Habits, Fears, & Pants

I hit another milestone during the IPPS Annual Fall Meeting.

About a year ago, two friends asked me why I always wore yoga pants. I was taken off-guard. It was not the time or the place to go into a lengthy medical history and explain that I wore them for pain management (ah! didn't want to go into that,) so I blubbered something about the fact that I am a yoga teacher, and that for two of the past three years I worked as a massage therapist, and that in that world yoga pants count as professional attire (justification, justification, justification.) Never mind that yoga teachers and massage therapists don't wear yoga pants all the time...

The truth is I didn't know how to answer my friends. I had slid into my daily yoga pant habit over time, and never thought about it. Their comment brought my attention to this routine, and inspired me to do some unwanted reflection. (Apparently you can think deeply about yoga pants. Who knew.)

I realized a few things. First, I thought no one had ever noticed me from the waist down. I don't present myself as a slob - I wear make-up, love earrings and pretty shirts. But below my belly button? I'd rather not think about it. Surely no one notices that on the rare occasions I need to wear something nicer than yoga pants, I just dress up yoga pants. A dress over leggings. A cool tunic over leggings. I fooled them all! (right?) 

As Stuart Smally would say, "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."

Second, years of living with chronic pelvic pain had made my relationship with pants fraught. They reminded me that I was "broken," that I hurt, and that I didn't know what to do about it. I either wore pants a couple of sizes too big - which was sloppy, and I hated it - or sweatpants, also sloppy. While I love a good summertime maxi dress, I have never been a fan of skirts as I don't find them to be flattering. So by wearing yoga pants and leggings I avoided the unwanted skirts and took a step up from ill-fitting slacks and frumpy sweats. Ta da!

I felt and still feel pretty in yoga pants. They make me feel athletic, strong and confident. While in the early years they would've hurt a lot, as my symptoms reduced they became the only pants I could wear with almost no pain...and then, no pain. Regular dress pants were still uncomfortable, and jeans I could wear if I limited the time to only a few hours, but wearing pain-free yoga pants allowed me to blissfully deny that I hadn't totally figured out this monster of a health problem.

The story continues. After years of symptom management being the best I could hope for, I finally found a doctor who not only correctly diagnosed me as being centrally sensitized (meaning that my central nervous system was the root of my pain, not my skin, muscles, bones, etc) but who also stepped up to the plate and became a true partner in healing my CS. 

My symptoms dropped dramatically, until...they were gone.

The yoga pants remained.

Trigger-avoidance was a coping mechanism that had deeply ingrained itself into me over nine long years. In the back of my mind I feared that if I stopped avoiding situations that had previously caused pain, then the pain might come back. That included wearing regular dress pants. What if I put them on and the pain returned and I wasn't as healed as I thought I was? That possibility was too terrifying to contemplate. 

A few weeks ago I was traveling with my in-laws, who love to outlet shop. Wandering the vast Floridian malls, I remembered my friends' question, and for the first time in almost a decade I bought three pairs of properly fitting dress pants. Holy God.

Last weekend was the IPPS Meeting. While packing, I scanned my closet. Wearing yoga pants to a professional medical conference was not the image I wished to project. 

But there were those pants. Three pairs, hanging, as yet unworn. Professional, flattering, with an unusual edge I so appreciate in my attire. I carefully folded them so they wouldn't wrinkle and added them to the suitcase.

Dear reader, I wore them. Three days in a row I wore them. Through hours of sitting I wore them, through eighteen hour days I wore them, through an airplane ride I wore them.

And you know what? They didn't hurt at all. I didn't even notice them.

And just like that, I became a "normal" person. A person who wears yoga pants to yoga, and regular pants the rest of the day. A person who doesn't have to stand in the back because it hurts to sit. A person who can focus on the task at hand because she isn't trying and failing to ignore her ouch-y crotch.

So, thank you to my dear friends Subechya and Andrew for asking me why I always wear yoga pants. And thank you IPPS Meeting for being unrelentingly professional, and thank you to my own sense of social propriety and fashion sense and bravery which all contributed to me wearing Those Pants, Those Pants, which from this day forward shall be known as

Those. Awesome. Pants.

Here they are, my glorious, awesome pants.

The International Pelvic Pain Society's Annual Fall Meeting Comes to a Close

As I write this it is early Saturday evening and I am on the Blue Line train headed to O'Hare.

There are more sessions tomorrow for providers who want continuing education credits, but for me the IPPS Annual Fall Meeting is over.

