::Sigh::

It's a two-post day. I got to work about two hours late because of testing this morning, so I had to stay pretty late and man was I tiiiiired! I got home and Ben quickly cheered me up by discussing our Valentine's day plans :) And then he was off to the gym. So I sat down to get on the internet and came to my blog. I read my comments on the last post and realized that some people are just so, so good. Everytime I post yet another disgruntled, frustrated analysis of my present situation, I get comments from some great people wishing me well, giving me invaluable information, and just saying hi. It's amazing how much better those comments can make me feel. Maybe it's because I'm slightly unstable quite a bit of the time, but it's really wonderful! So when I was feeling pretty good about the fact that there are just some really nice people out there, I decided THIS would be a perfect time to post something not so horrid.

It's raining outside! I la la loooove the rain. Ben and I used to go out whenever it rained and run around, try to play Frisbee, and inevitably have a totally romantic and really disgustingly cute rain kiss :) It's been pretty dry around here lately, so I'm loving that it's coming down so hard outside. We haven't had a chance to go frolic yet, but it still makes me think of those adorable moments.

Now, I've been wanting to post a little update on the ol' Lupron situation, but I've been so distracted! I started this whole blog to document my journey through the unending saga of endometriosis and all that entails. Sadly, a lot of women with endometriosis tend to have other diseases that accompany it, so I guess this is still good to document. But the Lupron piece of the puzzle was really important to me to get out. When I was deciding whether to take on the unpredictable life of the chemically menopausal, I went searching for info on the internet. For those of you who haven't read up on Lupron, it's a nasty topic. There's a lot of really bad stories out there of women who did one injection and were never the same, or who got wicked migraines or dizziness that was totally life altering. I was Terrified! But after a little more extensive research, I found a couple of blogs detailing the daily life of some women on Lupron. They went over the good, the bad, and the ugly. And in the end I decided it would be worth it to try, even if just for a month. I wanted to give back what those blogs gave to me. So I started chronicling my Lupron days. What a ride!

First, Lupron wasn't nearly as bad for me as I know it has been for a lot of other women. It's different for everyone, that's for sure. I had some of the symptoms that I was warned of during my research (but I'll just kind of warn that some of these could be related to the other undefined "disease" that I'm testing for right now):
1) Sleep disturbances- I could NOT fall asleep at a reasonable hour, no matter how early I needed to wake up. And then I would wake up nearly every morning around 4am, and struggle to get back to sleep.
2) Acne- I mean, I never really had skin problems growing up, so this was hard to take! It wasn't totally out of control, but it was a lot more than I'm used to. :( Argh!
3) Slight joint pain- the fact that I wasn't working out much at all during these three months leads me to believe that the joint pain had something to do with the Lupron. It really wasn't bad at all.
4) Hot flashes- these were funny to me, and really didn't bother me. But I was on add-back progesterone therapy, so that helped quite a bit I'm sure.
5) Hunger Increase- Again, don't know if it was the Lupron, but I would get really really hungry sometimes...like there wasn't enough food in the WORLD!
6) Mood Swings- Ok, this is the kicker. The mood swings were unreal!!! I seriously couldn't control myself sometimes, and it made me even more upset. I would go from really happy, to really angry/irritated/annoyed, to ridiculously depressed, then back to happy- all in about 30 minutes. And not the garden variety type of mood swings. No, this was evil. Period.

The main reason for me going on the Lupron was to help with the pain I was having up under my rib cage around my diaphragm. That pain is still present most of the time. It's not quite as bad, so I'm not really sure if the Lupron helped or what. But I still get some of the sharp pain in my lower abdomen as well...I don't think that's supposed to be there after three months on Lupron. But I'm at work now, I can get up and move around...and even exercise at times! So it's a personal choice, but I think the Lupron was worth it.

So I'm pretty lucky in the end that Lupron wasn't too bad for me. I know some great women who's bodies just didn't respond well to it. I wish they didn't have that experience. I'll probably go back on it at some point, and I hope that my experience the second time around is good again. I'm stopping for a couple of reasons- the main one being the testing and re-testing of the Cushing's is really too much for me to take with the mood swings and such. But also, I'm just not sure it's helping enough to keep my body under the stress of it. I already have 10% bone loss, and Lupron doesn't help with that at all. So I'm gonna go back on BCP for a while and see if I can manage.

Alright, this post turned into quite a lengthy one on accident. It's pouring outside, so I'm gonna go listen to that beautiful sound and day dream about a great rainy kiss! :)