Update: 10 weeks later

As promised I am updating everyone with my progress since my hysterectomy 10 weeks ago.  I have posted ‘around town’ on other sites when I have been asked, but I wanted to keep all this info in one place too.

Ten weeks ago I had my hysterectomy, both ovaries removed, lapro/vaginally.  This site tells about everything I dealt with regards to my PMDD, physically and emotionally so if you haven’t read all of it, I recommend you do.

I am feeling great.  As of this week I am not only walking a couple of miles on the treadmill and outside w/ my Siberian Husky, I am now also running.

I haven’t had my period since the surgery, they told me a couple of weeks after surgery more than likely I would have a cycle, shedding the last of it, but fortunately, I haven’t.
So, that is 3 months without PMDD!  It is so awesome!

I started taking the Premarin straight from the hospital, but when I went in for my 6 wk follow up I explained that my sex drive seemed a bit low, or should I say- GONE!  That was a bummer since I was hoping for a huge difference since I was no longer in pain, instead it was worse.  Yes, I was nervous but I also told myself and my husband that I didn’t come this far to stop until I was living the life I wanted, deserved!  (I was also having major migraines. )

So, the doctor said migraines could be from too much estrogen and we needed to add a small dose of Testosterone to the picture- it worked!  So, as of now, the new HRT is working.  I’m not tricking myself into thinking this will be the final stop and that I won’t ever have to tweak it again, but I am positive as of now, and enjoying things day by day.

Physically, no pain- No more cramps, back pains, leg pains, etc…

Emotionally, no outbursts, raging, depression, etc…

I haven’t had any emotional problems such as not feeling like a Woman, or anything like that, I know some Women go through this, it just didn’t happen to me.  If anything I feel more like a Woman since I can have intimate moments with my husband w/o pain, raise my kids without having weeks of  getting quieter, and I don’t have to carry a heating pad around everywhere with my kids worried about Mommies health.

I am really happy that things have worked out this way.  I have been off my anti-depressant and Topamax since right before the surgery, and am doing great without them.  Really goes to show doctors that PMDD is real, the depression we go through during this time is not depression, but PMDD.

I will keep everyone updated as time goes on, whether it’s something good or bad, I will keep posting here.

Chronic Health Issues & Stages of Grief

Acquiring a chronic health condition isn’t easy. With it comes loss and with loss, the process of grieving. Stages of grief may be:

Disbelief (shock that the loss has occurred)

Denial (refusing to accept the loss)

Bargaining (making deals with deity, doctors, etc. )

Guilt (If I had done ______ maybe this never would have happened to me.)

Anger (towards the loss, illness, deity, etc.)

Depression (may run throughout the entire process until the loss is accepted)

Acceptance and Hope (Life has changed but it will continue and be meaningful. Acceptance doesn’t  mean you have to like your illness, but it can mean learning to manage it and be  with it as you continue on with your life.)

Today, try:

Taking a moment to ask yourself if you are in a specific phase of grieving related to PMDD or another chronic health condition.

Recognize that some of what you’re feeling may be related to loss and the process of mourning.

Ask yourself what you would do if a loved one were in a similar stage. If someone lost a loved one, you would (hopefully) not tell them to simply get over it and move on. Your heart would open to them. You would reach out to them with compassion. You would allow them the time it can take to move through the stages of grief. Try doing the same for yourself or asking someone else for support.

Honor your loss. Take time to recognize that you are experiencing a significant change.

Remember that you may find yourself moving forward, back, and forward again. For example, when I chose to have a total hysterectomy BSO, I spent some time with PMDD in the disbelief and anger stages even though I’d already been there before. The loss of the ability to have children and the potential health risks of having the surgery at the age of 36 left me feeling incredibly angry towards PMDD and the medical community. For a little while, I could not believe that I had come to the point of surgery with PMDD.

By simply taking the time to consider these stages, you may find that it helps you to soften in your expectations for yourself and possibly, to move forward. Remember that the time it takes you to move through the stages of grief is unique to you. That said, I can offer from my own experiences with chronic health issues that movement takes time (sometimes more time than you might prefer) but it  is possible.

* I am a PMDD Advocate and CRC offering supportive services for women with PMDD and their spouses/partners. Please contact me with questions about services or to schedule a free, initial 20 minute consultation. You can also visit me here.

PMDD and the Body as an Ally

            This morning I read the words: If I created my week with my body as my ally, taking into consideration its needs, I might… (Jennifer Louden’s book The Life Organizer).  Being in a place where I view my body as my ally and not my enemy has taken me years to experience. Illness has highlighted a sense of my body as enemy, and illness has brought me to feeling my body is my ally. It has not been an easy path to this position and arriving here has been fairly recent.

