No Endo is a Good Endo...

"So how are you feeling?"

 

This is the question I am asked most these days. The answer is, I feel fine. Good actually. It is a bit strange. This is the first time in I don't know how long, I have not felt the effects of Endo. I am one of those people with Stage I Endo, not very bad, but I do feel pain from it, daily, whereas someone with Stage IV might not feel any pain. (Strange duck this disease.) I was first diagnosed after finally confessing to pain so bad I actually had to sit down in the mall while shopping with a friend. That was a full year into the pain at that level and the first time I told anyone about it, ever.

 

So here I am 12 years later and amazingly pregnant, no pain, no sickness, feeling a bit more energetic than I did the first couple of months (possibly due to the increase in my thyroid medication?) and still nothing to show for it. I am not showing yet (though my "skinny" pants are too small and my "fat" pants are too big), I can't feel the baby yet, I have nothing other than the absence of my usual Endo symptoms to tell me things are different. *Shrug* (Oh, and I found out yesterday that Christmas songs on the radio make me cry huge weeping sobs.)

 

You know what? I'll take it.

 

I have a sister-in-law who suffered horrible pain and chronic sickness only to discover last year that the problem was Endo. After hearing me go on and on about how awful I felt and how frightened I was I might never get pregnant she and my BIL started trying right away. She was getting a bit worried when 5 months went by and no double lines showed up, but then, just in time for Christmas last year they announced they were expecting. Not the first grandchild in the family but it would be the first boy! He was born in June. She told me a couple weeks ago that pregnancy gave her the most relief from her Endo. She felt good, she is breast feeding her now 5 month old and has suffered pain and near constant bleeding. The Endo came back right away and with a vengeance.

 

I do not know what to expect after birth. I do not know how long my reprieve will last. I guess I should just enjoy it now, eh? If non-endo is the biggest symptom of pregnancy I shall face, then I think I have won the mother-load jackpot. Fingers crossed that it continues.

 

On another topic... My visit to the endocrinologist yesterday (another endo I don't like), The Thyroid Guru. The man has no bedside manner. They don't even close the door to the exam rooms in this office since you leave all your clothes on and they really don't even want you to sit on the exam table since then they would have to change the paper again. He rarely ever looks up from the chart to actually look at you, the patient. He choked me (squeezed my neck to check the size of the thyroid gland) and had me swallow. Asked if I had experienced any nausea, dizziness or fainting. No to all three. He then started laughing aloud. Actually laughing, not fake. I was a bit surprised and must have looked it. He said I was the first healthy person he had seen all day. I took that to be a good thing. Here is the bad part. The last time I visited him, I must have been a bit behind on my fluid intake for the day since the lab tech could not get any blood out of me. Three pokes later she handed back my slip and told me to try a different lab some other time as clearly I was as dry as the Sahara Desert. This time, in order to avoid a repeat performance, I drank a bottle of Gatorade followed by a full quart of water before my appointment. I sat there in the waiting room; leg bouncing thinking how much this would help me in the end and to just hold on. I sat there in the exam room trying to read Newsweek and failing since all I could think of was "Where is the bathroom and why in the world don't they close the doors in this place?" while trying not to listen in on his other patients' consultations. I thought about how unfair it was that they weighed me with my winter coat on (I did take off my boots) and when I had such a full bladder. I also was afraid my blood pressure might be too high due to the over crowding of fluids in my system but it came in at a nice 116/60. (The nurse assured me that I did not have to push up the sleeve of my sweater but then proceeded to velcro the blood pressure cuff TO my sweater. I have a nice patch on the underside of my arm that is extra fuzzy now. GRRR!)

 

Anywho...I still need to go to the lab to get blood drawn for that. Hopefully I have stabilized and can continue my current dosage and won't have to go back to waste another hour of my life in that office. According to the baby centered website the kid should be producing his/her/its own thyroid by now so it might ease up on me a bit. But then again, you never know with me. I am a freak, remember?