Hide and Seek

Dear Period,

I feel like we are a couple of kids playing Hide and Seek, but you have been winning for so long that the game isn't fun anymore. For years I've let you hang out in the dryer or on top of the china cabinet or wherever it is you have stashed yourself, and kinda decided that you would come out if I waited long enough. But my "giving up on the game" strategy didn't work on you like it worked on my siblings... You have just stayed hidden and now I have to start playing again. 

But I can be competitive if I want (my family will corroborate this), and I plan on having the last laugh. I plan on winning this round.

XOXO

Dani

Hey my girls!

My plan of action to win the round?

I guess I don't have an excel spreadsheet yet, but I am sure that the scientist in me will kick in to high gear one of these days :) 

Here's the rough draft of the plan:

-Get the diet in a good place. I'm trying to be Keto but with some carbs so that my hormones have some building blocks. The thing is, I am way better at reading about diets than I am at sticking to them. So cheer me on here! (I also feel literally like shit right now for some reason that I can't nail down... horrid diarrhea and low energy etc... NOT good.)

-Right now I am looking for clues about where my period is hiding. For now I am tracking my BBT for at least one month (May) to see if there is any variety at all. Like any. Having not menstruated for more than seven years now, every time I want to have hormone testing done I immediately get discouraged because you always have to know what you are cycling so that you can collect saliva/blood on specific cycle-synced days in sequence. So I decided that rolling over and taking my temp first thing in the morning before I get out of bed would be a good distraction for a month. I am always finding ways and excuses for delaying the testing. Once I get to a good headspace...

THEN I will move onto testing! Whatever it takes. Pretending the moon is my cycle, calling testing companies, I will have the hormone testing done. No Matter What. Who knows what is going on in there without numbers?! (A bit of backstory here.... I have collected so many saliva vials and saved them in the freezer, only to read that damn package insert and find out that they will not actually run the tests if you haven't had a period in the last 6 months or year or something. Now I am thinking that I will be in the exact same spot in a couple months that I was in a couple of years ago and that is pretty depressing. 
But right here right now I am making a promise to myself. I will do the testing. I will pay the fees and I will find the right company and doctor and learn what there is to be learned from that testing.)

I have no idea what the plan of action is after I get more test results that demonstrate how my hormones have totally flatlined. That's why I don't have a spreadsheet yet.... There's not much to fill it with.

What I know? 

-That I don't have any chromosomal weirdness causing a disease totally out of my control. Anyone else have that very expensive test done? Yeah. Me too. Negative. But we still don't know what is wrong with you.

-That I had a royally unpleasant ultrasound done and I don't remember my GYN telling me there was anything really wrong with my follicles or otherwise.... maybe I had better do some digging here and find out what they did find out.

-That I hate getting an artificially induced period from cycling hormone pills. Did it for a year and that was like not fun. I kept it going with the false hope that they would somehow fool my body into cycling without the artificial hormones when I quit. It didn't happen. I quit calling in THAT scrip.

-That my body is in fight or flight, and it needs to know that it is okay and safe to turn on my reproductive system again. 

-That I love acupuncture, so I should probably just have that done more often and enjoy it.

What I know for sure?

-That I haven't been spending enough time teaching myself that healing from this disease is possible. It is possible. I will find the way. 

Find it with me.