2021's Rough Embrace

Pain has never been my master, but for the last eleven years she has been my most intimate and unforgiving teacher.

It’s taken me a long time to learn to live on her leash, and even longer to learn how to loosen it. While 2020 was a year of set back after set back, and seeming nightmare after nightmare, it gave me the chance to make peace with failure.

2021 stands in front of me as a pinnacle of opportunity, but rather than drive after lofty goals (or the idea that I can turn back the clock and reverse a disease’s decade worth of damage) I plan to draw my boxes a little smaller and focus on small victories.

When I was seventeen, I was diagnosed with Endometriosis—a shallow and simplistic word that stands as an underwhelming description of a very violent, and penetrating disease. While the clinical definition is ‘a disorder (ha!) in which tissue that normally lines the uterus grows outside the uterus’, it fails to depict the misery, the trauma, the dysfunction, or the pain that goes along with it.

I could spend another six or seven posts walking you through Endo’s world, the most beautiful and heartbreaking moments (and maybe if that’s something you want to read, let me know), but I would rather focus on how 2021 will be the battleground for me winning back my life from this ‘disorder’s’ powerful jaws. If you have the time and the interest, read some of the personal experiences here on Vocal or take a moment to do a little research on your own.

To put my future goals in perspective, just know that it has taken me four laparoscopic surgeries, a brutal, but incredible pregnancy that ended in a c-section, and a partial hysterectomy (I’ve got one angry ovary left) to take my daily pain down from between 8-9 to now a 3-5.

What I’m trying to achieve isn’t rock hard abs or being able to run a 5k or even one mile.

It’s to feel better, to be healthier and cleaner, and to give my body the best hope at healing and overcoming the trauma it’s lived through.

#1. Drink. More. Water.

If I have an Achilles heel, this is it. I drink water when I crave it, and rarely before. At night I’ll drink two or three glasses, while during the day I might reach for it only if it’s hot or I’ve been eating something salty.

It’s not until recently, now that I’ve been tracking my water intake (thanks to Dad who got me a FitBit for Christmas) that I’ve noticed a trend. Less water, more headaches, grumpiness, and less of an appetite. The more water I have, the better I seem to feel.

Even knowing that, however, downing 64oz of water is a chore.

I’ve nagged my fellow firefighters into telling me the secret of how they stay hydrated. Most of them spice up their water with healthy flavor additives and others just grumble their way through it with reminders. Once a habit it seems easier to keep with it, but the initial hurdle requires some clever planning and persistence.

For my birthday I asked for a beautiful, hand painted and insulated new water bottle that will help me stay accountable. I’ve also saved a host of flavors to try, so I’m not trapped in the same boring cycle of regular H2O. I’ve got my fingers crossed that I can kill two birds with one stone and knock back some of my sweeter cravings.

#2. Eating Cleaner and More Often

Since my hysterectomy I’ve had a gradually worsening aversion to red meat.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is different for me. For the better part of my life my diet has been focused on beef, steak, anything red that was somewhere close to bleeding. The need for it was always especially bad around my period—which on a good month was a two-week long event that ruined more clothing and sheets than I care to count. During that time, I was doing blood work every few months trying to figure out what the root cause was, and the only answer that was ever given to me was that I was one small value short of anemic.

Beyond that it’s hard to remember a time when I wasn’t eating anything—good or bad—to just give my system something to survive on. My appetites were often erratic and extreme. I would go an entire day without any desire to eat, only to eat twice what I should at dinner, and yet somehow, I was still losing weight.

It wasn’t until my fourth laparoscopic surgery, having finally tracked down a real-deal-holy-field specialist, that I started to understand why red meat was so high on my list of necessities and why I ate like any angry bear that just woke up from hibernation. Endometriosis feeds off estrogen, not only the estrogen made by my own body but xenoestrogens that come in with beef and chicken and other contaminated foods.

He handed me a diet plan that encouraged cutting way back on most meats in general, lessening caffeine intake, and using supplements to offset the nutrients lost to the Endo’s ravenous needs.

