Like Mother, Like (Doggie) Daughter

I'm feeling a lot of kinship with my old doggie lately and her pain problems.  Even aside from our pain issues, hers arthritic and mine post-op, we have a lot in common.  We both need our personal space.  We're friendly and a tad reserved.  We both suffer from reflux, but luckily mine doesn't result in upchucking my dinner.  As of today, we're taking the same neuroleptic medication for pain, gabapentin.  She takes it for arthritis—neither of us tolerate NSAIDs well—and I'm going to take it for this godawful pain I'm still experiencing.

Earlier this week, my reproductive endocrinologist threw up her hands at my unremitting post-op pain and referred me to a pain clinic.  My pain didn't abate after the UTI was cleared up, and she and the fellows were out of ideas.  Gotta love being "that" patient:  the one who's both annoying and scary with their constant need for medical attention.

I had my pain appointment this morning and really liked the pain doc, mostly because she was blase about my case.  The lack of concern was really reassuring.  She gave me a probable diagnosis:  hyperreactive nerves (probably not the medical term), already sensitized by endo and previous surgeries, thrown into a tizzy by this latest surgery.  I'm hugely relieved to get a diagnosis that sounds plausible.

The doctor very much helped my fragile emotional state in an additional way.  My biggest fear lately, other than these post-op problems meaning I'm somehow even more infertile than before, has been that the pain is somehow my fault.  That I wasn't mobile enough after the surgery.  That my muscles got so deconditioned from lying around that they got messed up.  That this is just a side effect from one of the many medications I'm taking.  But the pain doc—love you, pain doc!—reassured me that this isn't my fault.  It's just crappy genes and endo and a sordid history with surgeries and procedures.  And this doesn't mean I'm any more infertile than I already was.  Hooray!

Oh, yeah.  And the pain doc thought I was depressed based on the quickie "do you hate yourself?" survey they have you fill out.  Well, duh.  It's really starting to hit me just how bad the past 3 weeks have been.  A couple of times a week, I'm in so much unrelenting pain that I freak out that we'll end up in the ER.  And we actually did end up there one night last week.  Learned our lesson; the ER is not for the meek.  We waited for 5 hours and gave up being seen at midnight.  At that time, the nurse said other people in worse shape had been waiting for 9 hours without being seen.  Instead of spending the night in the ER, I opted for an outpatient CT scan the next day, which was normal.

Some days/hours aren't too bad, and I make foolish decisions like trying to work at work rather than at home.  I know, radical concept.  Apparently, working from my couch and moving around my house minimally is mostly ok, but driving to work and walking around the office building is not.  The other day, I was shuffling around work like an invalid and working from a couch in an unused office.  Coworkers heated up my frozen lunch for me and my husband had to come pick me up.  Horribly embarrassing to be infirm because of womanly issues and not be able to explain yourself.

Trying to exercise was also a huge mistake.  Exercise should probably be in quotes because of how pathetic my post-op workouts were last weekend.  Like, walking reeeeeally slowly on the treadmill and then lifting one-pound weights.  It felt kinda ok at the time, minus some cramping, and the RE fellow had told me I needed to be mobile.  In retrospect, it was a bad, bad idea.

I have to increase my gabapentin dose slowly over the next few days, and I should be feeling some relief by Monday.  I promise you I will lose my grip on sanity if I'm not feeling at least a little better by then.  Oh, and the pain doc wants me to get off of gabapentin before I get pregnant.  All odds are pointing to avoiding pregnancy next cycle, eventually stopping gabapentin when my nerves have cooled off, and hopefully doing letrozole after that.  Hoping not to be on gabapentin for long.

I'm not doing ICLW this month because of the post-op craziness, but if you happened to stop by for the first time anyway, welcome!  To my bloggie friends—I'm thinking of you all but have had little commenting time lately because I'm trying to get caught up on work. 

In "Fertiles:  They're Everywhere!" news, the pain resident I saw this morning was like 40 weeks pregnant and annoying adorable in her fecundity.  My husband and I rolled our eyes when she left the room.  Also reproducing are three birdie couples residing on various parts of our house.  Bluebirds are nesting in a bird house on the back deck.  Our front porch has finches on the north side and wrens on the south, both on little platforms my husband built for them under the awning.  I think a finch baby was born today because mommy was super active pecking gently on something.  Glad someone is fertile around here!