
There’s a Los Angeles Endo Event taking place on March 25, 2018, at 2:00pm at the Clove Coffee Graden! If you’d like to attend the Tea & Talk with Everything Endo event, please email them for more information.
There’s a Los Angeles Endo Event taking place on March 25, 2018, at 2:00pm at the Clove Coffee Graden! If you’d like to attend the Tea & Talk with Everything Endo event, please email them for more information.
Our friends at the Endometriosis Family Support Group are at it again! On March 6, 2018, at 5:30pm (PST), they’ll be hosting a Webinar with Meghan Cleary, one of our local EndoSisters!
For more information, AND to register, email Megan.
And another week has gone by. This one flew! I’ve been so incredibly busy with work and personal life. Augh! And February draws to a close…
This weekend I’ll be celebrating an annual tradition with beautiful friends: Girl’s Day Weekend! A handful of girlfriends that I’ve known for nearly a decade (and then some) get together at least once a year to reconnect, hang out, giggle, and just chill.
As I packed my bags and headed out the door this morning, my lovely husband gave me a kiss and reminded me to take it easy, to not push myself too hard, to take rests and breaks as I need them. He’s been aware the past few weeks had been painful for me. And his gentle reminder to be gentle with myself warmed my heart.
It has inspired today’s very simple, yet very powerful, quote:
“Be good to yourself.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
Have a wonderful weekend. And if you need it, remember to take it easy on yourself.
Love, Lisa
Readers Choice: Can Men Get Endometriosis – added a 2018 study of a man who developed Endometriosis.
Support Group Meeting – our next meeting will be Saturday March 31st
Oh, it’s that time of week again! FRIDAY!
What a bumpy and painful week it’s been for me. But, on the plus side, today is my first pain-free day since last Friday. So YAY! Hopefully it lasts. I hope you, my dear Readers, are doing well.
Today’s quote dares you to get out and DO:
“Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Get out of your comfort zone even if it means being uncomfortable. The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades bumps and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your character is truly tested And have the courage to accept that you’re not perfect nothing is and no one is — and that’s OK.”
― Katie Couric
May you get out there and step outside your comfort zone, go nuts, have fun, and discover a bit of adventure and mischief. ❤
Happy Weekend!
Love, Lisa
Genevieve felt the symptoms of Endometriosis since her first period. She was diagnosed when she was 21 years old, and is now 28. She shares her story with us today.
Genevieve’s Journey: I thought I was dying.
I was on a family holiday, lying in our camper trailer bed with my mum and my little brother. I was 12. I think my poor mum, who was a nurse, was at her wits end by sunrise, and had given up trying to diagnose me after an hour or so. The pain in my abdomen had me convulsing, crying and curled up into a ball clinging my legs to my chest for dear life while I rocked back and forth. I was given some Panadol, and while my mum and brother proceeded to sleep, I made the cold, windy walk up the hill to the campsite toilets over a dozen times throughout the night thinking, “This is it. I’m going to be one of those news articles, where a young girl dies a mysterious death in a caravan park”. I remember sitting in the showers in the middle of the night, on my thongs (so I didn’t get butt tinea from the shared bathroom) and just feeling like I should have been at a hospital. But I was so desperate not to cause a scene or be put on to a helicopter in front of the entire Robe Caravan Park.
Continue readingWelcome to another Friday. We made it through yet another week!
Here I sit today laying in bed, wrapped around my heating pad, taking a sick day from work. My pain has been sneaking up on me these past few days: had a lovely incident EndoBelly earlier this week, had an incredible acupuncture session, and spent yesterday with my microwavable heating pad all day while I was at work. So today I’m laying in bed, with Tramadol coursing through my system, as I am patiently waiting for it to kick in and take away my pain.
It’s on a day like today where I’m reminded that self care is not selfish. I don’t like taking days off of work. I have very few and very precious sick days available to me to last throughout the year. That being said, I also acknowledge that my comfort and my health and my mental well-being are incredibly important and sometimes I need to focus purely on me. Had I gone to work today, I can almost guarantee you that I would have made it to lunch and then begged off to stay home for the rest of the day. I also likely would have regretted going in in the morning when I could have stayed at home laying in bed embracing my heating pad and my agony.
I know that endometriosis is not curable. I know that pain medications are a Band-Aid. I know that birth control pills, Lupron Depo, Danzanol, Letrozole, and any sort of medication marketed toward reducing the symptoms of endometriosis are all purely Band-Aids with awful side effects. I know that excision surgery is considered the “gold standard” to treat endometriosis. I also fully understand that it’s not a guarantee that my pain will not return. Acknowledging that the treatments are insufficient at times, and acknowledging that this filthy disease may return whenever it wishes, doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.
There are good days. There are bad days. Today is a bad day.
I’ve been lucky enough to have two excision surgeries by a surgeon I believe to be incredibly skilled and knowledgeable and passionate about treating our illness. There are times like today where my pain is so bad that all I want to do is feel sorry for myself, and I do for a little bit. But, something deep down inside reminds me that I can get through this. I may not be able to get through this well today, but I can get through this and I will resume the good days hopefully very soon.
You have to find a light at the end of the tunnel somewhere even if you can’t see it yet, it’s there… Somewhere.
