Self-Care September

Hello Cysters!!! Welcome to PCOS Awareness Month! 

As women we are sometimes expected to be super human and taking care of ourselves can be made into a lower priority when there is so much to do! Further more, as women with a chronic illness, taking care of ourselves can be an overwhelming task at times. For the past 2 months, and even more intensely in the past two weeks, I have given more focus into what it actually means to really take care of yourself, by actually putting those skills into practice and working towards giving up the toxic thought that I have to be more that what my body can handle. I have learned so much from some wonderful teachers who I will talk about more this month, but I thought it was important that I started sharing the techniques that have been working for me so others can feel the great benefit of self-care. Let's kick it off with tip #1!!! 

Check back here and on social media to see more tips though out the month. See how many things you can do to take care of yourself and let us know what is working best for you!

Have a wonderful day and be kind to yourself!

💗 Jennifer

The Sunshine Vitamin - Facebook Post - Sept. 7th, 2016

It is very common for women with PCOS to become vitamin deficient. I am deficient in D & B12. Vitamins make me very nauseous, so it was awesome to find out that there are options. My Dr. changed me to a weekly dosage of D, and a dissolve-able tablet for B12 and it is now much more manageable. Being vitamin D efficient feels super awesome, so here is a link to a little article about the benefits of vitamin D to urge everyone to take their vitamins!

The Benefits of Vitamin D

Soak up the sunshine… or at least the sunshine vitamin! (Please note real sun is preferred) 

💗 Jennifer

SO Tired - Facebook Post - Sept. 5th, 2016

I have had a pretty big, fun, exciting week in both work and play, so I thought it only appropriate to talk about fatigue today, because I am freaking tired! The hormone cortisol is produced by the adrenal gland and it controls homeostasis of your body, basically keeping things in balance. If you’re hot, you sweat to cool. If you’re cold, you shiver to warm. It’s an essential part of keeping your body alive. It’s called the stress hormone because it releases when the body is under stress in hopes that it will regulate. Sometimes it works too much, because remember my adrenal gland does what it wants, and sometimes it never really goes back to normal so you always feel in a constant state of stress. This makes your body work and work to try and make you de-stress and then you end up exhausting your adrenal gland and it’s like “Sorry, no more cortisol for you… you sleep NOW.” Any time of day, you give me a pillow, chances are I could sleep. But it is not just that I am tired, it’s fatigue. It also comes with brain fog, so co-workers, you now know why I become 10% less useful between the hours of 3-4. That’s the worst time of day for me... I believe they call it “nap time” in pre-school. The best way for me to fight this is to make sure I keep regular sleeping habits and I get at least 8 hours of sleep a day. I like using my mind and I want to be rested so that I can use it at the best of my ability. Thankfully today is a holiday and a movie day, so it will be very relaxing… and I might even take a nap this afternoon too. 

Wishing you and your body a good night’s rest tonight. 
💗 Jennifer 

This week's featured story: UP IN DA UTERUS CLUB

The female reproductive system is pretty fantastic. We fucking create life. Think about that. Inside of our bodies, things happen all in sync to create another actual human being. Pretty cool right? Here’s what happens if we don’t create life that month. See, the ovaries are like home base, the egg is at home and she gets a call from her girl like “Hey lady, you need a man! Let’s go to the club!” Men, if you think we take a long time to get ready, that little egg works on her make-up and hair and outfit aaallllll month just to look good for you.

They are all ready to go and she travels down the Bentley Fallopian Tube to the Uterus Club in hopes that the spermy men will be there waiting for her, wiggling around fighting each other for the one special egg to fertilize and begin the process of creating life together. Typical men all fighting for one girl, but we love it when you fight for us.

