I apologize for any weirdness or spelling errors. I’m currently on muscle relaxants and they make me fuzzy.
Before we got married, I informed Poe about my bodily idiosyncrasies. In short? I am a freak. I’ve written about it before, so I won’t go into the backstory too much.
Warning – If you are male, or hate discussions of bodily functions – stop reading. I’ll continue below the fold – but the fold doesn’t show on my feed, so stop reading now if you’re squeamish.
Ahhh. So you’re still here.
I apologize for any weirdness or spelling errors. I’m currently on muscle relaxants and they make me fuzzy.
When I get my period, which I am on right now, my hormones are very very interesting. They will pick one symptom, and take it to the extreme. The good side? I only have to worry about one symptom. The bad side? It’s the EXTREME.
These are the symptoms I might get. A buffet if you will.
- Sore boobs
- Fatigue
- Bloating
- PMS
- Bleeding (of course)
- Cramps
So, due to my birth defect – any symptoms I get will be automatically doubled. I have two organs, and double the hormones. So, when my body plays the lottery and picks one… It’s bad. Here’s a revised list to what I actually feel.
- Sore boobs – I can only sleep on my back, with blankets to my waist, and cannot wear a bra. The pain is that bad.
- Fatigue – I will not make it through the day without at least 1 5 hour nap. The rest of the time will be very fuzzy, to the point of dizzyness.
- Bloating – I will look about 7 months pregnant. I have extra stretchmarks that come from THESE times rather than from pregnancy. And it feels as those I actually am pregnant, complete with needing extra pillow to sleep, and shoes not fitting.
- PMS – Oh dear God. I can keep what is shown to others as just crabby. In my head though, it is really really really bad. It drove me to therapy. Everything from homicidal to suicidal to anxiety induced imaginings. I’ve planned my own funeral and my family members funerals in these times – complete with grief, and uncontrolled crying to sleep. It ‘aint pretty.
- Bleeding (of course) – To the point of hemmorrage and needing to go to the hospital for fluids. I haven’t had to have a blood transfusion, yet, but I have had to have fluids to bring my blood pressure back up. Clots literally the size of my hand. Looks like a massacre happened in the bathroom. Have had to leave work because I’ve leaked when I wasn’t expecting it, and by leak, I mean the entire upper portion of my pants covered in blood before I can make it to the bathroom.
- Cramps – Pain. Painpainpain. I birthed two fully formed humans without drugs, and that’s the closest I can come to describing it. (Without the break in between contractions). When this symptom is “picked,” I’ll have radiations around my back, and down one leg. I will vomit. I will cry, and scream, and kick. It is all encompassing. To fix… I can’t take ibuprofen or any other OTCs. To even touch the pain, I would have to take too many pills. So it’s shots of morphine, or prescription pain killers or muscle relaxants. Muscle relaxants actually work best, because they stop the contractions of my two uteruses (uteri?) which is the actual cause of the pain.
This week’s symptom? The pain. I didn’t know yet whether it would be the blood or pain, but would be one of them.
My poor poor husband. He didn’t know WHAT to do with me, ’cause he couldn’t really help. We don’t have health insurance, so he finally went to my parents house and got muscle relaxants from them. I took them, and finally got relief about an hour later. He gave me a time limit. “If you’re not better by 9:30am, you’re going to the hospital. Period.” I convinced him not to do that though. I knew it would be hours before the hospital actually GAVE me relief (I know of which I speak), and when I’m in pain, I’m a thrasher, so all I wanted was to be able to thrash on my own bed. Ultimately, he finally climbed up on the bed with me, grabbed my hand, and watched my face (my eyes were closed). He could tell when it was about to get bad by my face, and so he would breathe with me, caution me when I was going to hyperventilate, and talked me through it – just like labor. He even started counting between “contractions.” I would get 5-10 seconds of relief, and then 25-30 seconds of screaming pain. He just talked me through it all. It was tearing him apart. Especially when I was at peace, ’cause he knew it would start up again. Eventually, I had to throw up, but that was before I took the good drugs, thank goodness. FINALLY the muscle relaxants kicked in. I was like a wrung out rag. So was he.
He actually asked me if I would consider getting a hysterectomy. He’s never done that before, so I knew I was really scaring him. But that’s not really an option. They’d have to give me synthetic hormones, and I react to that with disabling migraines. Plus – as awful as it all is – doctors don’t consider it an option because the organs are healthy.
This? Isn’t healthy. But I’m on the other side now, thank God.
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