All posts by Lar

18 May 2014

Exploring Lindisfarne Castle

Dear Cath,

Are you ready? This is gonna be a long ‘ne — lots of piccies. Get your scrolly finger limber and settle in with a cuppa. Oh wait, you probably don’t want hot steamy tea in Atlanta at this point, do you? Iced soy latte then?

We are house museum people through and through, aren’t we? Remember one of our very first AsianCajun posts? House museums make me giddy. I think it’s all the historical voyeurism. What did they eat, draw, listen to, see? Lindisfarne Castle, run by the National Trust, totally scratched all the nosy itches. You would love it! But since you weren’t there, I’ll take you! Step-by-step through this post:

Firstly, it’s located on Lindisfarne (aka Holy Island) just off the north eastern coast of England — spitting distance to Scotland. It’s a lovely walk from the village of Lindisfarne to the castle rock (see below). It sits in the midst of a green, sheep-dotted field on the shore:

The castle was originally built by Henry VIII to keep out invading Scots (maybe to be used again come September?) but was never used for more than housing bored military men.

Skip ahead a few centuries and Edward Hudson, editor of Country Life magazine, decides he wants to make the castle his summer home. Who doesn’t love a bit of cold stone and rain for a summer holiday? Regardless of his questionable climatic tastes, he was by all accounts a lovely, shy man who would entertain the likes of J.M. Barrie, Lytton Strachey, Anna Markova and cellist Madame Suggia here.

To make his castle more hospitable, Hudson hired famed English architect Edwin Lutyens (pronounced “loo-chins”): an arts and crafts man through and through. So this castle is arts and crafts coziness meets Elizabethan stone. A good combo if you’re into dark rooms, roaring fires and comfy sofas.

Lutyens’ signature is his herringbone brick, which you see a lot about the castle passageways:

Want to see the kitchen? Here’s Matt inspecting some veg:

I love when house museums are set up to look like their owners just left. In this case, they made a mad dash for the sun as they were having their tea and reading the newspaper:

And someone was just about to give the dishes a good scrub-a-dub:

They were expecting guests for dinner too:

I love this Yves Klein blue in the dining room:

Someone spent their morning sketching:

Writing letters:

Powdering their collars (?):

This is known as the ship room because of the wooden ship suspended from the ceiling. A good place to kick your feet up and read Country Life magazine:

Another good reading spot: the windowseats looking out toward the ocean (don’t they look like the Mary’s windows at Applecross in Persuasion?):

You could also go upstairs to the music room and listen to Madame Suggia play her cello or at least have nose around her sheet music:

Or maybe a room tidy? Seems you’ve left your Edwardian chemises hanging all over your Renaissance canopy, tsk, tsk:

A few things didn’t exist when Mr. Hudson was around, like this anthropomorphized tapestry chair:

Another delight? Famed gardener Gertrude Jekyll planted a small garden where the garrison used to keep their veg patch:

She also landscaped the harder-to-reach bits around the castle mound by shooting pellets of seeds into the cliff-side: gives Garden and Gun magazine a whole new point of inspiration. Nicely done, Gertie:

Here’s one last look of the castle (and the sheepies!) from Gertrude’s garden:

And one last view to the sea from the castle:

How’d you like the tour? Could you smell the salty air and the rain moving in across the grass?

I hope you are having a wonderful time in Detroit, Cath! I know that you are probably not going to house museums (Detroit must have some beautiful, crumbly old places) while you’re conferencing, but I do hope you are having some fun.

Love you like Lutyens loved brick!

Lar

Category: Edinburgh, Experiences, Lar's Style

11 Comments

15 May 2014

Beachy waves and a glimpse of spring in Edinburgh

Lar

Dear Cath,

I know we’ve both been so busy this last little while. Too much happening. At this moment you are getting a potential house inspected and then off to Detroit, and then Oregon! Egads, lady, how do you do it?

