Post Blog Regression

When I was thinking about writing my last blog, I wanted to track back to a blog I had written back in 2005 when I was first diagnosed with vestibulitis. I couldn't find it, oddly enough. I thought that the internet had some how become a black hole for blog posts. But no, as it turns out it was simply in a block of blogs on Myspace that I had long since deleted.

Today I found it, carefully saved on a USB key. So smart, I am.

Without further ado, the diagnosis from over six years ago. A little blast from the past for your Sunday afternoon:

Nearing the end of my rope, I made one final appointment with one more doctor. Secretly I thought that if nothing came of THIS, I would have to do something drastic, though not really knowing what drastic was - some vague comprehension of a thing that I shouldn't do.

With great anxiety I parked at St. David's Medical Center and wandered my way up to the third floor and into the waiting room just like every other waiting room. I filled out the obligatory paper work and gazed around and the poorly patterned chairs and strange abstract art depicting Native Americans. I began reading an article about poor Jennifer Aniston and her heartbreak over Brad Pitt. They called me in.

I used the restroom, fearing I what might happen if the doctor was fooling around down there and I didn't. The bathroom was decorated in a sort of makeshift Martha kind of way: wicker cabinets holding urinalysis jars and swabs, baskets containing tampons, pads and wet wipes. This was some how not comforting. My mind was racing, my stomach turning flips.

On the table, legs spread in the "Let me poke you HERE" position, the doctor peeked at my reactions from beneath the paper blanket.

"Ah-ha," She said.

The doctor was an older woman, one who didn't remind so much of my mother or a doctor as an old English teacher, pushing her square glasses up on her nose at me.

"What?" I asked, eagerly. Her "ah-ha" led me to believe there was a definitive answer on this day.

"Well, what did I do there, when you said 'ow?'“ she asked.

I wasn't sure if this was a real question of a hypothetical. She posed the question again, repeating her motion on the place that hurt, but I still did not know what to answer. Sadly, I am not all that knowledgeable to the very many different parts of my vagina, and I guessed the answer lay in that.
She motioned for me to sit back up, and I gladly did.

"Well...?" I tried to restrain from the urge to shake the answer out of her and unclenched my teeth.

"Vestibulitis," she replied.

And there it was. Wrapped up in this word, was the answer to my month and half irritation.

Apparently there are very small glands, called the Vestibular glands, in the vagina, and mine were irritated - probably residually from all of the things I've been putting in my body. The solution? In severe cases they would prescribe a mild antidepressant. In most cases however....olive oil, applied topically. Olive oil.

So, now I've changed my soap (by request of the doctor) and am applying olive oil twice a day and this thing, this MYSTERY that had so many doctors just plain stumped is no longer such a strain on my existence.

It's almost a shame that is wasn't something more, because after so long feeling this way my nerves are shot and my mind is slipping to permanent distraction. Friends' names escape me, the grocery store is disorienting, my apartment is littered with tiny sheets of paper that have notes and names that have been my feeble attempt to keep my life together these past weeks. The only thoughts that come and go without anxiety are thoughts like:

"I wonder why there are always shoes tethered around telephone wires...?"


After all this I am having a hard time comprehending that I can let this thing go. That I can rest, at least on this subject.

So I bought a box of Sweetish Hill Tollhouse cookies and ate half of it. I called a friend to tell her the conclusion to this saga, laughing at the prescribed Olive Oil treatment. Laughing out loud. And tonight, with my boyfriend who has been through this whole thing too, I am going to celebrate. I think it's finally over.

TMI: My Lady Parts Are Broken!

I am aware that some of you reading are my uncle, and so I feel it appropriate to give you a warning: I am about to write candidly about my female anatomy. All modest parties should probably click away from the page along with the family members who aren't interested in TMI. I promise I won't hold it against you.

Since I had my period, I think, my vagina has been broken. I remember having cysts long before I even knew anything about my ovaries. It's as if I was doomed from the start. It's possible that I've seen more gynecologists than general practitioners in my lifetime. From yeast infections to vaginosis to UTI's and outbreaks of something that wasn't an STD (and outbreaks that were, after all, an STD) I thought I had pretty much had the worst of it. Then came vestibulitis.

I was diagnosed with it in 2006. In retrospect, that my gynecologist even knew what I had is a kind of miraculous event in it of itself. Back then I didn't really research it. She explained it, told me to put some olive oil on it and let it have a little rest for awhile. For three weeks my nether regions smelled like an italian restaurant, but somehow this treatment worked. I was able to have sex again: pain free, normal sex. I didn't give it a second thought after that.

