You probably clicked on this blog post because you were thinking, “Frozen Peas? Ovaries? Where is she going with this…” When in reality, I’m just sitting here with literal packs of frozen peas on my stomach and lower abdomen.

I’m having a routine flare up of my endometriosis. Since starting this blog, my endo has been fairly quiet in the background, making room for other, more annoying symptoms. But now my endo has come to the center of my attention, bringing me tidings of cramps and stabby stomach pain.

Endo pain is very different from Fibro pain. And for years after my diagnosis of Fibro, I knew there was something else going on. I didn’t discover that I had Endo until I wound up in the hospital with a giant blood-filled cyst the size of a baby head in my uterus. And that is actually how Endo is often diagnosed because there is no screening or testing that can identify Endometriosis currently. It’s really quite barbaric–we won’t know if you have this horrible, painful disease until we cut you open and poke around inside!

So once I recovered from that, surgery, and hormonal therapy, I learned to distinguish the difference between the two conditions. My endo flares when I exercise my core. The aggravation of the muscles makes my rogue uterine tissue inflamed. That’s what endometriosis is by the way: a bunch of rogue uterine tissue growing places it doesn’t belong and fucking your shit up (that is the medical description, yes). So this stuff gets inflamed and then radiates through my entire abdomen and wherever else I have this tissue, causing stabbing, throbbing pain in acute areas. It also brings waves of nauseating aches that hit my entire lower half. When I have a wave of endo pain, I usually have to go lay down on a cool surface. The sensation is like if sea sickness were also physically painful. I did core work at the gym today because it’s helping my back and also mostly because it’s essential at work to have good core strength. But I’ve accepted the consequences of having to ice down my abdomen every single time I exert myself.

Endometriosis, like Fibromyalgia, is still a medical grey area. Their causes are unknown and a diagnosis is only achieved by ruling out every other possibility with testing and screening. They’re both considered a Rule-Out Diagnosis. The only diagnostic difference between the two (to my understanding) is that Endo can be diagnosed during abdominal surgery. And then equally as barbaric is the “treatment” for Endo, which we affectionately call ablations, which are procedures to scrape the uterine tissue out of the lining of your internal organs. If anyone has a nicer, more politically correct way of describing that procedure, please let me know. Until then…gross. And also ouch.

If you’re reading this and you have endometriosis, I am so sorry. I am also here for you. Please reach out if you ever want to talk, I know it’s so easy to feel alone. Most of us just have “the talk” with our OBGYNs and then stay silent, wondering if anyone knows what they’re going through. After all, there’s only so much comfort one can get from reading articles about our awful disease on Google.

Hopefully one day research will catch up to us and we’ll have more options for managing and possibly even curing our disease. Until then, frozen peas and ovaries.

Exercise

20 minutes stationary bike

30 minutes weights 25lb plates for obliques 50lb reps on ab machine 12.5lb bicep curls



Nutrition

300 cal protein bar

500 cal breaded chicken nuggets

120 cal vegetable noodle soup

150 cal 1lb carton of fresh strawberries

250 cal canned tuna with light mayo and frozen vegetables

100 cal low fat pudding

Total: 1420

Work

7.5 hours

7000 steps

Accomplishments*NEW!

Sorted out tedious things with my health insurance

Iced my back

Did laundry

Got a new welding teacher YAAASSS!!!!

Went grocery shopping and managed the big bag of dog food and heavy canned goods

Took Lucy to the dog park

Music

Awake, Tyco

Ok, Madeon

Today, Odesza