to think DP's timing was ill-advised?

[ohdearlord]

I have severe endometriosis (treatment is underway to put me into the menopause and the worst is probably over) and the pain is bordering on the unbearable today. But, DP is away with work abroad and it's DD's birthday tomorrow. I have a treatment plan for acute episodes - but I'd need to stay in which won't fly today.

Texting with DP. We use the 0-10 scale so he can quickly understand where I'm at as I tend to minimise verbally and he can't judge how bad things are.

We established it had been hovering between 7-8 today despite meds. At which point he blithely and insensitively states his thumbs hurt from texting so much because he hasn't got iMessage set up on the computer over there and needs to go. And then got rather irritated when I suggested it was possibly the definition of a 1st world problem, and he could just use his phone as a hot spot.

Am I hormonal and super-sensitive, or was that just dense on his part? Or both?

YABU but I'm sorry you are in pain

Meh. Bollocks. Will apologise for being hormonal and short-tempered

You're being too sensitive, sorry.

Your pain doesn't make his pain less relevant.

YABU, bit it's understandable if you're in pain.

Agree with throwingshade (GREAT user name!) but I really hope you feel better soon

Do thumbs actually hurt from texting? I think that was made me feel somewhat WTF.

Personally I'd rather be in labour than have this pain so my judgement is almost certainly fucked currently.

If he was on a Bberry then yes it does hurt.

Obv not comparable to your pain.

Tbh I think marathon text sessions can be a bit wearing so he was trying to politely say "that's enough texting for now".

Oh the poor dear, hurty fingers. Best book him a doctor's appt for when the returns.

He is being unreasonable. So what if his thumb hurts he can use his finger. You needed to talk to him more than that's mild thing matters

Your pain doesn't make his pain less relevant

Uh yes it does! Severe endometriosis pain / hurty thumbs from texting. Yes he should have stfu. If he was busy/tired of texting he should have made a reasonable excuse.

So he should have lied??

Sorry you are suffering but I think YABU about the texting.

iPhone. And he lives on it (a lot work related) usually. I find texting exhausting too and we are usually brief, and I am certainly not at my most socially competent when in pain. It just seemed really dismissive - but it really is hard to think straight feeling like this.

What phone is he using?

How sore can his thumbs be from texting? On the scale of 1-10 they were using to evaluate the OP's pain? I think YANBU is be pretty pissed off if I were talking to DH about my severe pain and he said he didn't want to discuss it anymore because his thumb was sore. It's a pretty rubbish reason for taking away support from his wife who is in pain

I think YABU, but it's allowed, you're in horrible pain xxx

Apologise?

For what, OP?

After a few mins his "pain" will be gone.

I guess I am saying that I completely empathise with you (dismissive is a good word) but I think you are oversensitive (understandably).

He should have been more straightfwd. That actual excuse was lame.

" It just seemed really dismissive "

Yes, because it was!!

No it doesn't!

Otherwise the only person who can complain justifiably is the one person in the most agony in the world

You break your leg, your friend breaks their toe - is the friend not allowed to mention it because you have a broken leg?

Are you having GnRH to put you into the menopause?

I had it last year for months and I found it really played havoc with my head. Having compared my experiences of a chemical menopause to those of friends going through the natural one, it seems to be a kind of concentrated experience. I found it left me very woolly-headed and struggling emotionally.

When you add real pain to that, it becomes still more difficult to handle. There were times when I was taking full doses of cocodamol and ibuprofen together and still struggling (I didn't have endometriosis, but a complex case of menhorragia, fibroids and really bad anaemia). I don't think the pain of a thumb from texting really compares, and I'm amazed that anyone could argue that it did! Unfortunately, I think people often confuse chronic and acute pain in gynae cases, in a way that is not helpful to sufferers of the former. Yes, I am sure giving birth is considerably more painful than endometriosis, but it's an acute experience. You don't give birth every single day for five years solid, slowly losing all hope that your life will ever be 'normal' again!!