Then it came back. Not recently, actually, but something like almost a year ago while I was still living in Paris. I had just started my job at the Pharmaceuticals Inc. as well as having just moved into a 200 square foot apartment with The Boy.  Directly following a particularly bad yeast infection, it came back. It got progressively worse and then got better and the worse again. Instinctually I tried the olive oil, but it didn't work this time. I saw a sex therapist who told me that all of my stress had triggered me to close up like a clam. She instructed me to do kiegels and relaxation exercises. It sort of worked.

I went to four different gynecologists in Paris. One - his office situated in a lovely corner of the 8th arrondisment (which I assure you cost me a pretty penny) - sent me off with a bag of expensive pills sure that I would be cured in three weeks. Another told me straight to my face that my vagina looked perfectly healthy and it was all in my head. In the best french I could muster up I told him that "No sir, it is not in my head and please go fuck yourself" and promptly walked out of his office. The rest of them simply hadn't a clue.

Finally, last week, I couldn't take not being able to be intimate with my fiancé. After all that we've gone through these past months and to not be able to have sex? I felt like exploding. I called the gynecologist for an appointment as soon as humanly possible.

It's not called vestibulitis anymore, nor is it called vulvodynia.  It's now audaciously referred to as Localized, Provoked Vulvodynia, or Vulvar Pain Syndrome. The gynecologist I saw knew little about it, though he was capable of diagnosing it, thank God. While we talked he kept squeezing his eyes shut as if he was trying to milk his brain for more information to give me. He didn't have any, though. He sent me home with a stack of printouts describing the condition and the possible treatment options and that was that.

There are, apparently, seven subsets of the syndrome. The subset can help you determine the treatment, but I will need to see a specialist in order to determine my subset. If that is, indeed, what the specialists do. I don't really know.

I spent nearly all of Tuesday reading forums and websites about Vulvodynia. It was distressing, knowing that some women suffer for years and years without relief. I am blessed, I guess, that I don't have debilitating pain. It just hurts like a thousand tiny knives poking my tender parts when I have sex. Some women cannot stand or sit from their pain. Some women do not get relief from any treatment, not even surgery (spoiler alert: if you have a vagina those drawings are going to make you cringe and are NOT appropriate for work or children.). I do not (hopefully, dear God) fall into those latter categories.

It's frustrating that there isn't more information, that there isn't a cure. It's a "trial and error" kind of disorder, because every woman experiences differing levels of pain. Since it was "discovered" in 1986 numerous studies have been conducted, little has been learned about the causes of it. And yet eighteen percent of all women suffer from some form of vulvar pain disorder. Even Charlotte had it.

Unfortunately for real women, most conditions can't be just laughed away. And that anti-depressant thing? That's most likely not going to be our only course of action. My gyno agreed to put me on a course of gabapentin which seems to have fairly good results in the milder cases of the syndrome. Once given to epileptics (it's an anticonvulsant), gabapentin is supposed to work as a nerve blocker in the particular areas where nerves need blocked. For instance, an uber sensitive, hurty vagina.

I'm hopeful that it will work and, despite early failed attempts, I am still applying olive oil at least twice a day. And of course I'm getting an appointment with the specialist as soon as I can.

I know it's silly but part of me feels like this is whole thing is some kind of karmic payback for liking sex too much. I think sex is such a human, natural expression of ourselves. I need it, just like everyone needs it (but most think it too taboo to talk about). Even though women who have never had sex have been known to have vulvodynia, my Catholic guilt is looming heavily over me. It seems like such a cruel trick for the universe to play: The Boy and I are working so hard on our relationship and after all of this time apart now we can't be intimate? We're getting married soon (yes, we really are) and we can't even consummate it? It's so damn unfair.

But life is unfair.

Today my coworkers were swapping husband stories and one of them turned to me and said "See? You're not special. We all have to deal with this. You just have to lower your expectations a bit." They were referring to something else, but it holds relevant here. I knew this at one time and even though I frequently applied it to my love life I was good at applying it to life in general as well. Here, it could work. I have no expectations that this gabapentin (which is currently making me madcrazy dizzy) will do the trick. As I said before, this is a "trial and error" disorder. So I have to start my trials somewhere. I am starting here.