His plan, while sound, wasn’t a hill I could conquer until I gave up my uterus entirely.

Now with my cravings and hormones more under control and hopefully any more surgeries pushed out into the distant future, I’ve been gearing myself toward a healthier way of eating.

Instead of cramming during meals I’ve been spreading my food out throughout the day. More snacks—mostly ones with unsaturated fats like olives and nuts—and lighter, fresher foods at mealtimes with focuses on things like fish and veggies.

It’s taken a while to adjust to it and my goal is to solidify these habits as we get deeper into 2021. I’ve been experimenting with foods from other cultures as well in hopes to diversify what I eat and the ways to make it. I’ve fallen head over heels for Japanese cooking, and now, geared with five new cookbooks I plan to incorporate it better into my life.

I’ve also added purely organic supplements to make up for what I miss, another change I’m trying to make a habit. So far, my expertly placed sticky notes are helping, but I still sometimes zoom around too quickly and forget to read them.

#3. Low Impact Exercise

It’s a bitter thing to admit, but I will probably never be able to run a marathon or join a Zumba class or even try CrossFit. While I quietly keep it in the back of my head that anything is possible, I’ve learned from ridiculously painful experiences that there are just some lines you don’t push. That isn’t to say there aren't times when I’ve had to overcome the pain to improve it, but after a lifetime of testing I’ve figured out where my very real limits are and the best ways to try and work around them.

As a stay-at-home mom and an EMT student, I must be careful of how I divide my energy, and make sure not to do things that will anger my body enough to land me in bed for a week. Nothing is more disheartening to me than having to play with my son while curled up uselessly under a heating pad.

My stationary bike (another gift from Dad) is the perfect way to get my heartrate up and work my legs without sending my body into a spiral of agony. I’ve spent the last few weeks increasing the workload and my time, and I’m up from 15min to 25min. My goal is to be riding five nights a week for at least an hour with at least 5+ minutes of that being out of the saddle. I want to work my heart and increase my stamina, all while keeping the painful effects at a minimum.

Yoga was once something I was so passionate about that I almost became an instructor. Over time, however, I learned that the classes I was taking were doing more harm than good. Not only was I over-working myself to try and keep up, but a good portion of the poses would inflame my pelvis and abdomen, leading to a painful cycle that became worse the longer I did it.

Now, armed with a better knowledge of my limits and the aspects of yoga that help, I plan to use it to strengthen and stretch my body, while protecting the parts of me that are the most sensitive. Without the pressure of a class, I can take my time, work my way through the things that hurt, and gradually reach my goals—planking time, heels down in Downward Dog, better core strength, etc.

Because of the gentle nature of this approach, I plan to take time out every day for it, even if it’s only fifteen minutes. It will help me sharpen my focus, let go of my painful emotions, and move me closer to where I want to be.

#4. Embrace What I Can Do, Don’t Mourn for What I Can’t

Lately I’ve found myself in the ugly grip of comparison. Not to others, necessarily, but to what I am and what I was.

Before Endometriosis I was strong, athletic, healthy. I had dreams, ambitions, a job that I loved and the world at my fingertips.

If nothing else, pain—my teacher—has humbled me and though it’s stripped me of a thousand opportunities, it’s taught me more about success and life than I think reaching those old goals ever could.

I want to be more than I am now. I don’t want life to move on without me and to have only conquered a few small things. But my definition of more has had to change. While there are many things I will not be, and can’t, there are still ways for me to carve out a working life and have a career. I can still have a meaningful impact on the world around me.

In 2021 I want to let go of seeing my old self through a lens of jealousy.

I want to embrace my scars, my stretch marks, my war-torn and tired body. I want to shape it into something beautiful, powerful, and bright. I want to see my future and all the amazing paths that it can still take, rather than wrapping myself up in yesterday’s sorrow.

This year, if there is any goal that I will achieve, it’s knowing that what I was going to become ten years ago is not who I am now, but my worth is no less.

Happy New Year, everyone.