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Submitted by courtnee 03.02.10 - 1:48 pm
I had the amazing opportunity to observe surgery last Friday. One of my clients is a foot and ankle surgeon and invited me to observe one of his operating days, when he had a set of cases that were varied and interesting. My day started at around 6am, scootering to the surgery center in the rain.
You can find videos of this stuff on youtube, so I wont’ get into the gory details of surgery much here. I’m only about 2 years out of Cadaver lab, and I still remember a lot about that experience. The layers, tissues, joints, that kind of thing. The surgeries themselves were compelling and interesting, though I found myself most struck by the simplistic humanity of what I witnessed.
How amazing is it that we can cut into living people, while they are awake, and perform excessively invasive procedures on them, chisel away hunks of bone, tie off and cauterize veins, snip through layer upon layer of tissue, not only without killing them, but in a manner that eventually leaves them more efficient than they were before? Watch someone perform a bunionectomy and let me know. I think it’s pretty fucking unreal.
The eventually part of all this is what hit home with me, once the dust settled and I had some time to integrate what I’d experienced. By about the 3rd surgery of the day, it struck me that I was witnessing a physical representation of what I do to myself every time I sit down in my therapists chair, or read about dismantling and remapping my psyche. I’ve lived my life expecting not to have to be in a cast after that, or in a walking boot, or to have to wait a year to get my mobility back. I expect to tear into myself and rip fused, vital parts of my structure apart and not be injured or have to pay my dues.
Over the years, I’ve started gaining trust in my body. Recently, when I realized my skin sensation was dulling, I chose to change my perception from being broken, weak, and hobbling on the brink of collapse to being resilient, strong and capable. Because, let’s face it, my body is amazing, weird tweaky things and all. I am able to do astounding things with it, even when not taking into account the damage I’ve done over the course of my life.
So what about my emotional body, then? I’ve gained compassion for my limbs, my digestive system, my aching muscles, my wrung out connective tissue – as inconvenient as all that is. I’m fast running out of reasons to resist having compassion for my aching, heavy little mind, too.
Submitted by courtnee 02.24.10 - 11:43 am
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve felt awful, crazy, confused, been plagued with violent thoughts, and found that in a week or two I start bleeding and immediately feel better – and been surprised. Surprised that I’d been PMSing for 13 days (isn’t it supposed to be, like, 3?), surprised at how awful I felt, surprised that all that awfulness could have possibly been dinky little insignificant PMS. I’ve been bleeding for 15 years and still, it sneaks up on me, more often than it doesn’t.
Even when I’ve been eating well, even when I’ve been sleeping, even when I haven’t had anything particularly stressful happening in my life – half my month has usually been spent in crazytown.
As a woman, I’ve come to this fork in the road before. It’s well beaten and I can tell many others have passed this direction too. If the road had a sign post, it would probably say something like “On to a different Level” in one direction, and “Play again” in the other.
I’ve passed the levels “Birth Control” and “Androgen inhibition”, I’ve passed the “Antibiotic” level to deal with the cysts I develop on my face and many other levels in addition to these – and yet somehow, I find that I end up in the “Play again” level again, over and over.
My cycles have been historically difficult. From being irregular and debilitatingly painful, to excessive and often uncontrollable feelings of anger and depression, I’ve generally learned that the one thing I can count on is not being able to expect how my cycle will effect me or when.
I get ovarian cysts as well, so I’ve tended to watch for physical symptoms which are sometimes absent completely. Meanwhile I’ll be walking around my life in a 10 day anxiety attack that I have no explanation for. Irritations and small inconsistencies become major, deal breaking issues. I stop wanting to work, I am tired constantly, I am angry, I am depressed, I withdraw, I lash out, I’m tense and uncomfortable, I pick fights. And eventually, I destroy my relationships.
I’ve thought myself crazy or otherwise deranged for half of my life, and/or that the world is a terrible place full of awfulness and the people close to me are raging fuckheads. Until I’ve, often seemingly randomly, bled and thought “What the fu— OH. … ….. Ooohhhh…”. Then I get about 12 days of solace.