Whenever things are more busy I feel like I have to share more pics with you because I haven’t gotten a chance to tell you all the things. Inconsequential things like, my hair actually behaving some days. I’m trying to air dry it more often and sometimes it comes out like this (just added a teeny dollop of avocado oil to the tips):

And spring has sprung in Edinburgh! We also still have plenty of grey, cold and wet days, but there are some glorious rays of sunshine thrown in for good measure. One day I even went bare-legged. and went all goose-pimply:

I’ve never seen bluebells before (I don’t remember them from years previous in Edinburgh — too cold?) but they pop up everywhere, pretty cemeteries included:

bluebells

Bleeding hearts always remind me of our garden in Maryland. Ooo I so miss them and the peonies, lavender, lilac and lily of the valley!

Do you remember the cherry blossoms in the Meadows? Last year the blossoms froze before they could bloom. I was holding my breath until they opened all the way. Just lovely, aren’t they?

And a requisite Castle pic:

I know Atlanta is already hella hot. I can’t remember what heat feels like, but I can imagine almost warmish!

I hope all your conferences go well. And house buying! Eeeee so exciting slash I know incredibly stressful — I so wish I was there to walk around the house with you and squeeze your hand.

I’ll show you pics of the castle we went to last weekend in the next letter/post. You will love it. It’s kind of Bloomsbury meets Renaissance holiday home.

Miss you ooodles and love you like bluebells love May!

Lar

Category: Edinburgh, Lar's Style

4 Comments

12 May 2014

My Endometriosis UK story

Lar

All photos Holly Wren Photography

Hi Lovely Readers,

This is a break from my usual letter posts to Cath so that you can take a gander at some professional photos of my mug and learn some more about endometriosis!!! (Discussing chronic disease is proven to be more fun with exclamation points!!!)

Long-time readers know that I have endometriosis and this year has been a challenging one. I’ve been in the hospital twice in the span of eight months. The first stay was an emergency where I was in a lot of pain and still suffer from flash-backs from such a scary and bewildering time.

Having a chronic illness is an immense challenge for so many reasons: the pain, the isolation, the fear, the frustration, a sense of being trapped by your own body. Part of the frustration and fear of having endometriosis specifically is that so little is known about it. Nearly every doctors visit I have, I feel so frustrated and scared because I know more about my endo than they do.

So that’s why you will see me blab about it as often as possible here on AsianCajuns. The more people (doctors and lay people, alike) know about the disease, the better. More knowledge means fewer misdiagnoses and less stigma against talking about women’s health.

This winter I got to work with amazingly talented photographer Holly Wren who is volunteering her time for Endometriosis UK; taking photos of women around the UK who suffer from endometriosis. Endometriosis UK then share our stories and portraits on their site. You can read my surgery story here.

I’m also hopeful that my story will help women suffering with endo and looking for answers like I was. Because doctors visits were so frustrating, I turned to the internet to read about what other women were dealing with, and it was immense comfort to read their stories and know that I wasn’t alone.

For those of you who would like to know more about endo in general, you can read a quick blurb about what endometriosis is here. And if you’d like to read more about my personal journey with endo you can click “Endometriosis” in our blog categories in the right-hand column or click here.

Thank you, readers, for listening to all this. I know talking about chronic pain is not nearly as much fun as Scottish castles or sustainable style, but it means so much to me to get to share this with you.

Much Love,

Lar

Category: Endometriosis

12 Comments

4 May 2014

Healthy eating with Lea & Perrins

Lar

Dear Cath,

I know you saw the flurry of emails about me receiving a bottle of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce and thought whaaaa? Well, I got my lovely bottle in the mail* and then proceeded to get busy thinking of recipes.

We didn’t really grow up using any sort of Worcestershire sauce did we? I really believe the main deterrent was the name had too many syllables (and certainly a Cajun mom and a Chinese dad had no clue how to say it properly). “War-chester-shire-sauce” or “wooorr-stershire sauce.” I think the last one was dad’s — just deleting those pesky syllables willy nilly. Which apparently was the right idea.

———

So, no longer deterred by pesky pronunciation, I got to experimenting. As Matt and I still don’t eat much meat and I figured most people use worchestorshire sauce for such things, wouldn’t it be nice to find something vegetarian and a wee bit healthier to use the sauce for?

I love a bloody marry and baked egg dish as much as the next person (see the video below), but what about our veggie-eating friends or for anyone watching their svelte-selves or doing a meatless Monday plan?

So here’s what I came up with:

Roasted and sautéed veg with Lea & Perrins!