The egg arrives and there are a lot of nice tissue men there, but it’s not the spermy ones she likes. The tissue is like “Hey girl! I know you’re here for your spermy men, but come hang in the VIP section for a while, we made it special just for you. It’s nice and cozy here, we’ll buy you a drink while you wait, and when they get here you can snuggle up together in our fluffiness!” But after a few drinks she thinks to herself, “You know, I don’t have time for this, this place is really nice but there are no sperm anywhere!!!” So she’s like, “Bye Felicia!” Now the uterus, oh the uterus. Not only is the uterus the actual club, but it also acts as the over protective, pissed off, club bouncer. When the spermy men don’t show for the egg, it’s like “Dudes, this VIP egg traveled all the way over here to this awesome venue filled with nice fluffy tissue that I invited to keep her company, and these sperms are a no show? Fuck this! Everyone out! I worked all month on this place and it’s all for nothing. Every tissue in here, Get. The. Fuck. Out. And if you don’t I am going to shove your asses out.” All the tissue is like, “Nah, she is gonna be back, chill dude, the sperms are gonna show, let’s just drink more champagne and text Derek to come on by too.” So Derek comes by and brings like 10 of his friends, and the uterus is like “I told your asses to GET OUT!!!!! RRRROOOOOOAAARRRR!!!!!! Then it starts convulsing and all the tissue is like “Oh damn, this is some real shit, let’s roll out”. And that, men, is how a period happens.

Mine happens a little differently. My uterus still kicks all of the tissue out once a month but it’s for different reasons. Instead of getting mad, it kinda gets sad. It works and works and works to make a viable venue for my VIP to sit relax and meet some men. Then it waits and waits and waits for the VIP egg to show up. But she never shows. So my uterus is like “let’s keep inviting nicer and fluffier tissue and maybe she will show up.” But she never does. Even if sperm were to show too, they would not find the VIP. Eventually the uterus has so much fluffiness inside that it can’t contain itself, comes to the realization that she is not coming to the club, and gives up. It completely trashes the place and clears everyone out in an emotional outburst, “Nothing I do is ever good enough for her!!!” But once that is over and the place is empty, it stops, takes a few deep breaths and realizes it is too young to give up. It starts over fresh, making a nicer, fluffier venue in hopes that the VIP will show up next time around. Where are the eggs you ask? Instead of turning into a VIP egg and going to the Uterus Club in the Bentley Fallopian Tube, she stayed at home in the ovary and turned into a sad sack cyst month after month. But my ovaries don’t give up either! Every month they still try to make a VIP, it’s just that most months she never shows up to the club. Woman with PCOS may not ovulate but can still menstruate. FML right? The key is to get that VIP out to the club, so I am hoping that one day my hard work will give my VIP enough confidence to show up. I never gave up on anything before, so why start now right?
💗 Jennifer 

What is Wrong with me? - Facebook Post - Sept. 2nd 2016

Today I share a fact from the PCOS Nutrition Center. The fact that PCOS receives so little funding to study the syndrome makes it hard to understand, therefore it is commonly misdiagnosed. Before finding my doctor (who knew what it was right away), I went through so many tests because previous doctors did not connect the dots to all my symptoms. I was thought to have a hernia once, then it was celiac, then probably endometriosis. Cat-scans didn't show anything. Then I kept feeling like it was all my fault. It must be my shampoo that is causing my hair to fall out, so I bought something better. It must be the face cream I am using that is causing my acne, so I bought something different. I must not be exercising hard enough, so I would run an extra mile. All this pain is because I didn't stretch, so I took an extra yoga class. I am just emotional… ugh, whatever. It was exhausting. Then one day I experienced a doctor not believing the symptoms I was reporting. I felt so alone because no one knew what I was going through, even me. When I finally sat down with Dr. Lina Shammas, D.O., (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine) after meeting her only once before, she pulled out 14 pages of blood work and said “I wanted you to come in because I want to tell you exactly is going on.” She drew pictures and went over numbers and explained to me how everything connected… everything. Then I started crying and she took my hand and said “You are not broken, you can do this.” She is so special to me because not only does she have the answers, she believes in me. 
We are fighting against low funds, so put in the effort to find someone who has the knowledge of the disease you are fighting. They are one in a million, but it is worth it.

Don’t forget to love yourself, because you too, are not broken.

💗Jennifer

Welcome readers!

Welcome to The Ovarian Chronicle!!! I am very excited to start blogging and sharing my creative writing about having ovaries, and not just any ovaries... polycystic ones!  Tune in during the upcoming weeks to see re-postings of my PCOS Awareness Month Essays from 2016 to get you all ready and excited for new writing that I am introducing later in February. Thanks for sharing, following, and most importantly, reading!

Don't forget to love yourself!

💗 Jennifer