My life has been good and I have enjoyed every moment of every day. Endometriosis will always be part of my life story and even while I have moved away from the nightmare it once put me through there isn't a day or a month gone by I haven't thought about my journey. The further I am away from it all the less painful the memories become for me. I haven't forgotten the countless yrs I spent just making it from one moment to the next or the anger I came to feel or the resentment I grew to have but I somewhere along the way made peace with it all. I can drive myself right back through the hell that was my life in the years I spent suffering from the endometriosis easily but I can also now see the things I gained from it as well. I learned so much about my own strengths my determination and a drive that I wouldn't have known existed had I not gone through it. I met wonderful women who became a source of strength and power when I felt I had none of my own. I learned to appreciate the little things the moments I wasn't in pain a moment I moved past the pain to be there for one of my children or for my husband. I didn't take much for granted. I gain compassion for those with chronic illness as never before. I gained a sense of myself as well. I wasn't this disease anymore then this disease was who I was. It was part of my life my story my journey but it wasn't the main focus. I had so much to be thankful for outside of the endometriosis. I had a wonderful loving put up with alot of shit Husband who stuck by me when I wished so many times he's walk away..I had 5 beautiful handsom son's to make the worst of it just that much better for being there and caring about me. I had so much to offer and Endo wasn't able to take that away from me it could ravage my body plaque me with pain and turn my emotions on the head of a dime but still under it was me.. the me that remembered what it meant to be alive to have hope to want to overcome. The women I would come to spend many hours talking to about this disease and the effects it had on me and my entire family were like no others I'd ever met. We might not have had identical stories or the sae degree of pain or even the same degree of endometriosis but we had a drive within to change the face of this disease to reach out to those suffering to defy the odds and to overcome it. Most of us encountered the uneducated doctors who well needed a few lessons from us, we knew what it was like to have this misunderstood disease take from us the things we cherished most in this world. We know the fight to be had to get that back. Many times the forums are heated debates when someone isn't aware of an aspect or has misinfo on a topic. We had to be brave enough to sit through the heated moments b/c what was under then and between them was unmatched anywhere else in our lives. Who better to understand then our fellow Endometriosis sisters. Who better to offer their story and hope then those going through it with us. We might come to not get along or have emotions boil over or encounter a very angry endo sis who just needs a place to vent and let it all out but there's more much more behind the outter shells of the pages of any forum there are life long friendships forming and supportive communications that go on through email only made possible by our encoutners in these forums. We learn tolerance for those who don't want help patience for those who boil over and acceptance by the friendships formed there. From the outside looking in many would like to paint our stories as us sitting around complaining about our pain and fighting like cats and dogs and worse but they have to be on the inside to see what is truely beneith it. Some spare a spouse even children the hell of how they feel and use the forum as a safe haven to let it out and le it go so they can begin to heal. Some need extra attention for that which isn't in their present life with family and friends who can't begin to understand their story their pain their utter fears of living with endometriosis. It's mor well rounded then anyone on the outside looking in would believe. We cry when a new member joins to think their journey has only begun, we want to help educate them keep them from the mistakes we made teach them other means to help them cope and not all come in willing or even ready to accept the helping hand they can't move past the shock and the devistation yet.. We see them arrive younger and younger as it breaks our hearts that we must find a stop and end to it a CURE.. We fight today in hopes our children and their children wont know this disease only to turn around and see another sobbing mother explain her daughter just got the diagnosis. It's not easy to watch it's not fun and pleasant and all cheerful it's all painful for each of us in it's own way and not all of us deal or cope with it alike and that's often where we but heads. We walk into life being told to trust a doctor but they don't have all the answers and worse are those who can't openly admit this to their patients, some go on to utterly refuse to be their doctor for having the right to say no to a treatment. Jobs do not understand a women taking off b/c her period is so bad that she can hardly