Okay, I'm warning you upfront - if you're a man, you probably should skip this journal entry - or at least, the first section.

This is The Girlie Matters, and I'm about to speak on a subject that is as girlie as it can get. There'll be talk of blood, and possibly the mention of words like vagina, ovaries, and uterus - words you may be uncomfortable hearing unless you're a gynecologist (or an extremely modern man).

So if you prefer, you can skip it now.

For those who don't know, I take birth control pills - but not in the typical way.

Most women take the pill for 21 days, then have a week off for a menstrual period. I do not. I take the pills non-stop, every single day, continuously without a break. (And needless to say, I rather like not having a period anymore.)

This is due to the fact that I am a migraine sufferer. I won't go into the details of the history of the migraines; let's just say I have managed to get to the point where the attacks are far more infrequent than they once were.

However, the ones I couldn't seem to conquer were those that hit me during menstruation. I would get the migraine a day or two before my period started, and it would not go away until I started my next pack of pills. A ten-day migraine is the definition of hell, let me tell you!!

So, at the suggestion of my neurologist, I spoke to my gynecologist about taking the birth control pills non-stop. (This isn't as radical an idea as it might seem. It happened to coincide with some new medical studies suggesting that it really isn't as healthy as you might think for a woman to bleed every month. The theory is that nature intended for a uterus to carry a child nine months at a time, not for it to shed its lining during each of those same months. Or some crap like that.)

Anyway - the solution worked. Because I'm over 35 and I smoke, I'm on a very low-dose pill (and yes, I still should stop smoking, I'm well aware of that, and I need to do something about it soon - thank you, Dr. Webster). Unfortunately, with the low-dose pill, if I miss just one by a few hours, I will start to bleed, and it requires several days of pill-taking for it to stop.

A couple of weeks ago, I started bleeding at work. I assumed I'd missed a pill somehow, but when I got home and checked the pack, I hadn't missed any at all. But just to be safe, I took a pill from the end of my pack immediately, then took my regular pill that night. The bleeding went away.

All that week, though, I was an emotional nutcase. I cried at work five times in two days. I never, ever cry at work, especially not in front of my male boss. I suddenly had a frightening thought: what if I was pregnant? I felt so hormonal, and that was the only thing I could think of that would cause such a change in my personality. I shook the thought away, and as my mood improved, I chalked it all up to temporary insanity caused by the horrendous stress I'm under at work.

Then, it happened again last week. I started bleeding. This time I knew for a certainty that I hadn't missed a pill.

At this point, I started thinking, not only am I pregnant, but I'm having a miscarriage! (Drama Queen Girlie rears her ugly head now and then. Imagine the conversations going on in my mind about what the #@!* was I going to do if it were true!! Would I tell the "him" involved? Would I keep quiet and deal with it alone? Arrggghhh!!! This can't be happening!!)

I made an appointment with Dr. Webster. Got there and peed in a cup. Got naked and in the stirrups. Winced when the doctor pressed on one of my ovaries with one hand while the other was inside my vagina.

She said my uterus and ovaries were of normal size, but she suspected I might have a small cyst in the ovary that was tender. Then she explained that a body under stress will take control and do what it wants to do, and she believed that, for its own reasons, my body had a need to bleed. So I had to give it what it wanted.

She told me to stop the pills that night and wait until Sunday evening to start them up again. She warned me that this period would probably be especially heavy and painful, given how determined my body seemed on relieving itself of whatever it had been holding back.

And she was right. The pain in my lower back has been almost unbearable. I feel bloated, a heavy sensation in my abdomen made worse when I eat something. Cramps like I haven't had in years. And the mess is really starting to annoy me.

Do you know they now make maxi-pads for thongs?? And tampons with shiny little "pearl" applicators and a "fresh scent"? I've missed out on so much.

NOT!!

The only positive side is that by Friday, I felt mentally like a normal person again. Happy, no urge to cry, confident that I was not going to let all that work on my desk get the better of me.

But even so - I can't wait to take that pill again tonight.

Now, onto medical talk of a different nature.

My little Cody had his annual checkup on Friday. Unfortunately, the news is a little disheartening.

See, I'm a very small person. Always have been my entire life. Doctors could never find anything medically wrong with me, they just said I'd be petite and that was that.

It's not so bad for a woman, but Cody seems to have inherited my smallness. He is eleven years old, but the doctor puts his height as average for a child three years younger. He has, however, gained six pounds in the last year (though he still isn't fat enough).