One of my readers, Erin, emailed me asking if I could look into taking Melatonin for Endometriosis pain and symptoms. She had heard that it may help reduce the symptoms, pain, and maybe even the lesions themselves.
So, on goes my Research Cap and it begins!
Melatonin is a natural hormone produced by the body as the light fades. Many people take Melatonin to help them fall asleep and stay asleep. It’s been coming out in studies over the past decade that Melatonin may play a role in helping reduce Endometriosis lesions and pain.
Continue readingAlways a sweet surprise to find out you’ve been nominated for a fun bloggy-award. And by my good friend and stalker, Marixsa, is the culprit for this one. She writes The Endo Zone, an incredible blog about her journey coping with Endometriosis and infertility, her life, and her adventures. And I love her to pieces. TO PIECES!!! Thanks Stalker! xoxoxo
So, what’s the Liebster award?
HERE’S THE RULES:
1. Imagine that the blogosphere suddenly disappears—for whatever reason. What do you do? Well, seeing as I didn’t blog until 2014, I’m sure I’d survive. Before my blogging days, did I write much? Nope. When I was a kid, I used to write almost daily in my diary. I kept that habit up until I reached my 20s. Then…nothing. But now I have a passion and a drive to share…to reach…to blab. If the blogosphere disappeared (and assuming so did the ability to create a pseudo-blog), I’d probably reach out to magazines, newspapers, columns, etc. to continue to try to not clam up about Endometriosis. Social media would continue to be a forum, too, that I would use and abuse. Smoke signals. A message in a bottle. Graffiti. I’d go nuts…
2. What characteristic do you not possess at all? This was a fun one. Since I’m not well-versed in the large array of characteristics out there, I hit a webpage to help me out! I spent some time perusing the list, looking up words that were unfamiliar, and analyzing myself inside and out. I came up with milquetoast. Not only did I learn a new word that is hilarious to say, but it’s so very true. As a child and teenager, I was shy and quiet and watching from the shadows waiting for life to happen to me. As an adult, I could care less. I’m loud and boisterous and not afraid to go up and talk to strangers and strike up a conversation. I’ll eagerly step forward to pitch in and participate in whatever strikes my fancy. There are no more shadows to cling to. There’s no self-doubt that I won’t be accepted…I’m out and doing and enjoying. Except when it comes to dancing…I just don’t know what to do with my hands! And if you try to tell me I can’t do something, that simply fuels the fire and motivation to DO IT!
I’m not sure when the big switch occurred from my shy childhood to my confident adulthood. But I’m glad it did.
3. Why did the chicken cross the road? To marry me at Burning Man in 2011. 🙂 Awww, my dear sweet best friend Rosie and I out on our dusty adventures.
4. How do you face critical problems? Horribly. If I have a plan, I’m usually okay. But most critical problems are also an unsuspected crisis or something I don’t have any control over. And when I don’t have control, or I can’t plan, or there’s nothing I can do to solve the issue…I tend to freak out. First, my ears get hot…literally red hot, then I get loud and stompy and annoyed and suffer from tunnel vision. Then I obsess. Which only makes all the rest of it worse! BUT…if it’s a critical problem I can sit down, analyze, and formulate some sort of plan to begin to tackle it, it’s a much different scenario. I’m calm, collected, have my “steps” that I must first accomplish, and can start whittling away toward a solution.
5. One thing about yourself of which you are most proud? Embracing my diagnosis, fighting through the immediate depression of learning I have an incurable and painful disease, and pushing ahead to find and support others with this same condition. Due to that urge to fight back, I’ve found an incredible community and am helping others.
6. The happiest moment of your life? The day I reconnected with my family after nearly a decade of strained relations.
7. A word which you hate to use? Pejorative words used to describe a person’s sexual preference, socioeconomic status, race, etc. I hate to use them and I hate to hear them used by others. If you need an example, Wikipedia has a long list.
8. What is your dream job? I love my job as a paralegal. But if I lost my job and couldn’t find another in this field, I’d want to be a librarian in some tiny little town…just me and a bunch of books.
9. What villainous character do you most admire, and why? Cobra Commander. I don’t really know why, but he’s been my favorite bad guy since I was a little kid playing with my brothers’ GI Joe figurines. We used to watch the cartoon religiously. And I don’t think he’ll ever be topped.
10. Item on your bucket list that you would be MOST upset if you didn’t accomplish. Staying the night at the Titan Missile Museum in Arizona, eating pizza, playing war simulations, and bunking down in the crew quarters for the evening. It’s an expensive endeavor, but one day I’d love to.
11. If you could have lunch with any famous person, dead or alive, who would it be and what would you order? Oh man, this one was easy! I’d enjoy fluffernutter sandwiches with Elvis Presley.
The 11 bloggers I nominate are the first 11 blogs (in order) I started following on WordPress 🙂 :
And the 11 questions I pose to these wonderful bloggers?
Have fun!!!!! 🙂
I don’t have TV, but I’ve had a lot of friends and loved ones excitedly tell me that they saw a commercial about Endometriosis recently! I think that’s awesome! A wonderful way to spread awareness to so many people!
Like one friend said, it took me 20 years for a diagnosis – maybe it wouldn’t have taken so long if I had seen a commercial similar to this one. If it can help just one woman begin to search for answers, it’s awesome.
Continue reading