Riding It Out

I haven't talked much about how this MTX ride has been.  Just in case others are out there looking for what I was looking for- someone else's experience after taking this drug - I thought I should post mine.

I got the MTX injections on Monday of last week - so five days ago.  Dr. Z had called it into the pharmacy a few days earlier in case we needed.  When I got the call, he had me go pick it up and bring it into the office so a nurse could administer it.  It only cost $8, which was awesome, because our insurance covered it.

The nurse did one injection in each butt cheek because it's a little too much for one area.  The injections didn't hurt in the slightest, especially after the PIO shots I'd been doing daily.  Those are wicked...

I went home with instructions to not eat any leafy greens (starting back before I took the shots because of the folic acid), no pre-natal vitamins (again, folic acid), and take advil if I got bad cramps.  I'm not supposed to be doing any strenuous activities (exercise, sex) for fear of my tube rupturing as well.  They expected that I might have some mild nausea, but offered for me to call if it got bad so they could write me a script for some drugs to help.  They also said I'd hopefully have a bleed so that my uterus would flush out at some point.

So the afternoon after the injections, I got a little nauseous and experienced some light headedness and a little dizziness as well.  Nothing to write home about really, not as bad as the "morning sickness" I was experiencing on the progesterone (which wasn't all that bad either). 

The day after the shot I was pretty good, not much as far as symptoms go.  I think it was later that night (day 2) when I started to bleed again a bit.  I got some cramps and a little nauseous again.  But the bleeding didn't last. 

Day 3 and 4 were much of the same.  Nauseous here and there, but really not bad at all.  Last night I started getting some cramps again, and then some kind of bad gas pains.  I've had a little bit of pain in my lower right quadrant for a while now, but that's pretty normal for me with the endo.  That got a little worse last night.  Then the cramps got really bad out of nowhere.  I ended up pretty sick to my stomach and had the big D late last night. Yuck.  I started bleeding kind of heavy, bright red, with just a few little clots.  Nothing big.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night with really sharp pain in my lower right side, like a sharp side cramp, that made it difficult to breathe and that radiated up into my right shoulder.  I was worried that something had happened...especially with the shoulder pain (if you have bleeding in your abdomen, it can radiate up to show as pain in your shoulder due to irritation on the diaphragm), but after a few minutes it subsided and I was able to fall back asleep.  Not really sure what that was, but with stage 4 endo, I just kinda get used to randomness like that. 

I've lost my appetite a bit since the MTX shot.  Haven't been able to act like a garbage disposal in my normal fashion (at least like it was when I was on the progesterone and stimming drugs, yikes).  So that's been a welcome feature! I've lost a couple pounds (which could be me losing muscle since all I do is sit around at work or lay around at home, ugh). 

Other than that, haven't really noticed any problems.  I've been staying out of the sun (doctors orders) and not drinking alcohol (I hate you Dr. Z).  So weird, we went to dinner last night and all I wanted was a cocktail and an F'ing salad...

I'm a bit nervous about Monday's results.  I'm thinking with my recent luck, I'm gonna need another MTX shot.  Which I've kind of given into at this point, but it still sucks. I feel better now that we've pretty much decided we're postponing our little vacation.  We'll enjoy it much more later, when we can do what we want to. Vacation with restrictions is no good.

B and I keep laying around talking about how we need to get up and go do things. Yesterday we sat on our couch for a good thirty minutes talking about what we could do that didn't involve any sort of exercise or being outdoors.  I said we could go to a museum and he laughed at me.  If you knew B, you would understand why.  He's too cool for school... ;) Just kiddin' B! I love you! (and you know you're too cool for school...).  We talked about shopping, but all we'd be buying is fat clothes for me or things we don't need for the house...neither of which is a good plan.  We ended up going to dinner and a movie.  Our standard date night.  We seriously COULD NOT think of anything to do.  What's wrong with us??? We need help.  For those of you who know us (and where we live), do you have any ideas? We're getting a little bored with the Red Box movie rentals and real estate tv shows (that's my fault, I just friggin love those shows...).  And don't tell us to go to a museum, you'll get laughed at as well...