It’s easy-peasy-lemon-squeezey, just:

• caramelize some onions and then stirfry with some zucchini/corgette

• give your carmelized onion/ zucchini mix a healthy couple of splashes of Worchestershire sauce

• whilst your veggies are stirfrying, slice up your sweet potato, drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and pop it in the oven for about 20 minutes or until slices are nice and soft and smelling devine

• boil a bit of quinoa or brown rice, slice up some cherry tomatoes

• pile all of the goodness together (I did quinoa, then roasted sweet potato slices, then my Worchestershired-onions and zucchini, sprinkled with sliced cherry tomatoes)

• EAT

Like I said, easy-peasy-worchester-splooshy.

And just a note to you (Cath and readers), Lea & Perrins Worchestershire sauce is not vegan (it’s got anchovies in) nor gluten-free (it’s a bit like soy sauce that way), so even though this above recipe does not include wheat or dairy or meat, it’s neither gluten-free nor strictly vegan. It’s still healthy, tasty and quick. Let me know if you give it a go.

Also, I did a little bit of reading and it turns out the recipe for the Lea & Perrins sauce in the States is a wee bit different. Instead of malted vinegar, they use white vinegar and it comes wrapped in paper, whereas the British/Canadian version doesn’t. Also the US version had high fructose corn syrup in it until 2011, so if you have an old bottle in storage, you might want to chuck it out for a new version that just has sugar rather than the scary HFCS.

If you want a few more classic uses for the sauce check out Lea & Perrins videos below:

* Disclaimer: Lea & Perrins sent me a free bottle of Lea & Perrins to try out, but this post isn’t sponsored by them, so all my thoughts, recipes, ramblings are my own. I thought it would be nice to start doing a few more recipe posts on the blog as eating healthy has been a big part of my life these past few years and I’m always struggling to come up fuss-free healthy options.

Cath, do you and Troy ever use Worchestorshire sauce? I know it’s probably not at all paleo. Why are the tasty things in life never on any diet. Curses.

Love you like onions love Worchestershire sauce!

Lar

Category: Recipes

9 Comments

20 April 2014

Sunny Edinburgh

Lar

Dear Cath,

Can you believe how sunny it is in these pics?! And blue, blue, blue sky as far as the eye can see (which isn’t far because of the hills and stone edifices everywhere). And yesterday was actually warm enough for us to sit out in the sun. Matt got a sun burn on his forehead and I look exactly the same shade as in the middle of winter. Do you tan easily? I feel like I must naturally have SPF 85 in my skin.

But still — sunny! Things are so much better when it’s sunny. My bones relax and everybody is wonderful. It’s like being tipsy on vitamin D. Though that wasn’t quite enough to scare the monkey-brain away when I had my check-up this week for endo. But to make myself feel better post-appointment I hit the harder stuff: retail therapy. Did I tell you they now have a homewares department at the big H&M on Princes Street?!

I bought a-this pillow (Standard Vintage Edition No. 3 of what? A newspaper? Pillow fluff wrapped in an enigma, printed on sustainable cotton):

And a-thiiis pillow which I’ve been lusting after for two years on their website. It’s washed linen and feels heavenly soft:

This weekend has been even more indulgent — no more shopping but lots of eating-off-the-“diet.” We met up with friends and went to Spoon. It’s about a 10 minute walk down Nicholson street from where you lived. Right across from the Festival Theatre. I’ve never been there for brunch and it was delicious. They even had proper American fluffy pancakes which they smothered in yogurt, honey and slivered almonds:

And look! I had my first plate of kippers for breakie! I felt very Jeeves-and-Wooster at the morning buffet. They were delicious though incredibly bone-y:

I had to take the requisite coffee photo as well because Matt showed me that the updated version of the Google camera app can do this really cool out-of-focus thing (also used it in the photo of me at the top of the postie). Isn’t it lovely? Makes me look like I know what I’m doing with a camera — or at least a phone camera:

A girl could get used to this: sun, gluten, linen pillowcases. Apparently that’s all it takes.

I hope you had a linen-pillowcase kind of a week/weekend too!

Miss you so much — more than any amount of sunshine and pancakes can make up for.

LOVE,

Lar

Category: Edinburgh, Lar's Style

10 Comments

7 April 2014

Dear Cath.

