Question of the day.

   What was the most painful moment of your life? 

   My answer: 

   I donn’t know if it was actually the most painful, or if it’s objectively as painful as it felt for me at the time, but I remember the first time when I stood up after my Achilles tendons lengthening surgery as pretty damn painful. I say I don’t know if it was actually as painful as I consider it to be because I had no idea that it was going to be painful at all, so it was quite a huge shock for me and it’s absolutely possible that because of this it felt a lot more painful than it would’ve been otherwise. I was in casts for six weeks after the surgery, they went all the way from my lower thighs to my feet so that it was just my toes that stuck out, which meant I couldn’t even bend my knees or anything. Later on when I had them removed, from what I understood it turned out that there was no need for them to be as huge as they were and my surgeon was quite overzealous, and perhaps otherwise my leg muscles wouldn’t have been affected as much as they ended up being. Then, after I had the casts removed, obviously I was unable to walk and at the beginning even moving my feet too much felt rather painful, and I had to wait some more time before starting physiotherapy because the physiotherapist I was to work with had a full schedule, so in effect my muscles were dormant for more than six weeks. Then when he came, right on the first session, after wriggling my legs around and having me do some very light exercises, he wanted me to do a few squats. I was a bit surprised, and so was my Mum, and wondered for a brief moment how I’m even gonna do it when I can barely bend my knees, but I figured that, well, he’s a physiotherapist, he probably knows what he’s doing. I suppose he wanted to get me back to normal as quickly as possible since I was already out of school for months and it was really dragging on. So I stood up rather confidently, and even though I did it with a lot of help on his side, as soon as I did it I felt that searing pain go through my legs, and especially my feet, it was quite excruciating. I did manage to do these squats and as many as he wanted me to do, though they were far from your normal squats of course, but it was quite a horrific experience and, though it kept getting better every time, it continued to be yuckily painful for several more months and sometimes I can still feel a relatively small but still painful residue of that if I move my left foot in an awkward way, as my left foot has become quite a bit weaker from my right after that surgery for some odd reason. If that doesn’t classify, I think that’ll have to be one of Jack the Ripper’s (which is how I call my period) more aggressive moods. Jacks can be generally fairly shitty for me, by which I mean probably shittier than average but definitely still manageable, but there were two or three times when Jack went quite extreme and I was seriously wondering what was wrong because not only did I have awful cramps going all the way from my tummy through my back and thighs and it felt quite literally like my insides were being ripped into pieces, but also in all of those instances my bleeding was quite noticeably heavier than usual, and it tends to be heavy to begin with so not much fun really. Normally when I have a Jack that’s hard to function with but possible to live with I just take something for the pain, get a hot water bottle and Misha and go to bed, and even better if I can fall asleep and sleep the worst through, but those few times when it was really bad I wouldn’t feel comfortable in any position, whether lying, or sitting or standing and nothing worked for the pain even a little bit. Still, I consider myself lucky because there are women in my family who have had such painful periods that they have made them faint regularly. 

   How about your most painful moment? 🙂 

Question of the day.

What are you thinking about?

My answer:

That after writing this post, I’m gonna go sleepy sleep. I’ve been feeling quite dreadful today because finally, after like half a year, Jack the Ripper, aka Jack the Butcher has come to visit me yesterday, and he’s been catching up on all the lost time. Although from what my gynaecologist has told me in the past it’s not overly concerning yet, especially if you have some hormonal problems to begin with like I do with pituitary not to have your period for about half a year, I was beginning to get a bit concerned very recently and Jack must have read my thoughts and came yesterday showing his full potential. I’ve had a terrible headache all night and most of the day today and am feeling achy and lousy overall, and I’ve actually slept already today, which is not like me because I normally don’t nap during the day and avoid it for all costs, but I still feel like bed is the best place to be in right now. But hey, at least I didn’t seem to get any bad PMS symptoms, and am feeling okay emotionally and mentally today, that’s a big plus! Perhaps tomorrow will be the other way around. But I better not say it if Jack can seriously read my thoughts. Well I was a bit mood-swingy lately but not so that it would be a problem or that I’d even noticed it could be PMS. So yeah… 😴

