Catch 22

I've quit talking about the health and sex stuff here for the most part. There have been several reasons for that. Partly it has been because even I got bored going over the same grim territory again and again and again. There is only so much time a person can spend grieving with that intensity. After awhile, you have to decide to live or die. Since what there is left here is the reality, there doesn't seem to be much point in moaning on and on and on forever. Pull up the big girl panties and deal with it. The other part of all of that is that we've made some progress. Things are a little bit better. With MAJOR medical interventions and enough drug and hormonal interventions to move an elephant, I sometimes achieve something that gets me sort of close to "off." And something is better than nothing. Besides, if I piss and moan too much, I'm gonna find myself hauling my sorry butt back to the shrink and taking anti-depressants. I may not be the sexy babe I was before, but I am not stupid. I know enough to not want to go there again.

HOWEVER...


We have hit a major bump in the "happy, happy, joy, joy" trek. So, if you don't want to hear me do a pity party, just click to whatever comes next on your blog reading list.



For those of you who are too young to remember the book, or the definition of the phrase, "Catch-22" is an idiom meaning "a no- win situation" or "a double bind" of any type. It really came into common usage with the publication of Joseph Heller's book by the same name in 1961. Within the book, "Catch-22" is a military rule, the self-contradictory circular logic of which, for example, prevents anyone from avoiding combat missions. In Heller's own words:
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to." ~Wikipedia~

That's what I've run into on the health front: a Catch-22. The HRT that makes it possible for me to avoid a lot of the surgically induced impacts of menopause (including total sexual dysfunction) relies to a large degree on conjugated estrogens. With a pretty good dosage of estrogen and some off-label applications of topical testosterone gel, I reach a state that the doctor refers to as "hormonally replete." That all makes it possible for me to use drugs that are normally prescribed for erectile dysfunction and voila! We're there.

Unfortunately, the longer I have taken the estrogen replacements, the more migraine headaches I have had, and the more extreme they have become... It finally reached the point where I went to see my neurologist/migraine specialist who absolutely had a fit! It seems that there was one small detail that no one bothered to explain to me: people who have migraines should NEVER, EVER, EVER TAKE CONJUGATED ESTROGEN!!!!

So, I am off the hormones. Back to square one. Trying to get the headaches moderated. Dealing naked with the hormonal earthquakes. Wanting a sex life of some kind. Wanting to sleep through the night. Wanting to not drop into the pit of despair again. Wanting to just go on with my life which is mostly good and happy. Trying to bleieve that somehow I will find a solution that makes sense in all of this.

Catch-22.

Trusting that there has to be an answer, but knowing that all of those "practicing" physicians obviously don't have it.

swan