Lar

So I realized that now we are busier and feel further apart because of our busy-ness it might be a good idea to turn AsianCajuns full-on epistolary. What do you think? (And, readers, as always feel free to chime in with comments and questions — we aren’t excluding you, we’ll just be including you in more of our to-ing and fro-ing).

Skype is wonderful and limiting, isn’t it? I get to see your lovely face and catch up for an hour but I forget to tell you stuff — lots of stuff. And it’s just an hour. That’s not enough and sometimes makes me feel more depressed because I realise that’s all we get all week.

It’s not like the stuff I forget to tell you is that exciting, but little thoughts that I need you to hear. For instance, I now like the 1960s.

That was never a era for us: bouffant hair and stiff fabrics, but here’s why it’s growing on me.

When you get past the fashion-y bits of the 60s (loud prints and too much hairspray), you realise that it was a time when old and new still mingled because they had to. Maybe that happened more in Europe than America which is why we didn’t see it before. In the 60s people wanted the new but they also still had small wardrobes and would wear the same coat all winter and the same shoes. And one good purse.

Everyone looks to the French closet as inspiration for a minimal and chic approach to dressing, but I think the 60s had it right too.

I’m basing my new-found love of the 60s on three things:

• Michael Caine in his Harry Palmer movies (The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain)

• Audrey Hepburn in Charade

• Inspector Morse as a youth (Youths!) in Endeavor

photo credit 1 • 2 • 3

There’s an economy in all their looks.

Sure Audrey has roughly six different coats in Charade, but somehow the style is streamlined enough that it fits this side of the 60s that I like. And Palmer/Caine and Inspector Morse fight crime in the same slim-cut suits, khaki mackintoshes and just-enough-shine dress shoes. Everyone looks great because they look like themselves.

Apart from the unethical and anti-environmental sides to fast fashion, I feel like places like Zara, and H&M and Topshop and even more expensive designers have created a really homogeneous culture. All fashionistas look alike — beautiful and bright (young things even when they aren’t) but somehow it’s not nearly as good as Michael Caine peering through his think-framed specs and Morse with his bottom blazer button unbuttoned and hands shoved in his pocket. Even though these two men have the same uniform, their clothes look unique to them. More unique than if I bought a blouse from Top Shop and you from Target. The clothes never wear them.

Maybe it’s a uniform? That would have sounded so boring and restrictive to me in my 20s, but really appeals to me right now. My closet is so teeny here it’s forced me to be minimal — and I like it. And because I seem to especially be hung up on coats-as-your-you-ness, here is proof that I only wear one all winter (and as you know winter is nearly a year-round thing here):

(oh wait, that last one is you — you, so cute!)

Even 15 years ago wearing the same coat all winter would have been expected, but thanks to Zara et al we can now get beautiful coats that suit our every fashion whim. Or we can afford to have coats for when it’s wet-cold versus dry-cold versus cold-cold. And being someone who lives in a place where it sometimes requires all three in one day, I understand the luxury of REI-like purchases. But for me (not one who spends most of my days trekking the slopes of the Highlands) one coat should — and does — do.

Who knows, maybe I’ll run after Russian spies and overly-cultured Oxbridge criminals in my red toggle coat in the months to come.

Want to go uniform-refining with me?

Love,

Lar

Category: Lar's Style, Uncategorized

10 Comments

29 March 2014

Living in a Scottish Castle

Lar

Last week Matt’s family came to visit us in Scotland — it was schwonderful and I miss them already. But do you know what was the icing on top of the trip cake? We stayed in a castle. A for real castle. With a turret and everythang. And dungeons, people. Dungeons. It would have scared the bejebus out of me staying there alone, but luckily I had my nephews to hold my hand when I wanted to go exploring:

Originally (we’re talking 1590s-1700s) the castle looked a bit more like this (that house-y bit to the left is what we stayed in):

We spent most evenings by a roaring fire in this room (the portraits looked way creepier at night with the fire flickering):

Cath and I have stayed in a number of grand houses via The Landmark Trust (in Italy, Cambell Town, and Aryshire). The difference with this ole pile is that it’s still owned by the St. Claire family (aka the Earl of Roslin and his brood) who’ve been around this neck of the woods since the Norman Invasion. So Roslin Castle still feels quite lived-in, what with the ancestral portraits, photos with the Queen (for reals) and such. And it’s quite cosy, you know, for a castle (she says like she’s stayed in lots).