*Here are the links straight out, for those of you who aren't keen on following hyperlinks:

http://www.ic-network.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-43571.html

http://www.aafp.org/afp/2006/0401/p1231.html

http://www.aafp.org/afp/990315ap/1547.html

http://www.fibroid.com/site/files/850/88192/316492/433941/vestibulectomy.pdf (NSFW!)

http://www.bipolarworld.net/Medications/Mood%20Stabilizers/depression_central_gabapentin.html

Be My Muse

For fifteen years (or more? Probably more.) I have been toying with the idea of writing a book. Recently I regaled you all with the funny tale about how I was going to write a fiction book, and then that idea completely lost momentum. Actually, it is dead. It is now collecting dust with all the other so-called book ideas on my graveyard of a desk.

This week The Boy said offhandedly, "I still think you should write a book about your depression."

"No, no, no, I am not ready to do that," I replied negatively, because naturally I have to dispute everything he says. "Besides, what would I write?"

Then I got to thinking about how I would like to write about my depression and my continuing battle - but the question still remains: What would I write?

So, since you are my readers and it's possible that some of you know me better than I know myself for as long as you've been with me, I ask you. If I wrote a book about depression, what would you like to read? I know I am not alone with this disease, and God gave me the gift of words. So maybe I can use it?

What say you?

This What ‘Hell in a Handbasket’ Looks Like

Oh people. Remember a couple of weeks ago when I thought that I wasn’t going to get to have a wedding?  Well that happened. It turns out that there is no mercy in the Visa Office and for some reason that surprised me. I thought “This is the U.S. Embassy, that will changed everything.”

It doesn’t, y’all. It doesn’t change a thing.

I went down kicking and screaming, and definitely had a nervous breakdown the day we decided we just weren’t sure enough that we’d get the visa in time to make all of our guests come for nothing. If the groom wasn’t going to be at the wedding, why should they?

And I definitely got my hopes up when the Consulate FINALLY realized that our wedding day was a week and a half away and that they needed to push our paperwork through, which means I definitely had nervous breakdown number 593,695,210 when, in the end, we decided things were just too strained between us to have any kind of exchanging of rings happen.

We decided to have a picnic based on the fact that half of the guests (the American half) were either tied into or wanted to come all the way to Pennsylvania on Labor Day weekend. I was happy to toss that idea out the window for the day and a half I thought the wedding might be back on (are you keeping up?), but was less than thrilled afterwards when The Boy just didn’t see why we needed to have one if we weren’t having a wedding.

After extensive convincing (read: arguments) he understood where I was coming from (I believe we could say he had an “Ah ha!” moment). Everything was a go. Then, Pennsylvania had a hurricane.

Oh my God, I thought I was going to lose my mind. It is distinctly possible, actually, that I DID lose my mind but have since chosen to suppress it. I am not really clear on the events of the last few days. I do know that my sister and her husband have been busting their asses trying to get things presentable for the guests. Here, I would have understood a cancellation. I would have had nervous breakdown 593,695,211 but I would have understood it. We were all tired of the yo-yo-ing and I wouldn’t have dare demanded that my sister do something couldn’t (not that she would have done it). They have already done too much for us.

Somehow, though, she feels like they’ll be ready enough and so after a month of ups and downs and downs and downs and some more ups (and an earthquake followed by a hurricane) the remaining guests will be coming in from their various locations for our Not-A-Wedding. We are having Tex-mex in place of the barbeque we had planned. There will be no wedding dress or handsome men in suits and there will be no exchanging of rings. By the skin of our teeth we WILL have The Boy present, albeit jet lagged and rusty in his second language. There will be family and friends to celebrate Labor Day with us.

Our wedding day is currently undetermined. After all of this we need time to reconnect. These three months apart have been far harder on us than we imagined they would be. Financially, emotionally and consequently physically we are both drained. I, personally, cannot fathom finding the energy to try to plan a wedding a second time (or the money, for that matter). Looking at my unworn wedding dress hanging tailored and ready in my closet makes me sad. People tell me I can wear that to the justice of the peace if I want but it is a bitter reminder of all that has gone wrong. I would prefer to sell it to some excited bride who still has dreams of her perfect wedding day. If we go to the courthouse I will wear something else, probably even something white, but not that dress.

I never, in a million years, thought that it would have turned out this way. But they say everything happens for a reason and I do believe that. Maybe it’s because the stars are misaligned or maybe God just wants The Boy and I to take this whole thing from a different approach, I am sure I will never know. I just hope we’ve passed this test. We all so desperately need a break.