As I age, the pattern is regulating, yet I’ve still been living as though I have no indication of what’s going on or why. Does that seem sane to ANYONE?
It’s seemed ridiculous to me to ‘blame’ my problems on something so stupid and inconvenient. And in a sense, it is stupid to do that, cause I’m gonna have problems like anyone else whether I PMS or not, and I’ll continue to have problems after I hit menopause or have someone rip my fucking junk out of me.
However, with that stance, I’ve easily forgotten how susceptible the emotional body is to hormone changes, and how little control I actually have over it.
Maybe looking at the emotional more like the physical issues is what to do next. I can’t just glare at my guts, say “Stop cramping and hurting, you stupid whining motherfucker” and expect that to change anything I’m experiencing. And it took a while, but I’ve learned not to do that. I can put a heating pad on my stomach, and I can take pain killers, and I can take a bath, and I can ask someone to rub me – and sometimes I even do! And that usually helps. What reason is there, really, that I can’t learn to do that with my emotions too?
I’ve spent a lot of time, effort and money trying to figure out the physical issues surrounding my period, mainly the cystic acne because I think it makes me look like a real dumbfuck. And I’ve spent a lot of time gaining skills in dealing with life’s little issues, fixing the problems in my life and generally getting my shit together – but not this. This, I still think I’m supposed to be bigger than for some reason.
Well, I’m pretty sure acting like a fucking psycho and alienating my strongest allies makes me look like a dumbfuck, too. And I’m not bigger than the mechanism that drives me. I’ve gotta figure out how to be a part of this process rather than the angsty, reluctant observer.
Does the focus in my life have to revolve around my PMS? Yeah, for a while, I think it really does.
First stop – Maca.
Submitted by courtnee 02.07.10 - 10:49 pm
Updated 2/10/10 – My initial labs are normal. Now to decide which of time, or more extensive testing are the better option. I’m going with time, and a short vacation to San Francisco.
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I seem to have something like a glitch in my problem delay mechanism. Or maybe I am too hard on myself when I’m being measured and reasonable about things before I decide there’s something going on. But I’ve had something going on for a little bit now and I’ve recognized it as a potential problem and started to talk with people about it today. So, time for a braindump.
About 6 weeks ago, while I was receiving a massage, I had a strange sensation, like my skin was half numb at my hip. I could tell there was pressure there, but the sensation wasn’t right. Later in the night I realized it was happening at my knees and the tops of my hands, too.
Since then, I’ve noticed that superficial sensation has remained dull, and changes/spreads seemingly randomly. My forearms are almost always blunt feeling, and often slightly tingly and dense. Last night, I was feeling numbness and almost a vibrating sensation all the way down my leg from my hip. Right now my neck is dull, too, but my face feels right.
I’ve been almost constantly cold for 3 weeks. Not “You live in a basement and it’s winter” ‘cold’, I mean my hands are often fridged through the second leg of a massage in a heated office with a table warmer when they’re normally up to temp by the time I’ve finished my first upper leg ‘cold’. I sleep with a heating pad at my feet most nights. When I lay on my side my low back is often annoyingly cold, despite the covers.
I’ve waxed twice since that night at the spa when I noticed this, and it hurts less. A lot less. I can feel it, but it’s simply nothing like waxing has felt for the last 2.5 years. Wouldn’t mind hanging onto that symptom, actually..
I hadn’t much mentioned it since the first time I noticed this. It’s subtle compared to the raging infections and crazy shit I normally end up worried about. And I’ve been so incredibly busy and stressed. I was thinking of trying to find a neurologist or something, but first I want blood work and a fucking day off.
Honestly, I’m scared. I know too many people with things like MS and Celiac not to consider those things. I’ve put my body through a lot in the time I’ve had it. I think part of me is just waiting for the shoe to drop and for this resilient, triumphant facade to crumble away. I know it’s probably a pinched nerve and shit circulation. I know that. It’s silly but.. honestly, I’m still scared.
It’s probably nothing. But I wanted to throw it out anyway and not carry it alone. You know, in case it’s not nothing. Or something.