So what does one do in a castle all day, you ask? Drink tea, eat copious amounts of clotted cream with warm scones and sunbathe in the courtyard-which-used-to-be-the-great-hall-in-1590 natch:

We had lovely dinners in this red dinning room which is supposedly haunted by a lady in white (wayyy creepier at night when it’s just lit with candles — but good creepy).

Another thing to do in your castle? Take timed self-portraits — such good backdrops for blog photos! But know that if you are staying in a castle with nine other souls (or more — lady in white and co.?) someone will walk in when you are doing your blogger posing and then you end up looking like a startled prairie dog:

This was the stair down to one of the bathrooms. When I was little and in princess-mode I never imagined Princess Buttercup et al descending the turret stairs to the toilet. What do princesses need loos for?

Roslin Castle is situated right above a gorgeous glen that acts as a sort of three-quarter moat (Yes, a moat! And there was a bridge over the moat!). So lots of lovely walks to be had. And it’s just a short walk up the hill to Rossyln Chapel of The DaVinci Code fame. Rosslyn Chapel is beautiful and really magical even if you don’t care for the Dan Brown-iness of it all.

Do you want to hear some modern day magicalness surrounding Rossyln Chapel? Weeeeell, we went up to the Chapel for mass on Sunday. When I walked in I noticed this lovely young Asian woman in the back pew — one notices such things in more rural parts of Scotland where the general population is decidedly not Asian nor young. Halfway through mass I noticed she’s waving at me and mouthing the words “Lar.” Holy smokes! I know that lovely young Asian woman!

Three and a half years ago Cath and I met the author Cheryl Tan at the Decatur Book Festival and got to interview her for this here blog (read the interview here). So a writer from New York met a blogger from Atlanta once in Decatur, and then they meet again in Roslin, Scotland nearly four years later?! What are the chances?

Lesson to be learned here? All Asians do know each other. Red coats are in. Rosslyn Chapel is magical.

(Cheryl, I’m still so excited about this! And I’m so glad I’ll get to see you in a few weeks post-retreat!)

So, hows about it guys? Have I finally convinced you that Scotland needs to be number 1 on your places you must visit now? If you come, we’ll go castle hunting together.

—–

Dearest Cath,

Even though this year has been utter poop in a lot of ways, it has also been the exact opposite of that. I got to see you like FOUR times in six months and we stayed in a villa in Italy. And now me in a castle. Next stop? Move over Karl, the AsianCajuns are staying in Versailles.

The only logical next step, non?

It’s only been a week, but I feel like I haven’t talked to you in 20. We have to stop being busy and just skype each other all day. What are you doing? Whatchu you got on this week? When are you coming?

LOVE YOU!!!!

Lar

Category: Edinburgh, Experiences, Lar's Style

14 Comments

9 March 2014

In a Land Far Far Away

Lar

Missing this lady (to the right)!

I left Atlanta two weeks ago and have belly-flopped back into Edinburgh life, splashing around trying to distract myself from missing Cath. So sorry for leaving you guys in a Lar lurch. Recovering from surgery and then jet lag and then a cold while heading back to work hasn’t made February my favorite month, but it has kept me busy enough to trick myself into thinking Cath is just right down the street. Not across an OCEAN. Damn you, Atlantic! When you get so big?!

To combat my twin blues, I’ll post some piccies of Cath and I together in Seattle way back in mid-January. Ahhhh bliss!

Oh wait! There’s also some photos of Edinburgh to combat the angsty twin mumblings. A hodge-podge of a post this is!

The following photos are from my trampings around Edinburgh (the top one is of Edinburgh Castle on a rainy day — i.e. almost all days). It really is such a wonderful place to visit. Don’t let my lack-of-a-twin-sister moaning put you off. Look at all the nice things you can do here: ogle old buildings and storefronts, sniff flowers on rain-soaked (everything here is rain-soaked) pavements, have lunch in old church crypts by the window, eat delicious carrot cake whilst you gulp your tea. It’s a heavenly story really. It’s just missing one or two (or 20) key players.