It's hard to believe that less than a week ago I was telling you how nervous I was for this conference. Despite my initial jitters, it was so...easy.

At the end of each lecture there was time for comments from the audience, and individuals making said comments were asked to introduce themselves. Aha! Opportunity knocks! I asked a few questions to the early presenters, so people would know me (I figured this technique out at the BlogHer Conference this summer.) When I introduced myself, I did so in a memorable but not over-the-top way, put my intelligence and humor on display, and...it worked!

For the rest of the conference whenever I introduced myself, people would respond "Oh, you're the blogger!"  Victory!

I was happily surprised by the warmth with which I was received.  The majority of attendees were physical therapists, who generally develop deeper relationships with their patients since they get to spend more time with them than doctors do. Being well-acquainted with the struggles of their patients, and well-aware of the negative impact depressing chat rooms have on patient morale, they could see the need for positive patient-to-patient interaction on the internet. (The doctors I met did too, FYI.)

Some attendees wanted to ask me questions about the patient experience: How do I start a support group? Will patients respond to an invitation from me even though I am not a patient myself? I get so upset when patients fail to comply with my recommendations, how can I build trust and help them help themselves?

One keynote speaker even took it upon himself to introduce me at the Friday night cocktail hour to as many people as he could. "Faith, you should meet so-and-so!" It was great, and I was and still am deeply appreciative to him. I think it speaks well not only of his character but the tone of the society that someone who could have easily overlooked me instead welcomed me and did his best to integrate me into the group.

My mind is on autopilot right now, as it reached full capacity a while ago. It is bubbling with questions, ideas, visions. I learned so much - there were ten presenters on the first day alone - and it will take a while for me to wade through the swirl of thought bubbles and turn them into useful information for you.

In the meanwhile, I am so glad I took this leap. Fun fact: as recently as this past May, I wussed out on going to the Alliance for Pelvic Pain's Conference (which is for patients, and therefore wouldn't have been so scary, right?) At that time I already had the idea for this blog, but was waffling. I wasn't quite ready to share this part of my life with the world. I was scared of being vulnerable and exposed. Getting to a point were I had the guts to attend not only a conference, but one for which I was not "qualified," has shown me how much I have grown in only six months.

You may not think of attending a conference as being a healing agent, but for me it was. More than anything else I have done, attending this conference normalized my experience. Everyone spoke about pelvic pain out in the wide open public! The signs saying "International Pelvic Pain Conference - 4th Floor" or "International Pelvic Pain Conference - Registration" were out alongside the signs directing people to the knitting convention being held in the same hotel. The bathroom chit-chat on breaks breezily used such terms as "vaginal" or "vulvar" or "uterine," regardless of the non-attendees waiting in line alongside us. This group of professionals were more comfortable with communication about pelvic pain than even my old support group, whose members had so many past traumas about their pelvic pain that opening up about it was a challenge. Not these folks. They live and breathe painful pelvises and if they have ever had a shyness or an unwillingness to discuss female anatomy, those days are long gone. 

I was touched by how much the attendees cared about helping their patients get better, and saw that many of my frustrations were theirs as well. They too were upset that most medical professionals don't know about pelvic pain, that their patients often showed up to them in tears after years of failed attempts at getting appropriate care, that insurance wouldn't pay them for the time and attention needed to work with people facing the complexities of chronic pain.

It was comforting to be surrounded by 380 people from a variety of specialties who knew what I was talking about, could empathize, and were invested in making my life better. Everyone there realized that our numbers were small given the immensity of the problem at hand, but knowing that there are wonderful clinicians out there - few in number though they may be - made me hopeful.

Yes, this conference was great. Owning my pelvic pain, instead of detracting from my happiness, has instead added to it. Who knew?

Yay!

Here are some fun photos of Chicago I thought I would share with you:

The skyline with the Lurie Garden at Millenium Park in the foreground.

The edge of Lake Michigan. I love that the two boats on the left belong to the Oakland Park District - I wonder what they are used for?

Another shot of the lake.

I spotted this along South Michigan Ave...Swami Vivekananda spoke at the Parliament of the World's Religions at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, became a well-known orator in the United States and Europe, and is widely credited with introducing yoga to the West - which is why I know about him, and why I took this photo.

Tables set up for chess players on South Michigan Ave. It was fun wandering through the river of big city life, getting caught up in the flow and then pulled into an eddy like this scene, a point of slowness and concentration alongside the zooming current inches away.