            In January of 2009, after treatments for PMDD and endometriosis were no longer working and I had exhausted medical treatments I was willing to try, I was given the choice to have a total hysterectomy with bilateral salpingoopherectomy (TAH-BSO). This meant that every reproductive organ would be removed. Having dealt with the chronic pain that both endo and PMDD produced, the mental symptoms of PMDD, and the emotional toll that everything had taken on me and my family, I chose to go through with surgery.

            Making this choice and moving through the emotions that came with it prior to surgery brought  gratefulness for my body that I had seldom been able to feel before. As I took long walks during winter and allowed myself to mourn the pieces of my body I would soon be losing, I began to feel connected to it in a more complete way. I felt empathy and was able to acknowledge the gifts it had given me. These gifts included the things I took for granted, like a heartbeat and breathing, but also many years of good reproductive health, a pregnancy and child.  It took preparing for a hysterectomy and loss to stop being angry and bewildered by my body – a body I had previously viewed as almost deceiving me, as being something I could not trust.  I found myself trying to understand its perspective. I spoke with my body as I walked – You’ve worked so hard for me. You do so much just to keep me alive daily. And you’ve given me a wonderful history (periods, a sense of belonging in being female, pregnancy). But something has gone very wrong, and these once wonderful parts are harming me more than they’re helping me.

            I wish I could have experienced this before I reached the point of having a hysterectomy, because I think it could have helped me a great deal when I was dealing with endometriosis and PMDD. Before surgery, my fear and anxiety about what happened to me every two weeks  seemed to take a terrible problem and amplify it if not physically (but perhaps), absolutely on an emotional level. Instead of turning to my body and taking time to be grateful for the abundant ways it supported me and allowed me to be in the world, I braced myself for pain and emotional and mental turmoil. I buckled down with fear and worry and felt overwhelmed and out of control. I blamed my body for everything.

            How would I have thought about my situation if I had seen my body as my ally and not my enemy? How would I have prepared if I had seen my body as something going through what I felt emotionally, like a sick friend, a sick relative, someone who had been there for me in numerous ways and was there for me but had become ill? It wouldn’t have fixed everything or eliminated the symptoms, but I have to believe it would have helped. It would have been an enormous shift in attitude, one worth attempting to take. I say this because I continue to deal with chronic health conditions and have seen myself handling them with more energy and peace and much less fear since viewing my body as an ally. Life with chronic illness isn’t perfect, but I have found that there are ways to make it a little easier and to learn from the experiences as well.

            I remember a post on Jen Gray’s site where she and her partner wore pink hats that said Fuck Cancer. It made me feel a sense of strength and of not being alone. I did not have cancer, but I did feel incredibly alone in my pain, fear, and symptoms. What if I could have put on the pink hat and imagined my body doing the same, substituting the word cancer for my own conditions? What I know now is that whatever was wrong then and what I deal with now, we were and are in it together.

* I am a PMDD Advocate and CRC offering supportive services for women with PMDD and their spouses/partners. Please contact me with questions about services or to schedule a free, initial 20 minute consultation. You can also visit me here.

PMDD & work~ would you rather work from home

Of course I don’t have to tell all of you how difficult PMDD is to live with, but adding work in the mix is a killer when you feel in the dumps for 2 weeks.

It’s difficult to get out of bed and once you do, you sure don’t want to put on a smiley face when you get to work and deal with the added stresses it brings.

Can you do it?

Heck ya’!  We can do anything we set our minds too!

Do you want to do it?

If you are reading this particular post, probably not. :)

A lot of Women are working from home now and making a great income doing so.  Can you be one of them?

Yep!

Will it take hard work? Yes, probably more than the average.  You will have to push yourself to work even during those tough 2 weeks when your bed is so close to you.  It will be so easy to go back and lay down, do nothing.

That will make your PMDD worse, you won’t earn any money, you will feel like a failure and most likely depression will set in worse during the 2 weeks.

So, what can you do?

You can make yourself a schedule, one that works for you to help you make money while working from home and works with your PMDD schedule.

Make more phone calls during times when you are feeling great.  Do more computer work, filing, etc… whatever it is that you do that requires less ‘people’ time during the times you are feeling a little lower.

My blog 4kidsandacoffee.com was initially started to offer parenting resources/advice and anything else that came to mind.  I have now decided that because I live first hand with PMDD, write and blog from home, that 4kidsandacoffee is now going to offer work at home resources, advice, tips and more for Women living w/ PMDD or any other Mental Illness and want to earn a living from home.

If you fall into this category I suggest you subscribe to 4kidsandacoffee so that you won’t miss out on any of the awesome things coming soon.

Suicide or PMDD Suicide, is there a difference?

This is a very close subject to me, not because I have actually tried to commit suicide, but a close friend of mine did, and succeeded.

This is a touchy subject for some, but because I am ‘all out there’ with the things I write and that’s what makes this site so much different than most, and mostly more helpful, please keep some things in mind.

