33 days

The title is the length of my most recent cycle. 5 days shy of “average” but still considered a “normal” cycle. My first since the several I had when I first adopted a gluten free diet (before going on Yaz disrupted them), which was my first normal-length unmedicated cycle ever. I’m really, really excited about that.

I’m really excited by how my health is improving in general, but cycle length to me is an ultimate indicator, even more so than mobility. Blame a decade of off-and-on attempted (and failed) babymaking.

Disney is giving away a free day pass for your birthday this year (my birthday is coming up soonish), and for the WDW branch, you can pick one of the other major Disney parks instead. If I had the extra $100+ I’d go to WDW and Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, but I don’t, so I’ll be at Epcot for the Food & Wine festival. (As an aside, I am pouting that my birthday does not fall on one of the days Vanessa Carlton is performing.)

Our current plans are to take the wheelchair, but leave it in the car unless it’s obvious that morning that I’ll need it. I still have good days and bad days, and I ran out of Vitamin D about two weeks ago, and won’t have more for a week or so — and I feel it. The D makes a huge difference on how far and long I can walk. I don’t know why that is, only that my mobility didn’t begin to improve until I started the D, even though I was exercising for 9 months before that and dieting for four. A couple weeks ago I did half mile on the treadmill, and perhaps would’ve gone longer but we forgot my water bottle. Then last week I walked a mile to and around an art fair (we rested for a few minutes once because of the heat) the day after walking around and from the farmer’s market (maybe a mile altogether?). I also played tennis for an hour (with two short rests) last week. I know, it’s not a lot, but it’s a lot more than not being able to stand for more than three minutes and having difficulty walking from the front door to the car, which is where I was at the worst of it.

So, I don’t know how I’ll do. I’m going to try to walk. The birthday button garners you a lot of attention to begin with, add to that needing a special diet whenever we eat, and a wheelchair would add even more attention to that, and I am not particularly fond of attention from strangers. OTOH, if you think I’m not sampling wine, you’re nuts, so maybe I’d be less shy than normal, but somehow I doubt it. Short of complete drunkenness, there’s not much of a change, usually.

Either way, you can re-enter as much as you want, so if I have to, we can get the wheelchair from the car. It’d be faster if I just used it, and we’d get to see more, but we’ve been before, so there’s not a huge rush to see and do everything. A lot of the things that were awesome when I was a kid sucked the last time we went, so I think we’ll mostly be doing the things that were closed last time, the things that are new, hanging in Japan, and going on Maelstrom (my favorite ride there). And did I mention sampling wine? Yeah, that.

I’m still struggling with some things. Chronic pain (including headaches), asthma (summer humidity begone!), depression, and walking long distances. The depression is the worst, to the point I’ve considered going to get meds. I’m probably going to try the time release SJW first. I was on it before and it was more effective, though more costly and harder to find.

That flex spending plans don’t cover vitamins and supplements is really frustrating. I’ll probably end up having to trade the 5-HTP (expensive) for the time release SJW and use OTC pain killers (that are covered) to manage pain. I’ve been off Vitex for a month and not had any bad breakouts, so I’m going to forgo it for now as well, on the presumption that diet/exercise is enough for now to prevent them. I’m also going to add B-12 to see if that helps with either the depression or memory problems/brain fog.

I’m just so thrilled to finally be getting better in some ways. The depression clouds it a lot of times, but right now I feel blessed.