Submitted by courtnee 11.07.09 - 11:43 am
Since about the age of 22, I have had severe cystic adult acne. The breakouts have changed over the years. I used to get a few deep nodules on my chin and cheeks that took months to heal, every few months – so I usually had 1-3 I was nursing at any given time. Most of the time when I left them alone, they just hurt like hell but generally didn’t pose too much of a cosmetic problem.
Now I get a couple breakouts a year that are very severe acne conglobata, generally on one cheek at a time. They quickly develop into a pus-filled network of abscess’s that take about 6 months to heal to scarring. In the last year I’ve had one on each cheek.
In addition to what happens to my face, I also get ovarian cysts, usually monthly, and have high androgen levels – both things indicative of PCOS. After tweaking and trying just about everything under the sun, my acne breakouts appear to be largely controlled by 100mg of Spironolactone a day to inhibit my androgens, and heavy supplementation of Vit A, D and Zinc.
I’ve not gone the accutane route. That shit freaks me out. I have tried all kinds of prescriptions, topicals, antibiotics, supplementing and home remedies attempting to avoid that option – but this combination, at least for now, seems to be working. Which is really nice. It’s hard to convey to someone who doesn’t know, how painful and maddening it is to have a constant festering wound on your face and how much it hurts – and that’s aside from managing the cosmetic aspect.
So what about the scarring, then?
I couldn’t do a thing about it until I started having calm periods in between breakouts. Once that started happening, however, the scarring left behind was much deeper and long lasting than anything I’d had before due to the type of acne I’d developed. At the suggestion of a coworker, I’ve been pleased with the results of TCA peels.
There is a ton of research to be had on the subject via the wonder of google. I am not one to shy away from experimenting with my body, even when there is some amount of pain involved, and I’m very body aware. So, I’ve done these peels at home. I do not advocate everyone do this. If you can’t follow directions, for instance, or can’t be accepting of a negative result if you screw yourself up, suck up the dough to get it done by a pro. For me, I’d usually rather have my fate in my own hands than those of someone else, even if it means I don’t have anyone to point a finger at if things don’t go my way.
I bought a tiny bottle of 100% TCA off ebay with instructions for maybe $14. The bottle has lasted me about 9 peels and barely seems to have a dent in it, partially due to the dilution of 50% I’ve generally used. I’ve experimented with both lower and higher percentages, and find this to be a good one for my face. I cut my TCA with mainly with lactic and glycolic acids rather than just water – they are mild enough for me to do so. Some times I will do lighter peels if I’m performing or have something important happening, other times I do deeper ones to get quicker results in exchange for an uglier peeling time.
My favorite peel was one of my first, which was deep enough that the peeling was all one piece which got dry, dark, and sloughed off all at once in the shower a week later. It was ugly, but not fussy, dry enough to cover with makeup while on vacation after the first few days (in which you constantly keep the burn lubricated with bacitraycin), and effective. The lighter peels tend to peel like sunburn and have flakiness, but the color change is less severe. I think that peel was actually 100% TCA with marathon rinsing after a couple seconds – when I dilute the TCA I leave the solution on my face longer and often layer it over the course of a few minutes.
Yes, I put 100% TCA on my face. No, I didn’t keep it on longer than about 5 seconds. No, I didn’t die. I also don’t recommend it. If you aren’t quick you can really screw yourself up. Read some of the TCA forums. I got off lucky.
My typical TCA peel looks something like the “age spot” example at http://www.tcapeels.com/
My scarring is much worse than the example, so I am doing multiple peels over time. The most often I peel is 3 peels two weeks apart, then a break for a month or three. I started my 4th set of peels today, which prompted me to write this up.
There aren’t a lot of pictures out there of my facial scarring without makeup, and I lost all my snapshots for the last few years in a drive crash not long ago. Here is one photo from last may, that shows the scarring on my left cheek after two TCA peel sets:
I thought maybe it might be helpful for people who deal with this to know that a) There is hope in finding some relief eventually and b) Even seemingly glamorous people who spend time in front of cameras and live audiences go through this, manage this, and continue to do what they love despite it. No doubt about it, acne sucks. There’s also a lot more to life than acne sucking.
Good luck.
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