IPPS Annual Fall Meeting - It's Here!!

Today (Thursday) from 8:00am to 5:00pm I was at the IPPS Annual Fall Meeting Basics Course, a one day seminar

• ...for medical students, residents, gynecologists, physical therapists, urologists, primary care physicians, nurses, surgeons, pain management physicians, psychologists, neurologists and basic science researchers who would benefit from a more detailed introduction to the concepts and terminology of pelvic pain issues and treatments before attending the IPPS Annual Fall Meeting on Chronic Pelvic Pain.

Wow. Looking at the list of all the different professions represented here makes me appreciate how multi-faceted pelvic pain is.

It was great. Over the course of a whopping ten lectures, a few breaks and a cocktail hour, I learned a ton, met fabulous people, and got a lot of ideas not only for future blog posts, but also for how the medical world can change to better serve both patients and clinicians.

It's now 9:30pm and I am snuggled in the top bunk of my HI-Chicago  hostel room, just a few blocks away from the Palmer House Hotel where the conference is being held. 

I am so grateful to be here. I would love to fill your brains with all the wonderful things I learned today, but that will have to wait for future posts...yawn... It's bedtime, people. 😴

IPPS Annual Fall Meeting Starts on Thursday!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! This Thursday through Saturday I will be at the

International Pelvic Pain Society's Annual Fall Meeting 

Yikes.

It is intended for doctors, physical therapists, and students, not patients, so it took a lot of guts to sign up. "Who am I to crash their party?" I wondered. And yet, and yet. I am so looking forward to learning, and sharing that information with you. I also hope to spread the word about this website, so more women can find it and get the sisterhood they need to make it through to the other side.

The meeting is in Chicago, which I have only driven through once before, and happily the event is downtown so maybe I will get a chance to see a few sights between sessions. (Very few - the schedule is packed.) I'll be crashing at the local hostel, and perhaps will pass the word on there about YatraYoni as well.

I am excited, but also nervous.

I'll be traveling alone to an unfamiliar place, going to an event for which I am under qualified :). My good girl complex is rearing it's ugly head - I am not one to bend the rules like this - so I am trying to remember two favorite quotations of mine:

Well behaved women rarely make history.

and, from Eleanor Roosevelt,

Do one thing every day that scares you.

(Okay Eleanor, I am and I will!)

Of course, other than my handy dandy quotations, the other motivation I fall back on is YOU.

You are the reason I write, the reason I research, the reason I fly halfway across the country to attend a medical conference when I am not a medical professional. I write for you because ten years ago, no one wrote for me. 

Please know that when you are in despair, there is a real person who has walked this path and won, and she is reaching back to help you along. Not only that, but she is thrilled at the support YOU are giving HER by reading this blog.

We can do it! Hugs!

Oooh, the Chicago Skyline. Windy City, here I come!

ADDENDUM: November 3rd, 2014. I found the name of the woman who coined the phrase "Well-behaved women rarely make history" in this article here! Her name is Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and she is a history professor at Harvard.

More Good Times

My husband and I wisely tacked on a few extra days to our trip, so we could be together after my in-laws had returned home.

This was a great idea.

We got to connect and have some quiet time to recover from the hustle and bustle of family before we returned home. We had originally planned on staying in Miami, but on a whim drove an hour south and spent the weekend in Key Largo. It was our first time in the Keys and we had a great time, snorkeling, kayaking, splashing in the hotel pool, watching the sunset, and singing the Beach Boys "Kokomo" ("...Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go to the Kokomo...")

Here's another postcard I picked up:

And here's a gorgeous image I snapped of, believe it or not, the cover of the Florida Keys Visitor Guide in our hotel room (I wish I remembered to write down the artist's name!) I find the colors and texture of this painting so inspiring and beautiful. It makes me grateful for art and artists.

Thank you artists.

The time in Key Largo gave me time to reflect on the trip, and made me realize how far my husband and I have come from the deep and dark times of the pain days.

As much as I would never wish chronic pain on anyone, I am so grateful to myself for making lemonade out of this big kahuna of a lemon. I have learned so much about myself and life, way more than I could write here in this one post.

Within this post I can say that all of these lessons have brought me to a place where I can enjoy time with my in-laws, an area of life that is a struggle for many married folks. I am grateful for that.

Again my dears, there is light, there is hope. While pelvic pain is all bad, it's effects don't have to be. You have the choice to create beauty out of the misery you are in.

Much love...