abdominal pain over the past 8 months. Appendicitis has been ruled out. My ob/gyn wasn't convinced that it was the ovarian cysts that were seen on both CT scans. My GI doctor thought she was probably right. Hopefully in the next week or so we will have a definite answer or at least a course of treatment.

The followup ultrasound showed that the cyst has not disappeared. Ob/Gyn says I need to come in to discuss options but of course I can't get in for another week. GI sent a letter that the blood work all came back normal so I don't have celiac disease and there isn't any inflammation showing so it most likely is not Chron's or Colitis. Yesterday I had another test that looks at the intestines more closely so hopefully this will show if there is a bowel issue.

I'm still processing and I hope that the Ob/Gyn has a quick answer.

Book Challenge Final Update!

I didn't make my goal this year. It was sort of a surprise but not really. I did finally get through most of the Harry Potter series and I might just finish it today. Too bad I didn't take the time that I should have to read this year.

My reading list is here

May everyone has a wonderful 2011!