A Figure Skating Magazine quotes MEand other miracles...

I am so excited today. One of the major figure skating magazines did an article about skating fiction this month. I know the author of the article from the skatefic mailing list. She interviewed me because Private Ice is still the biggest skating fiction site around. And my quotes made it to the magazine!!! Whoo hooo! They even gave out my web site. Yipppee!! And traffic yesterday was up about 30% from normal. I am hoping with this issue on the stands during the Olympics, Private Ice might just draw some of the skating fans who have never even heard of skating fiction.

In other good news, traffic at skatefic.com DOUBLED to over 42,000 unique visitors this year. Almost 1300 people set bookmarks. In 2004, there were about 800 over the 6 months I was with the new web host. Not too shabby. Granted, it's hardly 1998 when we did 400K pageviews, but it's twice last year, which was twice the year before.

So, you know what my agent said when I told him I'd be quoted in a magazine with a 50,000 circulation?

NOTHING!

He passed it on to the associate that is supposed to be managing me, who does not return my calls or emails and you know what she said?
NOTHING!

No. Don't say it. I know, but it was damned hard to find THIS agent.

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In other news...

So, I finally got back to the doctor about the hormone tests. They really ran me through the wringer. After finally connecting with a doctor who took me seriously, said doctor gave 2 weeks notice AND LEFT. Quit her job with the military clinic to take another job that paid more. The military doesn't move fast at the best of times and there was no way they could hire a new GYN (for the pittance they pay) in 2 weeks, so instead, the CLOSED THE CLINIC! Now, when you close a medical clinic, what do you do? You call everyone and cancel and reschedule their appts. You make sure that people who are supposed to get test results w/in 2 weeks get them. And you generally do the right thing.

Nope.

When I finally tracked THEM down a month later, it was the receptionist from the regular military clinic next door that told me how women had been coming for weeks, for appointments at a clinic that no longer existed. These women wasted time, money, took time off from work, some of them were probably sick, or pregnant and NO ONE TOLD THEM ANYTHING. Needless to say, the aide in my congresswoman's office got an earful. I told him that someone needed to get their wee-wee slapped over this. It was unconsionable to just DUMP those patients with no warning. What if someone had been seriously ill and waiting for test results?! Tragedy!

Then, to add insult to injury, since the original doc had not bothered to file referrals for her patients before she left, I COULDN'T SEE A GYN about my test results!. No matter how much hufifng and puffing I did. It was no use. So I made an appt with a physicians asst that was available to me. After saying that there was nothing wrong with the test results <sigh of relief> SHE had the TEMERITY to tell me that I should SEEK COUNSELING!!! Of all the patronizing, condescending, annoying bullshit... I am NOT CRAZY. I HAVE SOMETHING PHYSICALLY WRONG WITH ME THAT THESE ALL KNOWING DOCTORS CAN'T FIGURE OUT.

Do I sound angry?

So anyway, ANOTHER 3 weeks after that, I FINALLY get a call from the GYN on base who has been detailed to call patients and check with them on how things are going. I told her about the situation with the clinic and my unhappiness with my treatement by the PA, you can be sure. However, I also told her about something else.

As it turns out. I'm not crazy. I was having physical symptoms that the doctors couldn't recognize. The first cause of the constant pain I was in was a cracked tooth. Yes, those daily, increasingly awful, debilitating, PAINFUL, migraine-level headaches were from a cracked tooth. I got the tooth fixed. The headaches went away. After about a week, I began to feel more like my old self. The idea of working didn't seem to overwhelming. I actually got some stuff done. I still couldn't focus, but at least I could survive.

But there's more.

For the last seven or so years, my health has been declining. I've lost a great deal of my hair. I gained a LOT of weight. I had little energy. The last 18 months or so, I stopped being able to focus as well. It was like I was in a fog all the time. There were so many tiny symptoms. No one seemed to know what it was. A couple friends suggested that it might be premature menopause but those tests, as I just said, were negative.

Well of course they were. They were testing for the wrong thing. They were testing for lack of estrogen. Except that it appears that I DON'T lack estrogen. So, what is it that has been plaguing me for the last SEVEN YEARS?

Well, seven years ago, I stopped taking Depo Provera. I gained a LOT of weight. I started having thyroid like symptoms that weren't. I started losing my hair. Depo Provera is progestin... an synthetic progesterone that suppresses your body's ability to make progesterone. I was suffering from something that a small number of medical researchers call "estrogen dominance" ...lack of natural progesterone.

Now, if you don't know me very well, you won't know how INCREDIBLY skeptical I am of alternative medicine. My mother dragged me from one quack to another when I was a kid, seeking relief for my panoply of allergies and weird not-quite-there health problems. She said those things helped, but the truth is, I never really felt any better after being poked, prodded, stuck and experiemented on.

So I grew up with this distrust of both doctors and of the people who would foist their poorly researched miracle cures off on me and a bunch of unsuspecting saps in an attempt to get their money. Because these cures ARE always really expensive. And it seems like everyone who makes great claims about them is out to make money from it. I REALLY distrust people who are out to make money from an expensive and unproven "cure."

But, on the recommendation of one of those friends who suggested 2 years ago that I might be in premature menopause, I joined this yahoo list called HormonalBalance. As hard sell cure lists go, this was pretty tame. The list owner, though she was selling something did her best to really respond to questions with what information is available. She was at least about to convince me of the safety, if not the efficacy of this particular cure... natural, bio-identical progesterone made from wild yams in creme form.

After seeing the PA and not getting any help or answers, I figured, what the heck. It's ONLY $20. The other women on the list raved about it... only SOME of whom were selling it. Granted, as a respected colleague says, "the plural of anecdote is NOT data." These were only isolated stories. But they were convincing, because they were real people that I knew, not people who had been filtered or press-release-ized. I thought, "If it doesn't work, then I've only lost $20 and I can be smug about being right." I do, occasionally, like being right <grin>.

Except...

I was wrong.

On the second day after I started rubbing this natural progesterone creme on twice a day, the brain fog retreated. I could concentrate again.

After 4 days, I had energy... more energy than I can remember having... well, EVER. In fact, I was MOTIVATED again. I actually began to want to do things... even work.

After 6 days, I no longer woke up soaked in sweat and freezing. Night sweats, GONE. And the hot flashes were gone, too.

On the evening of day 6, the brain fog closed in, I felt tired, unmotivated, unenergetic. I had forgotten my evening dose of creme. I rubbed it on and about a half hour later, I felt GREAT. I picked up a feature article that had been languishing since October, and FINISHED IT.

It's been about a month now. I'm sleeping better without those damnerifous night sweats. I have energy. I am motivated. I am WRITING! When I was ovulating sometimes I get kind of... well, manic. And it had been getting worse. Not this time. I felt fine through that phase of my cycle. No high anxiety, no restlessness, nothing. There's more... more intimate changes, postitive changes that would be Too Much Information(TM) so I won't share them, but believe me, it's different and BETTER. And they say it may... indeed... make my hair grow back. I will no longer be the Amazing Bald Woman.

Oh, please! oh please!

I told the women on HormonalBalance that I was the most skeptical of all skeptics, but if this stuff worked for me, if it was the miracle they promised, then I would sing it from the rooftops.

Well THIS is me singing.

From the rooftops.

It works! IT REALLY WORKS!!

Natural progesterone gave me my life back.

I AM ALIVE!