Monstrual cycle

I am going to start decreasing today on the Luscious Stole! I think it will be finished by tomorrow night! I am determined to get it sewn up, too, since I have a little problem finishing projects off if they need any sort of assembly.

Right now I am all enthusiasm for getting it done, but the menstrual cycle could set me back. Got my period this morning after a slightly achy day yesterday. I do like being in touch with my body enough to know when the blood will flow. Too bad it is because of symptoms so severe that I couldn't possibly ignore them.

Once, in my twenties, a roommate had to take me to Emergency. One moment I was stepping out of the shower, perfectly fine, no period. The next moment I was crawling to my bedroom, wet hair in towel, blood flowing down my legs onto the carpet. The resident at Emergency, a woman in her early thirties, told me to have a baby or face periods like this month after month. I told the doctor that I thought her suggestion was not so helpful since I hadn't yet finished my BA and only had a part time job at Fairweather. She gave me a shot of Gravol and sent me home.

A few months later I got my period while visiting my parents for the weekend. My mother took one look at me standing on the tips of my toes while puking into the toilet and suggested a trip to the hospital might be in order. Between vomits and dancing from toe to toe, I declined the offer.

I started taking Anaprox. It rotted my stomach.

For many years I had uneventful periods. Well, that is to say I could rely on ibuprophen to manage the cramping pain, as long as I ignored the dosage limits on the first two days of bleeding.

I had a bad episode or two in 2003 and then nothing again until this past August. After more than an hour of moaning, groaning, sitting on the toilet while puking into a bucket between my legs, my hubby asks if we should go to the hospital. I can’t think straight. I can’t see straight. I can’t recognize my own abdomen. It has been involuntarily sucked inward in one constant, hour long cramp. I can’t imagine getting off the toilet, getting dressed and into a cab. I don’t like the idea of pooping and puking in a cab. Imagine the detailing bill!

My doctor gave me a prescription for Arthrotec, some kind of big gun pill for arthritis sufferers. Take with food or suffer serious gut rot. This pill gets to the source of my cramping pain and beats the crap out of it. I am so in tune with my pre-cramp cramps that I can tell if I need ibuprophen or Arthrotec to deal with what is coming down the pipe.

Today is an ibuprophen day for now. Next dose due in 30 minutes.