I Am A Freak. I Am A Monster.

I am a freak. I am monster. 

Today I truly believe I am. 

The sun has been shining and I wanted to take my little niece to the beach today. I am getting restless and I want to do things. I am a beach girl and I miss the surf. 

My body is healing from the surgery and I want to reclaim it back. I want to return to doing yoga in the mornings. I want to swim. I want to go to the gym. I want to be able to do turkish get ups again. 

The heat and the hot flashes were making me feel so sick. This is normally my favourite time of year and I am starting to hate it. I love the heat. It is not like me to whinge about the heat. 

A migraine struck mid-morning. As I was putting on my swimmers to leave I vomited everywhere. I raced to where I keep all my medication and quickly took a Zomig. 

This drug is a miracle drug for migraines but you have to take it in time. I was lucky and within 10 minutes the evil horrible thing started to lift but I find this drug makes me want to lie in bed unable to move for hours after taking it. 

So there was no beach for me today. I was just laying around in the heat eating dry crackers and lemonade icy poles. I will try to hit the surf early morning tomorrow.

In the afternoon a severe endo flare struck me. That awful pelvic pain that is constantly there flared up. I took some panadeine forte. It did nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

By late afternoon I was extremely uncomfortable. The dull awful pelvic pain had developed into deep burning pelvic pain. I started crying. I was crying because I was scared. 

This deep burning pelvic pain was the exact same pain that I had after my hysterectomy and had every single day until my recent surgery. The exact same. The same pain that varies in it's intensity but is always there. 

When I had this deep pelvic pain for those months prior to my recent surgery I would often remark to my mother that I was so sure that it was endometriosis forming. I felt like a freak I would say to her. I would say that I'm a monster. 

She would put her arms around me and I would cry because I was so scared. Scared that while enduring this deep burning pelvic pain disease was forming inside me. 

It turned out that I was right. From June to December I had endometriosis and endometrioma form. So that pain WAS in fact endometriosis. The surgeon said technically I shouldn't have had any active endometriosis after my hysterectomy. 

But I had SO much. More than most women would get in years and I had it within months. Immediately after having my uterus removed. 

By 7pm my pain was excruciating. I was kicking myself for not taking my morning and evening dosages of OxyContin. I am supposed to be taking 80mg every morning and night. But I am so worried about taking so much pain medication that sometimes I don't take it. 

The mornings that I do feel like I can manage I don't take it. I assess it every morning. I know this isn't strictly following my pain management plan and I guess this is probably why I ended up this state. 

I had to 'bust out the opiates'. I was in that much pain that I couldn't even wait for the immediate release capsule. I opened it up and put the powder directly into my mouth.

I held onto the kitchen bench and my whole body trembled from the pain. I clenched my fists so tightly that my nails were cutting into the palms of my hands. I started to sob uncontrollably. I wanted to scream and scream. I was screaming in my head. I started praying. Psalm 23 came to me and I kept repeating this over and over in my quivering breath.

I was shaking my head and saying "NO NO NO' over and over. I waited for the immediate release OxyNorm to kick in. 10 minutes later I realised that 20mg wasn't enough and I took the same dose again.

Still standing there shaking and sobbing. I know that you shouldn't take two dosages within 4 hours but I couldn't stand the pain. My doctor has told me that I can take double the dose for moments like those and I have done it before many times. I felt like I was going crazy. I wanted to rip my hair out.  I felt like I was losing it.

I counted the minutes. I watched the clock on the microwave. I could feel that my pulse was very rapid. I was holding my breath forgetting about the breathing exercises for moments like this. If this dose wasn't going to work I was going to have to take even more. Or worse call my doctor to my house. Which I can do. And have had to before.

16 minutes later I was relieved of the excruciating pain. 16 minutes. 16 minutes of pure hell. There are no other words to describe this awful place.

Sometimes when I am in such excruciating pain I wonder to myself am I growing and forming endometriosis right now? It might sound really stupid but these are the thoughts that flash through my mind.

I feel like a freak. A monster. A freakish monster that is growing disease inside of me at a rapid rate. 

As I sit on my bed now calmed by the pain relief and valium I wonder about estrogen. If they are sure of one thing about endometriosis it is that it's dependent on estrogen for growth and survival. I started wearing a Climara patch about 9 days after my surgery because the hot flashes and night sweats were unbearable particularly the night sweats.

I have noticed that the pain is worse when the patch is new. I change it weekly on a Saturday. I have been keeping an extensive and extremely detailed pain diary for nearly a year now. I document every single thing. When I see the pain management specialist on 1 February I am going to be able to go to that appointment very prepared.

I have been researching this week. I want to know everything there is about endometriosis that I don't already know. I don't know very much about surgical menopause either so I am trying to understand this. Understand what this means to me. My predicament.

My post op appointment is next Friday. I am scared about this appointment. It will be the first time that my surgeon and I have a proper discussion about my surgery other than the quick one while I was in bed on morphine in the hospital.

Ultimately what I want to know is this. Why am I still in pain? Is this pain endometriosis aggressively forming as it has done so since I was 14? If I take the patch off and have no estrogen will this give me a chance to live a life free from such excruciating pain? 

If I don't have the patch on then I will certainly suffer through the menopausal symptoms. I can endure this if I know it won't be for too long. If I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. 

If I deprive my body of estrogen what will happen to me? Is this a wise decision to make? I know about the risks of osteoporosis and am taking supplements to combat this. Unfortunately I am lactose intolerant so need to take calcium supplements anyway. 

Can I fight this latest battle of mine with herbal treatments? This is what I am trying to research and understand this week.  If endo wants estrogen then I don't want to provide it.  

I know I am a freak. I know that my body is freaky. It grows disease. This disease grows very quickly. That same disease has taken over my body and destroyed my insides. There is nothing left to attack. Only my other organs. Are they now compromised? Because my other organs have been taken will they now be attacked by this vicious aggressive disease?

I hate this disease. I hate it so much. I hate that every morning if I haven't woken up in pain then I dread that the pain is coming. I hate that I am so dependent on narcotic medication just to keep my sanity. I hate that I am now truly scared.  More scared than I've ever been.  

That's a lot of hate for one tiny woman. One tiny freak. One tiny monster.