A Silver Lining

Definitely not platinum; not even white gold.  But as my mom likes to say, "beggars can't be choosers," so I guess I'll take it.  I had a sex dream the other night.  It has been many, many months since I've had any sexy-type dreams.  And then I had another one last night!  I'm hoping that this is a positive sign and that the testosterone might finally be doing something in my body.  I used to have sex dreams all the time and then they just stopped (I can't even remember how long it's been).  Now if I could just have sexy day dreams that would be awesome.

I also joined a book club recently.  I love to read and I decided that it would be nice to read a book and have a group of people with whom to talk to about it (especially since all my friends live in other states and I basically have no one to hang out with except my husband.)  I think that the book club has lifted my spirits as well.  I think just being able to hang out with some women and talk about books and movies for several hours has been really mentally healing for me.  I've met with them twice.  I hope that the book club continues to be a relaxing outlet for me to just hang out and be normal for a few hours.

I have been in a deeply dark place for a long while now.  I have been feeling a little less sorry for myself in, like, the last few days.  I hope it continues.  I still try not to think about the hard stuff too much - it just brings me down.  If I start thinking about my gigantic fear that I will never want sex again I start to panic.  If I think about how my clock is ticking and how much I want to have children I start to panic.  If I look around my tiny apartment and really see the massive clutter everywhere I start to panic.  But at least now I have something to distract me: books.  Books, TV, movies, and sewing projects (and this blog) are definitely my coping mechanisms.  I can escape into another world for at least a little while.

And you know what?  The sun is shining and the temperature is going up.  I don't think any of us can deny that good weather is always a spirit lifter.

Carob as a substitute for chocolate?

Um, not really.  It looks like chocolate.  And that's where the similarities end.  Whoever decided that carob is a substitute for chocolate has obviously not had chocolate in a long time.  As I wrote before, I have been trying the Bladder Friendly Diet to see if it helps with my burning.  Chocolate is a no-no in this diet so I bought some carob chips and made oatmeal carob chip cookies to try and get my chocolate fix.  Not so much.  It's hard to describe what carob tastes like - kind of fruity I think; not chocolaty at all.  And another thing - it doesn't melt.  I baked the cookies in a 350 degree oven and the carob did not melt.  It was disappointing.

The good news (or is it?) is that it seems that the Bladder Friendly Diet really had no effect on me one way or the other.  I thought it was working, but then I had all this burning and itching while I was still strictly following the diet.  It's good news because I cannot live without chocolate, tomatoes and vinegar.  But it would have been nice to pinpoint a specific trigger for the burning.  Oh well.  It's still a mystery.

In other news I've been pretty down lately.   I just feel like my life is stagnant.  There is no moving forward.  My best friends live far away from me so we usually talk on the phone to keep each other updated on our lives.  I've been avoiding calling them because I have nothing to say.  Or at least, nothing good to say.  And I know they are my friends and they love me and they want to be supportive, but really, who wants to hear my pity party?  I don't.  Who wants to hear about how I still can't have sex and I still have no desire and my vagina is still burning and it's still all a mystery?  They're all getting pregnant and decorating their houses and living normal lives.  I don't want to talk to anybody because I don't want to have to answer the question: How are you?  What have you been up to lately?  How's life?  Answers: depressed.  nothing.  stagnant.  Lately whenever I talk to people I do everything I can to steer the conversation towards them.  Nothing new over here.  Nothing's changed.

The Bladder Friendly Diet

I've been trying the bladder friendly diet for about a week and a half now.  It's going okay.  It might be too soon to say whether it's really working, but I will say that I haven't had any burning for several days.  I've been keeping a food/burning journal so that I can see any correlations between what foods I eat and how my vagina feels.  The last time I reported burning was on Monday, so I've had three days of no burning.  Is it the food or just a coincidence?  I don't know.

The hardest part for me with this diet is just having to restrict myself.  I'm used to just eating whatever I want (usually pretty healthy) and now I have to think about everything.  The worst is the fruit and vegetable situation.  There are very few fruits I am allowed to eat and although I can eat most vegetables, I have yet to find a good salad dressing that doesn't have any forbidden ingredients in it.  I've made two salad dressings - one that was apple based and one that was cottage cheese based - they were both disgusting!

I have cheated a couple times.  I ate chocolate one day (because we had International Night at my school and my students wanted me to try what they made - I had to do it!) and I have probably had a few ingredients when going out to eat that were on the NO list.  But I've been pretty good.  This weekend I will start with adding back in bananas and see how that goes.  I'm starving for fruit!  I can only eat apples, pears, and blueberries.  I'm not a big apple fan, blueberries are not in season and aren't that great, so I've been eating pears...just pears.  I really hope that I am not sensitive to bananas.  After that I'll add something else - not sure what yet.

I'm hoping that maybe there are just a few foods that cause sensitivity and that eventually I can add most of the foods back in.  It's just too restrictive for a food lover like me to do this diet forever.  It's impressive that I've lasted this long (I know that's sad, it's been less than 2 weeks.  But I love food!).

I'll try to keep you updated on how the diet goes.  So far so good in the burning department, but I feel seriously deprived of fruit and chocolate!