stand up let alone come to work or worse she needs too much time off for surgery. Many go to work in missory and sit trying to do their best b/c it's not a choice they have a fmaily to support and can't take off when they need to. Disability for this disease is terribly hard to recieve. Some Doctors think pain meds are a solution and for some it gets them through the roughest spells others come to find a med doesn't work b/c their body got too used to it and for such they are labeled a drug seeker. I took a natural path and learned about estrogen and how we ingest it and most women are estrogen dominant and it's what feeds the endo and yet never were my hormones tested by my doctors. I took it into my own hands b/c the alternative would have been to be scooped out like the pumpkins at Halloween. I didn't believe it would even work I walked into it thinking I'd try anything once.. This promised to helped in the long term where as doc methods were short term drugs poisoning my system or taking my organs out neither of which I could mentaly prepare myself to go through. Others had only to find out the quick fix wasn't a fix at all but a trade off some got temporary relief but I wanted more we all wanted more. I was furtheest from the health nut in fact I was anything but. So taking myself to a place so unfamiliar to me and so on the edge of even acceptance by society was hard to do. What could it hurt or make worse then things were. I couldn't begin to put into worlds the night and day I went through in the first weeks of it. I thought it was in my head that it was working and wondered when it would stop working or reality would set back in but here I am still doing real well. I haven't gone promoting this other then my two web pages but if people want to know about it and try it for themselves it's up to them I wont promise it will work I can't I know it did for me and I wish it did for everyone but I also know in my research many who tried this did one step not all steps. you have to change your diet and Take the vitamins and be faithful with the natural progesterone cream skipping one can mean the difference of success and not. Over the first yr I played with myself to see the difference out of pure curiosity and yes at times stupidity. I'd forget and pay for it. I'm not free of it all by any means I still have a few not so good days a month but compared to 2 weeks of being the worlds biggest bitch to maybe 1-2 days of it was worth it, and bleeding O Gosh bleedin so heavy I couldn't leave home and for 2 full weeks a month I lost all quality of life b/c with that also came the pain. I now have a cycle of 30 days and bleed max 5 days and it'sno where near the heavy bleeding it had been. Leaks now are only a slip or night time thing when the blood pools in the uterus. The clotting while I have some it's the soft ball size clots I once had either. Some months it plays goofy on me still I'll start a little early or late but nothing so unusualy I'm panic struck over it just annoyed. It's taken me a long time to move past what I came to expect with periods and that I could plan my life without considering a period messing up my plans again. I have more engery, I'm happier, I can do anything I set my mind to without fear again. I did also come to learn respect in forums and in life itself. It takes a few things to handle the forums Respect, Tolerance Acceptance, tact and thick skin, but despite the tiffs the ugly posters if you can look past it to those who can and will become your best friends in the world it's worth wading through the shit storms to find them and believe in your purpose on them. One of my best Friends Loretta and I met on a forum for endo both seeking the same thing having the same goals and ambitions when it came to living with Endometriosis so it made all the uproars on the forum and all the ugly posts worth it's weight in gold to have met her.. Had I taken and walked away b/c some shit head made it a bad day on there I'd never have met this beautiful soul who's been an inspiration a friend and awesome endo sis to me. I met Amanda on that forum to and she's just a delightful spark in my life that talked me through alot of tough days made me laugh made me cry and made life a little more tolerable having endometriosis. there is always a stink pot on every forum no matter the topic and they win when we give in and leave b/c they take from us the support we are seeking, that one friend who might help us cope make us feel a little better just by being able to understand we aren't alone with Endo. We win when we tell them shove it I belong here too and I'm not letting your bitterness run me off. Often in the yrs I watched the many forums I belonged to turn to shit in an instant I also got to see how ignoring these idiots in a collective mannor took the forums back from their little stinker ways. No one posting no one responding they got bored with themselves and eventualy left. they like the attention given even when it's negative the spot light is still on them.. It's not easy to ignore them but knowing it get their goats makes it fun to when the end result is their exit. They demand our attention our energy and feed on it I pity them..