Oh but speaking about all things hormones, have I told you guys about my thyroid ultrasound? I mean the results? Well I don’t remember now so if I did, I’ll just tell you again. As I wrote before it I was a little worried that something may be wrong, but the ultrasound doctor said it was totally normal, so I’m happy. Even the socialising wasn’t too bad, somehow I managed to get along with him without much difficulty, perhaps because his daughter apparently is also called Emilia, lol, and it went more smoothly than it always did in the past back when I was going to Medical Academy for all sorts of pituitary and thyroid testing when I was a minor, the ultrasound there always took ages and something about it was super stressful so I was very surprised. As always, defensive pessimism paid off.

Okay, your turn now, my thinking brain is shutting down so I have nothing more to say on the topic. 😀

Question of the day.

Hey people! 🙂

Today I have a question for all the female readers of my blog which is the following:

How old were you when you got your first period? How did your family and friend react? Did anyone say anything weird?

My answer:

It was a little strange with me because from what I’d always heard from my endocrinologist, it was quite possible for me not to have period due to my pituitary not working quite as it should. So when all or almost all of the other girls in my boarding school group and class were already having period and for me nothing was really changing, at least apparently, I readily and happily assumed that I’m going to be spared and didn’t really care much about periods anymore, and my Mum also assumed I’m not going to have it so that’s better for me. Not that I ever did overly care about periods, it never seemed very creepy or shameful like it does to a lot of girls, I was quite aware of what it was from observing and hearing people and also my Mum talked a lot about it to me, at least what it feels like and what it means and what it’s like in theory, so I knew what to expect. There was a lot of taboo around things like this in my Mum’s family, my grandma is scared of even such words like vagina so Mum herself always wanted it to be clear with me and now with Sofi that, while it’s something extremely intimate, it’s not a taboo or anything shameful. So one day in April I was greeted to an extreme surprise when I woke up – I vaguely remember that I had some exam on that day or something… something to do with music school I believe – and felt all wet and sticky down there. I honestly was convinced it must be something else, just some other kind of discharge, but no! I was a little shocked to learn that it happened after all. But actually it wasn’t even that very late, I don’t remember how old I was exactly, but I couldn’t be older than 14 I guess. Luckily that first visit of Jack the Ripper/Butcher in my life was not particularly painful or intense, which changed quite soon afterwards, but still I think I was rather stressed about it and worried that I won’t be able to manage it well practically, because one thing my Mum didn’t do was that she didn’t show me or explain to me at all what I’m actually supposed to do when having a period, probably because she didn’t seriously think I’d have to bother with it in real life. And I didn’t like having to rely on the boarding school staff ffor assistance with my period hygiene at the beginnings. It took me quite some time, but luckily summer holidays came quite quickly after that so then I had less stress about it and could learn to put a pad in my underwear and not to make everything around messy while I was showering. 😀

I didn’t really tell that many people started having periods – my Mum knew, and the staff at the boarding school, and my roommates – and a couple of my close online friends, but I don’t think anyone of them said anything at all, let alone anything weird. Those of them who knew about my hormonal issues were only surprised that it actually happened, and as I said so was I.

How was it with you? 🙂

Ugh, again? Some general update and a little health ramble.

