Friday, December 12, 2008

Oh my achin' eggs.

There are definite advantages to being a girl.

Shoveling the driveway is not my responsibility.

My mechanical abilities amount to, "Honey both my low beam headlights are burnt out. Good thing my car is so dirty no one minds my high beams." And miraculously those headlights will be fixed within 24 hours.

I am entitled to filling the shoe closet- even if I will never wear them. I need only leave space for one pair of men's running shoes and one pair of work boots, the rest is my space to pile up however I choose.

Other parts of girlness are not so fun.

Of course if you've been reading this blog you know that I've been conquering breast cancer and am forced to bring pink things into my life. Pink is a new experience for me - I tend to lean towards black and greens and red.

When a woman decides she will produce no more children the menses cycle should just dry up and go away. However, thanks to Eve and her quest for knowledge and equality, this is not the case. We are cursed to endure it.

To be truthful, I don't have much problem with the most obvious portion of the cycle. It's the halfway in between, when those little eggs are released, that I run into problems. As years go by this becomes more and more painful and longer in duration. 10 or 15 years ago it lasted about two hours. Being careful not to make jarring movements during this time was the only required treatment. This duration has crept up to 6 to 10 hours and sometimes Tylenol becomes my friend.

Of course back in the days of required birth control these little buggers would float around un-announced. Things would have a little easier had they announced themselves back then.

While discussing the side effects of Tamoxifen with my oncologist I mentioned my problem with ovulation. His reply? "I can't say for sure, but I would suspect it will make things easier." Bonus.

I should have known better. I always do things the rebellious way. While hot flashes are the number one side effect, I am freezing all the time. While it is suspected that ovulation pain should subside ... it did not. Man, did it not.

Perhaps it was just coincidental that the pain I experienced on Monday night was unlike anything I have ever had. I'd even take childbirth over that. Thank God I still had a vial of Tylenol 3's and I ate 'em like M&M's. Had someone been here to drive me to the ER, I would have gone for morphine. To be honest, had the opportunity presented itself, I'da have likely experimented with crystal meth at that point.

I will tell you right now, I refuse to have that experience monthly for the next five years. If next month is the same, I'll be flushing the Tamoxifen and heading off to the radiation lab.

I was visiting my family doctor for an unrelated issue yesterday and asked him what he knew about the side effects of Tamoxifen and explained my little episode.

Of course now he is obligated to rule out Ovarian cancer - even though this pain has been going on for many years. So once again I'm all lined up for diagnostic ultra sounds and internal exams.

What a way to spend the Christmas holidays. Yay for womanhood.

1 comment:

mari said...

ugh! I feel for ya!

Happy Swim-a-versary to Me!

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