Finally, one factor that is often overlooked in these cases is that it can be a terribly long battle from symptoms to diagnosis, because for some reason that I cannot fathom, many doctors minimise gynae symptoms. Isn't the average time for an endometriosis diagnosis something absolutely crazy, like 7 YEARS? So many women are arriving at the treatment stage plain exhausted, traumatised, scared and suffering quite severe consequences in terms of declining quality of life.

So, to return to your question, YANBU to be mad at him for being insensitive, but do bear in mind the above factors that make you more liable to go to 11 in anger when the situation with him is really a 3!! (Anger when you are ill is a bit like lightning - there are often many complicated causes that contribute to a slow build up of charge, and the danger is that one minor thing draws it all down).

Can you do something to distract yourself from the pain psychologically? Very gently hobbling around sometimes helped me, as did watching entertaining B-movies. A friend swore by those detailed colouring books and crafting.

for you, and I hope the treatment works for you.

I think it is possibly that he really doesn't "get" the whole endo situation. He tries, and googles extensively the various treatments etc. But he admits freely he has always been fit and healthy. The worst pain he knows is flu. I honestly think he just doesn't understand what this kind of pain, long term, is like. He's sat with me in hospital and so on, and I can see he feels devastated that he can't do anything.

I don't know how to explain it to him really. Much less the hormonal side of being plunged into menopause overnight.

Neither of us are particularly dramatic or argumentative types usually. So a good talk does generally sort things out. But this seems to be a bit of an impasse on both sides - my communication and his understanding.

YANBU

I'm guessing you didn't try to put him into some kind of text based marathon? It sounds like he was making that observation from just a few texts which in turns sounds mad to say to someone in a lot of pain.

i hope you feel better soon

Yes, GnRH treatment. Started over Christmas. The worst is probably over, but bleeding came back last night and pain escalated over the day.

MN is my distraction. It helps shift the focus. TENS, pain meds (have a brill pain team - but they are very realistic about what actually works and insist I am admitted for a PCA rather than stronger opiates at home, which is reasonable but unworkable today).

Took 10+ yrs for a diagnosis for me. By which time a lot of avoidable complications had occurred. But this treatment was fab last year, and I felt well for the first time in my adult life. It's just this on-boarding that is fucking miserable. They have agreed now that so long as I don't develop osteoporosis I can stay on it rather than 6 months on, 6 months off. So that's good news going forwards.

I would like to find a way for DP and I to understand each other better around this though.

(And thank you for the flowers :-) )

Sorry I don't agree.

I would never dream to complain of a sore thumb from texting to someone who is in agony.
Nothing to do about being the person with the worst pain the world. Everything about the fact that the OP was in excruciating pain (Remember it was an 8 AFTER medication) and now isn't the time to complain about a sore thumb that will be better on its own in a few minutes.
Talking about it in a few days when the OP is better would be appropriate.

It would like complaining about a paper cut (yes it hurts) to someone with a raging migraines. Who would do that???

What it tells me is that he has NO idea of the amoount of pain you are in (Probably not helped by the fact you are still 'talking' to him normally, are usually minimizing the amount of pain you have etc...). What you need now is a campain to make him understand the amount of pain you are experiencing when you say 'It's an 8'. You need to describe to him how it really feels and stop putting your coping mask on for him.

YANBU - I nearly thumped dh one when he complained to me that his face was a bit sore, when I was having my first major flair up of trigeminal neuralgia and was dosed up to the eyeballs and still in pain. In my unreasonable and pain ridden state I felt he was trying to compete!

Sorry you're in so much pain today.

xpost.

I found that works with DH is to try and relate the pain to someting he knws and can relate to. If your DH it's the flu, then remind him how bad the aches from the flu is and tell him it's 10, 50 times worse and for months.

I had the GnRH treatment too. It was crap and send me to hospital with skyrocketing blood pressure. I don't know how to explain how it feels though. It's not just the hot flushes though....