They ran some projections on his adult height, and right now, they're predicting 5'5" - even taking into consideration a typical growth spurt as a teenager.

They did bloodwork, x-rayed his hand (to check bone size) and referred him to an endocrinologist so he can be tested for growth hormones.

When The Ex called to tell me this, he asked how tall my father is. I realized I didn't know, so I asked my mother.

5'6".

And she's 5'4".

And I'm only 5'2".

Well, no wonder!!

Poor Cody just inherited his genes from the wrong side of the pool. Justin got lucky; it looks like he's going to take after my grandmother's side of the family, where every one is fairly tall (he's 5'9" already at 15 years old). Scott, of course, took after his father; I think he's up to nearly 6'3" by now.

This is the thing I hate about being a parent, there are just some things you can't do to make life easier for your children. You can't make other children not tease them for their differences, or give them the inner strength to handle bullies. You can only love them for who they are and hope that your love is enough to help them grow up confident, despite what some people may see as a "short"coming.

=(

To continue the discussion of my body being under too much stress and misbehaving (without all the yucky details some of you didn't want to read): it's my job that's at fault.

Things are really horrible right now - so horrible that I've almost stopped caring about getting a promotion, simply because I'm too overwhelmed to spend any time stumping for it. And I'm sure crying that week didn't help me score any points.

Along with that, my boss is trying to play a little game in order (I think) to justify me getting some help. It doesn't seem to be enough to point out that the billing department has two people doing work for five facilities each, or that we have two accountants handling five facilities each - whereas payroll has one person (me) doing ten facilities plus corporate (which no one else has to deal with, because corporate isn't a hospital). And for me, it's worse, because that work is compressed into a two day period - I don't have all week to do all those payrolls!! They can spread their workload around - I cannot.

But this little game, in an ironic twist, will have me taking on more work in order to justify any other assistance - and I may not even get full time assistance, it may be the one-day-a-week clerk. Grrrrrrrr.

I am seriously to the point where I don't think my boss will understand the severity of what he has done to me until the day comes that I turn in a two-week notice.

I just don't want to leave my job!! Aside from the strain I'm under due to not being able to accomplish everything I am responsible for, there is a great deal I love about where I work. It annoys me that I have to even consider giving up all the good things just because the expectations being placed on me are unreasonable.

I am accustomed to doing a lot of things, and doing them well. I can handle a workload larger than most other people can, which is usually how I end up with too much to do in the first place. This in itself does not bother me, because I'd rather be busier than not.

But when things get so overwhelming that I'm making stupid mistakes, mistakes that are entirely out of character for me, it upsets me. I don't like to feel incompetent. My confidence comes directly from my knowledge that no one else can do my job better than I can. Maybe that sounds arrogant, but it's not arrogance if you can back it up - and I can definitely back it up.

And lately - I don't even trust myself to do my job correctly, or efficiently, or in a timely manner.

Tomorrow will definitely suck. Because of the holiday, I now have one day to do the work I'd normally do in two. No one else seems to see that as a problem - because they know I'll get it all done.

I simply have no choice but to do so. You can't just not pay employees - especially when one of those employees is you.

And last but not least, since it's been so long without an entry:

Does anyone remember F-B? Well, he's still on the fringes (and no, he wasn't the "him" involved for those of you who read this entire entry - you're thinking now that I'm a slut, but you'd be wrong about that. Apparently I'm still a serial monogamist, whether in love or not, regardless of what I might have thought I was capable of doing. Shows how much I really knew about myself, huh?)

Poor dear tried to get me to come over on Friday - but of course, given the state of things down south, that wasn't going to happen. Then, holy mackerel, he invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner!

Wants me to come over and eat turkey and chocolate cream pie, then sit in his hot tub!

Now I feel bad. Because if I get up and go anywhere on Thursday, it's either going to be a) to work or b) to my mother's house. Yet F-B will then be alone for Thanksgiving.

Not that it's my responsibility to make sure he's got company for Thanksgiving, it's just that he's never been anything but nice and helpful to me (aside from also having been a convenient sexual partner - and I may end up needing him for that again someday - God, I'm too practical sometimes).

So, why do I feel sorry for him?

I guess I'm not as cold-hearted as The Ex thinks I am.

And I know all too well that sometimes, being alone can really suck.