Whatever your feelings or thoughts are on suicide or on what I write regarding this post, please feel free to comment, I sincerely hope you will.  All I ask is that you comment with respect the way I have always done with all of you. I want to continue writing openly and freely and hope everyone will feel free to continue commenting open and freely.

Okay, enough of all that…

Someone I grew up with from grade school thru high school and continued staying in touch thru college felt as though she could no longer go on and ended her life. She was a single mom, had a daughter, had family around, still in touch with the little girl’s Dad.

Some would say this was the most selfish act that she could ever commit. She left her daughter without a Mother and constant questions for the rest of her life. She left family to answer questions that could have been prevented. Family and friends will forever be the one’s wiping that little girls eyes when she is sad and helping her get thru this unfortunate situation.

I can’t say one way or another how I feel about the final act. I can truly say that I don’t feel as though I could ever commit it. I will follow that with, there have been times during my 2 wk time, on numerous occasions, that the thought of leaving my children without their Mommy is the only thing that kept me hanging on. That and the support of my husband telling me it’s just the PMDD talking and I will feel better soon.

My friend had been up and down as far back as I can remember, I would say at least back to Middle School. During High School she spoke with doctors and was put on medication that never helped and they never had a diagnosis for her.

In College and after she spoke with Doctor after Doctor and was hospitalized numerous times for different episodes and suicide attempts. Once again, she had been on numerous medications, been given different diagnosis, you name it and still could not overcome the sadness and emptiness that overcame her.

I said earlier that I couldn’t say one way or another what I thought about her final act because I do find it incredibly selfish in regards to her daughter and her family and what they are left with. On the other hand, living with PMDD for as many years as I have and going thru 2 wks of every month with the sort of ups and downs that I deal with, I can’t imagine how heavy the burden must have felt on her to live with it daily and never feeling as though she had a break from it.

Truly, I don’t know how she did it for so many years. She desperately didn’t want to be a sad person. She wanted to be happy. I remember this all the way back to talks we had in high school just sitting outside and talking.

There are so many things that anger and sadden me about the whole thing. First, nobody could help. All the doctors and medicine in the world and noone could help. It just seems insane to me that out of everyone she saw, noone succeeded.

Second, so many tests run and nothing could show exactly what was going on or did noone go far enough to help. Was medication always given and doctors not push far enough thru the process? What all happened?

Maybe I am wrong. I know for me personally I have had to push more than one Doctor to get tests I wanted done.  I whole-heartedly believe that we as individuals have to force a lot of Doctors to push forward. We can’t allow them to stop at the prescription pad. We must do research and we must push for more research to be done. We must spread the word openly without being afraid of how other’s might react.

I just feel as though in addition to all of our pushing Doctors must step forward and continue with their learning as well. Am I asking for too much? Is it too much to expect individuals to do their job with all of their abilities and some?

I feel like I am rambling now.

From the title of this post, Suicide or PMDD Suicide, I am getting off track.

A lot of Women that live with PMDD feel suicidal thoughts and emotions, and unfortunately some have these feelings every month.

Don’t get me wrong, Suicide IS Suicide. The outcome is the same. I just believe that Suicide from life problems or depression and suicide because PMDD has taken over once again for the hundredth month in a row should be discussed separately. Don’t you?

Suicidal thoughts or follow thrus during PMDD are NOT the cause of something has gone wrong in life. You have been mistreated, abused, life has hit you in the gut, etc…Literally, something triggers when your 2 wk time hits you. It IS like a light switch and does switch off and on as fast as a light switch. You are so down, so quickly without any idea why. You go from being out on a field trip with your kids to feeling deep down that you are the worst parent, worst wife, worst person in the world. Your chest hurts because the thoughts of being so incapable of taking care of your family the way you believe a Mommy should is so overwhelming.

You can’t even see what was going on 30 min before this hit more less all the days that you are a great and involved Mommy and taking care of everyone and everything. It’s as though it has dropped out of your head, you can’t find those thoughts.

Sounds insane?

Live It! Better yet, Live it month in and month out! This is PMDD at it’s worst.

Really I am not even sure why this subject came up for me to talk about right now. I am in my good week. I feel as though there are people out there, including Doctors, that believe PMDD isn’t as bad as it seems. It’s actually something else, but we gave it a prettier name. You know the rest.

I am just tired of it! I want more done about it. It is so real.

Sadly, Women are having to take Mood Stabilizers, Anti-Depressants, have Hysterectomys, Hormonal therapy, Work daily on their eating habits and exercise even when completely over-the-top exhausted…Does that not seem REAL enough.

Taking medication brings on it’s own set of problems, lower sex drives, weight gain, and so much more…Yet, for a lot of us it’s the only thing we can do to function enough to continue living and not taking a more permanent action.

If that’s not real enough, I just don’t know what is!

Next Page »