Where did our sunshine go?

Last night was gnocchi night. It was my first time making it and it turned out alright. The meat sauce was perfect, but the gnocchi was a liiiiittle bit sticky. So I'm assuming maybe not enough flour. Who knows. They were good though. I didn't have a potato ricer so I used the masher so there were a few lumps but meh. Next time maybe.



I always forget to take pictures, even when I tell myself I am going to. I didn't remember to take out the camera until the meat sauce had already been on the stove for an hour or so. And then of course I forgot to take a picture of the gnocchi when it was first ready, so I got Dario to take a picture of it after we'd finished eating.

There was a lot for left overs so I packed a bunch up for Dario's lunch and kept a little bit for me to eat for dinner tonight.

I have been very blah this morning. I had trouble sleeping again and this morning my landlords are putting up trim so all I hear is "tap tap tap tap tap" from their hammer on a tiny nail. I've laid in bed all morning trying to get a little more sleep but it's just not happening. So I have the feeling today is going to be a major do-nothing day until church tonight.

This will be my first "Easter" with Dario's family. Last year we used this long weekend to visit my family. I'm still not entirely sure what to expect yet but I've been told it's like Christmas but with more church.

Last night was a weird night. I was watching "mystery diagnosis" on TLC. For some reason I find that show really interesting because it talks about all these rare diseases that people have and majority of them are life threatening when undiagnosed and they go through months/years of doctor after doctor. Story of my life.

Last night however there was a girl on there that had endometriosis. It was actually hard to watch because the relation of everything I am going through was identical. This girl had been to over 70 doctors before they finally diagnosed her. Each one of them prescribing pain killer after pain killer. She had problems from the first day of her first period, she hemhorraged (filling a supersized pad every hour), she had excrutiating cramps/pelvic pain, pain in her bowels and bladder, pain with sex, nausea and even vertigo. She went through MRI scans and everything and they couldn't find what was wrong with her.

Finally one day she had the worst stabbing pain she'd ever had and rushed to her gynocologist. He did an ultrasound and found that she had a huge mass on her ovary. They did a blood test on her for a certain component that is found when you have cancer. She had an extremely elevated level of it in her blood so they decided to go in for immediate surgery to get the mass out and fully test it to be sure it was in fact cancerous. It's not completely proven but it is shown that women with endometriosis have an elevated level of what they call CA-125 (cancer agent) in their blood, but they can't use it as a for sure diagnosis.

They went in laparoscopically (with a small camera through your belly button/stomach) and found that her ovaries were the size of baseballs, and were covered in endometrial tissue. Her entire pelvis was flooded with this tissue and had covered everything from her uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes, even up to her bowel and bladder. She was close to having rectal endometriosis they said which is extremely painful. Even without her consent they had to do a full hysterectomy because it was so bad. She was only 34 years old.

I watched this show in complete disbelief. Because every single thing she listed (outside of the vertigo) I've felt and could relate with. Just watching made me so frustrated and angry. She was diagnosed with stage 4 endometriosis.

She already had a gut feeling that she would never be able to conceive her own children, so her and her husband had started an adoption process and were just about to go pick up their new daughter when she had the hysterectomy.

At the end of the show, the doctor that treated her does a little speel about what endometriosis is and what it can do to your body. Vertigo isn't a symptom related with endometriosis... but in this woman's case her endometriosis was so severe that it had started to spread to other parts of her body, they felt that some of the tissue may have planted in her inner ear.

The nausea is also not a symptom directly related to the disease, but instead related to the amount of pain your body is in.

Watching it was like re-living everything I've been going through and trying to figure out for the last 6 years now. It hit home so hard that I actually started crying when I was watching it. Most days lately I haven't let myself think about what has been happening or the frustrations of it. I'm trying to just stay focused on the fact that at least a date for surgery has been set and I will soon have an answer as to what is happening inside my body. However last night was a minor meltdown. The reminder of what the disease can do to you is very scary to think about.

I'm thankful that I won't go through 70 different doctors over the course of 20 years. But in the last 6 I have gone through at least 12 that I can think of off the top of my head which is still way too many. Each one doing the same thing as what was done to this poor woman. It made me boil with frustration and anger that I have with all these doctors for dismissing the problem like it's no big deal.

Anyways, this wasn't supposed to turn into a rant and I failed miserably at that.

I put up an ad on craigslist looking for a roommate. I got a response from one girl but she was looking for a place for 2 months. I had to turn her down, there is no point. Ideally I will find someone who will stay until I'm married.