—–

Dear Cath,

I really am sorry my blogging has ground to a halt. Like you (but less successfully and ambitiously), I’ve tried to keep busy so I don’t have to think about our distance. Not only has this not gotten easier. it’s gotten harder! Two main things that make me feel less like myself here in Scotland: 1) not having you around and 2) lack of vitamin D. In that order. But see with #2 I’m thinking about just going to the tanning salon down the street (I know bad, but you know what this constant dirge of grey is like) — voila UV light in my eyeballs, tricking me to believe I live in southern Spain. But how, oh how, do I find a place that has Cath holograms. I need one of those shops on my block. Sometimes I’ll glance really fast past a mirror and think it’s you or see someone from behind that looks like you (and me too?) — and that’s all the more crushing.

Ha-RUMPH.

At least I get to see you on skype today!

Lovingly,

Your far far away sister Lar

Category: Edinburgh, General AsianCajuns Info

7 Comments

10 February 2014

I Dream of Shiro’s Sushi

Lar

Not so very long ago (say, last week), I didn’t get sushi. Chunks of raw fish or eel or squid or sea urchin? Good for aquariums and not for my belly, says I! Oooo how very wrong I was.

Gone are my days of California rolls and a pouty lip when friends suggest a meal of nigiri. Bring on the raw fish! Particularly if it’s salmon and even more particularly if it’s made by the genius sushi chefs at Shiro’s Sushi in Seattle.

Before being introduced to Shiro’s (thanks, Cath and Troy!), I always thought sushi-lovers were a bit hyperbolic in their love of the stuff. How can cold fish and clumps of rice be satisfying? Turns out I was just eating on the wrong coast. I think I’ll always be an east coast girl through and through. unless I’m eating sushi. Oh heaven!

When we sat down at the sushi bar, Cath and Troy confidently said “Omakase!” I ducked my head down (keeping the planks of raw squid and fish out of eyesight) and looked for the words “roll” and “vegetable” on the menu. When I handed my checked-off menu to the chef, he looked at me (I swear there was a twinkle in his eye) and he said “you let me know if you want anything else as we go along.” And thank goodness!

By the end of the night I was a full-fledged omakaser after watching Cath and Troy chopstick mouthful after mouthful of intriguing-looking delights. For those of you who don’t know, omakase basically means you entrust your menu to the chef, so s/he’ll make you whatever is fresh and most delicious. I love the idea of putting your gustatory trust in the hands of a virtuoso sushi chef. There’s something wholy (and holy) satisfying in surrendering yourself to what is beautifully presented before you. That mean that sometimes you get sea urchin (still scares me a bit), but it also means you get a salmon nigiri that melts in your mouth like warmed butter and pure joy.

Another part of the beauty of omakase is that you don’t just get a big ole plateful of sushi in your lap at once. The chef hand-rolls each nigiri, so you wait every few minutes in between these melt-in-your-mouth mini monuments of delight (now who’s hyperbolic?!). And while you wait, you can chat to the chef and your fellow diners. Suddenly the meal is more than just food, it’s about a relationship to what you are eating and who you are eating with.

Have you guys seen the documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”? If you haven’t, do! I think it’s on Netflix at the moment. I watched it many months ago before my personal sushi enlightenment last week and it gave me an inkling of what I experienced at Shiro’s.

Now tell me, have you guys always been sushi lovers or did it take you a while to come around to it? If you are a sushi lover where is the best place you’ve had sushi? I now feel like I should move to California or the PNW just so I can always drift away into omakase bliss whenever I need to.

——-

Dear Cath,

Thank you so much to you and Troy! I really never understood you guys when you would go on and on about good sushi in LA. I really don’t think it makes sense until you have amazing sushi. So much of my sushi life has been from grocery stores and subpar sushi places. I still will be partial to vegetable rolls when I’m in those places, but I’ll always be yearning for the real thing.

I think that tamagoyaki is one of the best things I’ve ever tasted in my life. And unlike most desserts where the sugar leaves you craving more and more, this was such a perfect balance just as it was. Not more. Not less. Perfection.

You guys basically are responsible if Matt and I end up moving out to the west coast.

