blood clot, anyone?

[icedcoffeegirl.livejournal.com]

this is not meant to scare anyone. it's very rare and look, here i am all fine and stuff, but i wondered if anyone had a similar experience.

i was on b.c. (hmmm, can't remember which kind, but i think it was one step up from the lowest dosage and it came in a flat credit-card shaped pack with green iron pills for the period week). well, i took those for about 2 years and one kind or another b.c. pills for several years before that (including a one year? stint in college where they were very much for jump-starting my 3-month skipping period and not for action as i was getting none). anyway, come spring of 2000 and i very suddenly developed a rather large blood clot in my lower leg. it was superficial and below the knee (both good from a safety standpoint). i had loads of blood work done, but they found nothing. i went off the pills immediately. i had TONS of testing, but as for treatment--just advil (lots), heat, and elevation. most of the clot went away, but there remains to this day a 1-inch visible section (at its height the thing was in a candy cane shape over much of my lower leg). so, that's kind of odd, right? i can never take b.c. pills again (such a bummer because there really really really isn't a great alternative out there--unless you know of one, in which case tell me right now, damnit).

so.

common experience? thoughts? clever limericks and the like? what's your input, ladies? (and my mom would flip over that word, "ladies"--WOMAN, she says, WOMAN (but i find it fun and i like using "girl" for myself too, which also puts her off. but we are fighting different battles and for me it is feminist to have these choices. but this is a totally different point, and so...)

ladies?
women?
girls?
whaddya say?

while we're on the subject,

[icedcoffeegirl.livejournal.com]

what method of b.c. do you use? why? what are the pros and cons?

i use condoms cause i can't use b.c. (see my previous post). i find them to be, less than satisfactory. i tried a diaphram, but i never got good at it and i wasn't really hip to the spermacide everywhere. i'm manogamous and so is he, so it's really just a matter of preventing little ones. why oh why are there not better options out there? i wish sponges still existed so i could try those.

[this is on topic, isn't it? lemme know if not cause i'm a newbie.]

Question for my fellow women

[cute-kitty.livejournal.com]

Hello girls,
I have to do a five-minute oral presentation on the subject of my choice. I'd like to do an aspect of feminism if possible. I was wondering if any of you ladies could give me suggestions for a topic? If you have any please comment here and let me know. Thanks in advance. :)

Sarah.