Oh, hi there.

So it's been more than a week. Ooph. I would start off with some long, boring lecture about Fatigue and its Effect on Life and about the Dazy Hazy Lupus Brain but, see, no. Plus, the real reasons I did not update last week were:
1. I am lazy (dazy hazy) and preferred to watch soccer and West Wing and basically be the biggest couch potato ever to avoid walking the earth (40% of my excuse)
2. I am not settling into this whole 9-5 job thing well at all, hence the Fatigue (blah blah blah) (10%)
3. I think of things to say all day long and then I sit in front of my computer and have NO CLUE HOW TO START (50%)

I should be used to getting over this due to my (big, useful, career-starting) creative writing major. But, alack, no.

While we're not on the subject of Hazy Dazy Lupus Brain, I thought I would start with an exciting experience I had getting a call from someone or other in the pediatric rheumatology (that being...holy shit, guys, I don't know what rheumatology is. Lupus and arthritis? I mean, I know I go to them. Okay, here. Devoted to the study of rheumatic diseases. Hope that cleared it up for ya.)Right, as I was saying. I got a call from someone or other in the pediatric rheumatology department saying ohhh hiiii will you take a survey about how rheumies talk to girl-children with lupus about pregnancy and birth control and its effect on lupus and lupus' effect on it?

I was watching the world cup and could not possibly have been less interested, but said sure! anyway. Then she did a vocal double-take when I told her I was twenty. I really need to back slowly away from the kid-rheumies but, really, I'm too lazy. I don't like my doctor at all either, I'm seriously just too lazy to switch.

So actually, my Rheumy has never even touched on the subject of pregnancy with me, and the only time she's mentioned birth control was to get mad at my obgyn for prescribing it to me. This is all a little annoying, for the following reasons:

1. I have had soul-numbingly painful cramps since I was about 16. Like, cannot-walk-across-the-room-to-get-the-Advil level pain. Like, repeatedly-miss-school-and-stay-up-for-36-hours-straight level pain. And my rheumy was kind of like well, whatever, try not to take Advil it'll hurt your kidneys.

2. I found out WHY when I was seventeen, because of the aforementioned lemon-sized-cyst on my ovary. When they did the surgery (prepare for me to jabber for a bit because this was just SO COOL [that was not even sarcastic, I swear]), they did a micro-somethingorother. That (very technical term) means that there were three incisions: one on either side of my abdomen, right above my pelvis, and one slightly larger on right at the top of my belly button. Basically, one of the pelvic ones was for a teeny little camera, and one was for the teeny little knife. Then they cut the thinger and pulled it out through the belly button one. Okay, point: THERE WAS A TEENY LITTLE CAMERA INSIDE MY ABDOMEN. So when I heard this from my lovely anesthesiologists who came back to joke with me pre-surgery (they were the least obnoxious jokers ever, too), I was like AWESOME DUDE will you take a picture? And they told me they would. What's more, they told me there would be a video of the whole surgery from the inside and they would add music.

They never did.

But I did get pictures!

Where was this leading? Right. Cyst removed successfully, ovary left intact (hooray.) When I woke up, the doctor told me I have a condition called endometriosis, explaining it thus: "BTDUBZ, we found a SHIT TON of endometrial cells basically tying your ovaries to your uterus. There's probably a SHIT TON more scar tissue inside your uterus, probably due to all the chemo you've been on plus the fact that your immune system likes to Munch. That's why you get such terrible cramps. Also why your cramps radiate down your legs. Oh, also, you can probably not get pregnant." And my response was something along the lines of "and you left my uterus in there, why?"

3. So, I found out why I GOT the cramps but still no one told me there was anything I could do about them until a year later when I went for a follow-up to make sure, I assume, that my entire reproductive system hadn't fallen out. THEN my obgyn was like right, birth control, here you go. And it WORKED, ladies and gentlemen.

4. THEN my rheumy got all pissy and told me that birth control screws with your hormones and could make my lupus worse.
It actually made it better. My mom finally pointed out to me that a year ago was about when I started feeling worse - around the same time I went off birth control. While it COULD have sent my immune system into a frenzy, it seems like it actually leveled it out. Result of doctor's appointment yesterday: prescription!

My own personal conclusion from the survey I had to take: Doctors should probably discuss these things with their girl-lupies more. We don't necessarily think to ask when we are young and not dating because we're too sleepy to look at male-types, but let's just say for the sake of hyperbole that my entire high school career consisted of having unprotected sex with every man I saw - it would've been nice to know that screwing with my hormones via growing a baby could have been Bad.

Tomorrow: my career as a test-driver for crafts projects aimed for ages 6-9! (I have skillz, yo.)