The Endo Diet:

Basically, the endo diet is a vegan diet, minus wheat and soy. I don’t think I ever really had much pain when it came to endo (or I tolerate it well) so my new diet is purely for the sake of having children (and if I become a bit healthier in the process, so be it.). Now, I never thought in a million that I would utter the words VEGAN and ANGIE in the same sentence but Hell has frozen over and that’s what it has come to. Although, I’m going to modify that diet some. Now, I think eggs-as long as they are hormone and antibiotic free-are OK for me. And the same goes for butter. For a true vegan, those are obviously big no-no’s. Here is what I have to avoid:

Wheat
Refined Carbs
Sugar, including honey
Alcohol
Caffeine
Chocolate (Oh, God help me!)
All dairy products
Fried Foods
All Red Meat & Animal products
All Soy (which seems to be in just about everything I like)
Basically, all the food I eat, I shouldn’t. I’ve come to the conclusion that everything I do eat, needs to be made from scratch and that 50% of my diet needs to be fruits and veggies. If you’ve ever watched the Gilmore Girls, you would know how I currently eat and how all of this is going to be quite a stretch. Why I’m not 300 lbs in beyond me.

I’m deciding whether or not to make my own bread (as all the recipes I’m seeing either contain a form of wheat or a form of soy) but I think that if I have a smidgen of wheat once in a while from homemade bread, things will still be OK. I’m shooting for an 80% avoidance rate of dairy, red meat, wheat, and soy.

Oh, I guess I should mention that I had my follow up for my lap surgery and I was quite upset when I left. I wasn’t able to see the RE, only a nurse who checked my incisions and told me that I have endo. WOW, thanks for that. I have to go back in two weeks to ask any questions, to see the pictures and get my first u/s post-op. I did some reading up on the meds used to control endo while I was in the RE’s waiting area. I want to steer VERY clear away from that. I’m going to beg and plead with the RE to not make me do it. I’m hoping to make a compromise. If I can truly control this with diet, the meds shouldn’t be necessary! I want to say, “Give me 6 months on this diet, if things don’t improve, slap me with the meds!” The only way to see if it comes back is to do another lap though so I don’t know how affective my bargaining skills will be. It’s still worth a shot.

Thanks again to all who prayed for me. I am truly blessed to call you all my friends.

Recovery:

“For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.” Psalms 62: 5-6 Man I love those verses!!!

I wasn’t sure if I should even write yet. I should wait until my follow up appt in two days but getting my thoughts out seems to really help me feel better. I’m healing. Physically, my only complaint is that I have a headache and pain in my shoulder due to the gas that was used during my surgery. My incisions (3 of them) are fine…a bit bruised and sore but are really quite fine. God’s hand was wrapped completely around me last Thursday. I felt every prayer and saw God work in people who took care of me. From beginning to end, everything went smoothly. The nurse that was assigned to me in the hospital was a true blessing. She was Miss Chatty Cathy and completely distracted me during my wait. She numbed my IV site so I felt nothing. She even hooked me up to a hot air vent thing that connected to my gown so I felt-and looked-like a toasty marshmallow. I’m not sure how I feel emotionally however. I’m still in a bit of shock at how much endometriosis I had. Apparently, it was everywhere. It was all removed (along with two ovarian cysts) but I don’t know how much longer I’ll have until it all comes back. Medication was mentioned as a way to control it. Now, I do not want to jump the gun and go into speculation as to what medication I’ll be on. I need to wait until my follow up. I have done more research on endo and something that seems to keep it away longer is a Gluten Free diet. No hormones, no wheat, as much organic foods as possible, no soy, and no eating or reheating foods in plastics. I have always had a love/hate relationship with food. I hate cooking. I hate how long it takes to make things the “real” way. I love junk food. I love fatty Hot Pockets, pizza rolls, pizza bagel bites, and generally any crap that isn’t healthy. I was never a big fan of fruits or veggies so this new diet will be a bit of a stretch but I am determined as ever to give it a try. It certainly can’t hurt me.

Here are some pictures of me before my surgery. I was given a room for people over 500 lbs. Here is the toilet to prove it!!! Have you ever seen anything like it??

Three days...

I’m trying to think of a nice way to say some things on my mind right now. As the famous quote says, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Well, I still want to say it. If my blog is too personal for you to handle, DON’T READ IT. It’s simple really. I’m not afraid to talk about what my body is doing and I’m not afraid to say how I’m feeling. If it bothers you, again I say, DON’T READ IT. It’s the truth and I’m not hiding anything anymore. I posted it on Facebook (with a pretty truthful disclaimer if I might say so myself) for the fact that I want people aware of what dealing with infertility is really like. It’s not pretty or glamorous and it’s not fun (and yes Uncle Chris, it’s kind of scary). I’m not going to pretend that the mother and father in the waiting room at the RE’s office today didn’t bother me. The fact that they had twins with them and were expecting triplets and were announcing it to the whole world DID bother me. I wanted to say, “Do you realize that the rest of us in the waiting room DON’T have beautiful children we can hold or gush about? My babies are in Heaven…” I had to fight back tears.

I’ve had two pre-op appts this week and I have pretty mixed emotions about the surgery coming up in three days. I’m having three procedures during the one surgery. WARNING: If you haven’t stopped reading this and you are one of the people that I was talking about above, you may want to stop reading now. I’m having a laparoscopy (scope through a small incision just below my belly button) to look at the outside of my uterus, tubes, bladder, and intestines. Then I’m going to have a hysteroscopy, where the scope goes inside my uterus and the doc will remove anything unusual he sees and do a biopsy. THEN I’m having a D&C. Yes, it’s the same thing I had when I had a miscarriage. Why the D&C? I don’t know. I guess it’s to completely clean me out. Since my last one, I haven’t been able to get pg so I’m a bit concerned about that. I can’t decide if I’m nervous or not yet. Maybe I will be when the day comes.

God is good and His will WILL be done.