Today it would be a really nice day for me, if not the fact I’m feeling really crappy physically.
Remember when last week I was writing about my emotional crisis I had on my birthday? I wrote it can be partially due to PMS and now I am sure it was true. Only why I have to feel PMS symptoms for more than a week before the actual time of surfing the crimson wave? Luckily emotionally I am much more stable than then and I hope it’ll continue, ’cause that was scary.
But OK, I can fully understand that aunt Ruby or Flo or whatever is her name, has her own rights, but why my leg is not cooperative either? Seriously, I am starting to worry, or at least wonder.
I got a weird and pretty painful wound on my calf and what is the more weird about it that a year ago I had an almost exactly looking wound on my other calf. Same was two years ago on the same leg as now, but not exactly in the same place as now. And moreover as far as I remember it was also in February, ’cause it was close to my Dad’s name day and it was annoyingly hard to heal. I had no idea where I could get it, it was like totally out of no where, so that my Mum even thought it may be some ulcer, which scared me, but when I went to my GP with it, she said it’s just a form of infection. I remember that last year it finally healed in April. So now I think it must be something chronic and I think I’ll need to visit someone who could tell me more than my GP. I was even wondering ’cause people with diabetes have issues with skin regeneration and I am apparently at a higher risk ’cause I was taking growth hormone in childhood and people on the both sides of my family have diabetes, but because I was taking that hormone I have tests about once a year and they were as good as always recently. I really want to know, even just of curiosity, what it is. Plus it pisses me off. My leg is hurting so much since a few days that even walking for a longer distance is a bit challenging. I discovered that it’s back with me when I went shopping with my Mum on Tuesday and then we went for a longer walk almost around our whole town and when we came back my calf started to burn horribly.
And it is also shitty because yesterday I was meant to go horse riding. I didn’t ride for a really really long time now, since Christmas, I believe, so I fell out of the routine completely. But my instructor is a very busy person, she is not only a horse riding instructor and hypotherapist, but also a doctor – anasthesiologist and neurologist and recently also works on ER a lot. Plus she has her own, big family and it always surprises me how she can manage it all and before now I could ride pretty regularly once a week unless she had to go to ER. I like the fact that she is a neurologist ’cause we can talk a lot about the brain and related stuff which i always appreciate, I’ve learnt a lot from her and it is thanks to her that I realised that if I could see, I would most probably end up as a brain surgeon. Anyway, back to my horse riding, she texted me on Wednesday evening she finally was able to schedule an hour on Thursday for me and asked me whether I’d like to go. It hurt me but I felt so excited that I impulsively wrote that yes sure I will come, but yesterday morning the pain was big enough that I realised it won’t be anything neither pleaasant nor beneficial if I went riding, I could easily make it hurt even more and I wouldn’t do a good job ’cause even my muscles around the wound were hurting.
I find life much more boring without riding. As for now I use Rivanol and tea tree oil to treat it but surely will end up on antibiotic as last year, I just didn’t go to any doctor yet.
Tomorrow is my Dad name day. You know what name day is? I know there are only a few countries now which celebrate it so if you don’t know, it’s basically the day when your patron saint has his/her feast. It’s a purely Christian tradition but now it’s celebrated just like your second birthday or something. Just another opportunity to eat as much as possible and have your family gathered together. There are all name days listed in Polish calendars, although they differ slightly and you probably won’t find exactly the same names under the same dates in two different calendars, but there are some conventional dates. Tomorrow is the name day of Elwira, Jacek, Jacenty and Scholastyka and therefore my Dad who is Jacek (or Hyacinth in English) is having his name day. It’s a bit weird to me though because saint Hyacinth who has his feast day tomorrow is almost unknown while we have another saint Hyacinth who was Polish and whose feast day is celebrated in August and he is much more known, so if I was my Dad, I would pick my name day to be in August on that other saint Hyacinth’s day, but I think it doesn’t matter that much for most people.
So tomorrow we will have even bigger family gathering than it was on my birthday and there will also be my Dad’s friends and I hope I won’t have to endure another emotional crisis. My poor Mum is in the kitchen almost all day long. She isn’t preparing that much food, but my Dad will have a big toffi cake. Ridiculous, because he can’t stand anything sweet. 😀 But we love toffi cake. Me, Zofijka, Olek and my Mum kind of likes it as well. And I am sure all the guests will be happy with it too. Toffi is such a delicious thing to eat. Will share with you tomorrow lol.
Now I am listening to Welsh music all the time, as it is Welsh Language Music Day today, so I definitely need to celebrate it. I’ve also learnt some Welsh today. But now I think I will go and nap for a while, ’cause my leg is hurting, my abdomen is hurting, my head is hurting and I feel quite miserable physically.
How are you guys doing? Any nice plans for the weekend? Maybe you’re celebrating something as well? Anyway, whatever you’re doing, I wish you a great weekend.