Compassion

I promise I will get a few more pictures of the house and garden (scroll down for my last post to see the first lot) up over the next few days as I know so many of you are dying to see them (and I have LOADS because my parents came down this weekend and helped us tidy the garden and plant vegetable seeds). But as March is Endometriosis Awareness month and I have missed a big chunk of it by being offline and made some really good Endo-friends just before being turfed offline I want to write a post for them. (Of course anyone can read it!!)

I haven't actually got a single topic in my head so this may be a bit of a random post - but sometimes that is the very nature of illness - random! Take for example the fact that last month, during our move, I had the worst cramps I have had in a long time. Oh my God I kid you not, I was left in our flat trying to pack up the last few bits whilst in agony and trying to keep a brave face because Tim's parents were there to help us move and I knew we had to just get on and do it. As it was the move took us several weekends but that was the one weekend we had help and needed to make the most of it so the remaining weekends when we were on our own we had a lot less to do. I swear all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and die right then, not pack. This month, however, despite having just had a nasty bout of flu which led to a sinus infection and a course of antibiotics which I would have guessed meant I would be run down and feel it more I actually only had one day of real pain and then the odd twinges - and even that one day wasn't as bad. Weird, huh?

But what is even stranger is the fact that this month I was so incredibly thirsty I felt like my brain was about to shrivel up because it must be so dry... have you ever felt so thirsty you feel like you must be so dehydrated and you think you can actually feel that in your brain? I know this sounds weird and I would have chalked it up to having been ill as well but it's not the first time this has happened. It doesn't happen every month and never really happened before last year, but when it does it doesn't matter how much I drink I just cannot quench my thirst and end up gagging for a drink whilst thinking "I can't drink another drop or else I may be sick because it's all so tasteless now and my stomach might burst". And this is even stranger when you know I usually don't drink enough because I don't seem to feel thirsty very often and have to consciously make myself drink to ensure I get enough fluids in me. Does anyone else ever suffer from this?

I don't know if it's something I need to mention to the doctor or not but as I haven't got to go see him any time soon and the next time I'll see a doctor it will be for my laparoscopy in May I don't think it'll be the right time to bring it up. Talking about laparoscopies, I just wanted to bring a friend to your attention (unless you follow her blog and already know about it). My Journey with Endometriosis is due for a lap very soon and so if you could keep her in your thoughts and pass on your best I would appreciate it and I'm sure she would too!! And whilst we are on the topic of keeping friends in our thoughts, another of my friends over at Ready Go: Battling Endometriosis is having a truly difficult time right now with diagnoses and different doctors and I would also appreciate support for her as well. Support is a major thing when you are dealing with anything challenging in life - be it a chronic illness or a major life change or even just a few rough days. I often find myself missing my friends and family who although living only a couple of hours away are still too far away to just pop by for coffee and a chat. Blogging offers us a chance to meet all sorts of people who know exactly how we feel and although I find myself having to work hard not to let myself spend all my time online and actually get out and actually enjoy the beautiful home we now have, I do find blogging such a support. Even knowing that despite the fact a lot of my endo-friends are facing far harder times and diagnoses than I am they still love and care for me is amazing - sometimes I feel bad for moaning when I know others suffer far more but then I realise that this mindset does not help me at all...

Let me explain... I love to care for others and have volunteered on camps and even worked in care homes and nurseries and adored my job, just so you know how much I love to care for others! But sometimes I find it so hard - I get bitter because I feel so rough. I find it difficult to take time off work when ill or say "no" to friends and family or even strangers when they need something and I know I really need the rest. I am torn between wanting to show the world I need its help and wanting to hide my weakness from the world and act like nothing is wrong - I find being vulnerable HARD! I think this related back to my childhood and teenage years... as a child I was constantly hurting myself - I was accident prone and could fall over nothing... when I was 17 I was diagnoses with hypermobile joints which meant I really did fall over nothing because quite frankly when an ankle or knee joint just pops out of place slightly it's very difficult to stay upright!! But for years I never knew my legs shouldn't do this and so I just thought I was clumsy - so I learnt not to make a fuss because people got fed up of me falling over so often - well maybe not fed up but when you've had major head injuries and lots of A&E (ER) visits, when you fall and scrape a knee it becomes no big deal! Then as a pre-teen I developed a fear - a true phobia - of being sick and related eating with being sick so developed an eating disorder and was referred to the hospital as I was clinically well underweight. I never told anybody why, I felt stupid, so I dealt with this phobia for years on my own (I developed it aged 10 and didn't tell anyone until I was 18 and although I had overcome a lot of it by then and was a normal weight - in fact I was slightly overweight because of Birth Control for my painful periods - I still suffered and still do sometimes have to fight hard to stop the fear monster catching me). Even at the age of 10 I couldn't show my vulnerability and this phobia/eating disorder is perhaps by its nature something that taught me to be secretive about how I feel. Finally, at 13 I started my periods and developed such awful problems that nobody wanted to hear about, finalising my inability to share how I felt.

Why am I telling you all this? Well this history has made me bitter - I have held so much pain inside I have never learnt to let others support me when I need it - even if they have offered sympathy to me I have turned it away... and then regreted it dearly. So, when I get really down, however much I want to support and care for others I can find myself becoming bitter and hard because *I* do not get that which I so crave. It is a big trap I set for myself and I suddenly realised recently that until I could learn to be compassionate to others despite being ill myself I would never learn true compassion - it is easy to be kind when you are happy, but to be kind when you are miserable is a whole other ball game. Once I realised this, in true tradition, life threw me a chance to test it out... T and I both fell ill with the flu and despite feeling like crap myself I actually got out of bed and looked after T who was suffering so badly the poor boy. And do you know what - for once I did it without bitterness - I actually cared for him with my whole heart and never once thought "I could do without this because so much happens to me". It was a new thing for me because I realised that if I could feel this way then maybe that is how others felt all the time and that I shouldn't feel guilty for moaning when I felt rough - others may be worse off than me but it didn't mean I couldn't feel sorry for myself too. I hope this makes some kind of sense - it is something I have dealt with - this guilt - for a long time and now I am learning that I don't have to live with it.

I think that is enough for now - not all that endo related yet it is in its own way! T and I have the rest of the week off together and the sun is shining so we are planning on spending a lot of time enjoying the garden. I hope you all have a wonderful week and I look forward to catching up with you all.