Love you like tamagoyaki,

Lar

______

Update to our readers:

Lar wrote this post before her surgery last week so I figured I should include an update on her progress. On Friday she had to go back into the hospital because she was developing an abscess from the surgery and had a high fever. The good news is the doctors were able to drain the infected area before it got really bad, but it has made the recovery process more drawn out. Lar is still in the hospital, but should be released early this week. I’ll keep you all posted and just want to thank you again for all of your wonderful words of support.

xoxo, Cath

Category: Experiences

20 Comments

3 February 2014

My Endometriosis Story: It’s Surgery Time (again)!

Lar

And this is how I feel about that:

Photo via Pinterest

As my fellow endo-suffers understand, one of the worst aspects of this chronic disease is that so little is known about it. Partly this is due to the fact that it effects women and not men (in the past women were told the pain was all in their heads), it can only be officially diagnosed by surgery, and, happily, it’s not terminal. Endometriosis can be “just” excruciatingly painful and debilitating, leave a woman infertile or, like me, send you into the hospital for emergency surgery because of a ruptured endometrial cyst.

Most doctors don’t know much about endo, so it’s often misdiagnosed. For much of my teens and all of my 20s I was told I had IBS and to stay on birth control to manage the pain of my period. I self-diagnosed the disease about three years ago and it was confirmed this summer during my emergency surgery. But even after surgery, no medical professional could tell me much about endo. So again I got busy on the internet and read lots of books.

A few years ago I started myself on a fairly rigorous anti-inflammatory diet. It’s about 75% vegan (I’ll eat fish sometimes but no dairy and no other meat), gluten-free, sugar-free and alcohol-free. Apart from when I travel, I stick to this diet pretty religiously. I tried anything holistic that I thought might prevent more pain: acupuncture, herbal tinctures, eliminating chemical products in the house and what I use on my body, meditation, yoga. It all helped my stress at times, but usually didn’t make much difference in my pain (it did clear up my IBS symptoms though so I still stick with it).

This summer when I landed in the hospital for two weeks, I was so mad. I did this diet thing! I had needles stuck in me! I meditated goddamnit! (Maybe I haven’t just quite reached a place of nirvana just yet). I was and am also so very fearful. In the hospital there were moments when the doctors had no idea what was wrong with me and Matt thought he would loose me (thinking of the fear in his eyes even now makes my brain numb). The most unfortunate aspect of my hospital stay is that my emergency surgery didn’t “fix” me. Many endo patients will have anywhere from one to 25 surgeries during their fertile years because even though they try to remove as much of the endometrial cells as they can, usually they don’t get them all. So, eventually, the endometrial cells left behind will grow and cause pain and potentially more cysts, which usually leads to more surgery.

Of all happy coincidences, it just so happens that some of the top surgical endometriosis specialists are in Atlanta at The Center for Endometriosis Care. They are much more aggressive in their treatment of the disease and because this is their specialty, they know exactly what to look for and where to look for it.

When I left Scotland to visit everyone in Atlanta for the holidays and then spend a month in Seattle, I had no plan of having another surgery done before returning to the UK. I still have painful flashbacks to what I think of as hospital PTSD from this summer. But when I met Dr. Sinervo in early January it was the first time that a doctor didn’t blow off my symptoms or give me a helpless blank look when I asked about how to move forward living with this chronic disease. Okay. Let’s talk. Even if that talk involves googlygooglygoogly (aka scary times).

I’m equal parts terrified, hopeful, bewildered (more surgery? really?!), but c’est la vie, eh? This journey has been about love and surrender and learning. One foot in front of the other. Breathe.

——-

Dear Cath and Readers,

Thanks for listening to me ramble about my health. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to write about any of this stuff because I still haven’t come to terms with a lot of it: the fear and pain I still remember from this summer, having another surgery done so soon, and what does it mean afterward? Cured? Healed? None of the above? But one of the things that helped me the most when I was doing my obsessive Googling for endo info was hearing other women’s stories. They are all different — no woman seems to experience endo in the same way — but it was comforting to feel not so alone in these varied experiences of suffering.

And I know suffering is not a very schnazzy topic for a lifestyle/fashion blog, but thank you for sticking with me/us through this.

Much, Much LOVE,

Lar

Category: Endometriosis

23 Comments