As the year is (finally!) drawing to a close, I decided to go back and look at some of my old posts to see how life has changed in the past six months since I started this blog. My goal was, and still is, to raise awareness about certain chronic health issues that affect me, including endometriosis, adenomyosis, infertility, depression, self harm, social anxiety, celiac disease, pituitary tumor, and I guess that pesky little aneurysm.

Here are my top ten posts from 2016, starting with the most hits and working downward. Feel free to re-visit them if you’ve read them before or check them out if you’re new to ?ribbonrx!

1. Pelvic Pain Beyond Endo: This one is the clear leader by over 500 views over the number 2 spot. I had no idea when I wrote this post it would resonate with so many people. All I wanted to do was write an informative post about conditions besides endometriosis that can cause pelvic pain before and even after a woman has had proper surgery for endometriosis.

2. The Guilt of Living with Endometriosis: A relatively recent post (from October), the idea for this one came to me when I was approached to “freelance” a bit by an endometriosis group. It was also my second post to be published on The Mighty and currently has over 2700 “loves” on the site.

3. How to Support a Loved One Who Has Endometriosis: The idea for this one came to me out of the blue one evening earlier this month and took off on social media pretty quickly.

4. Didn’t See This Coming: An unexpected post that took off in an unexpected way, as support poured in from members of Facebook support groups to help me through a sudden new diagnosis.

5. Just Endo: My first post to go “big” quickly, this relatively short post popped into my head one morning this summer when I woke up early and couldn’t fall back asleep. It was inspired by a friend whose situation is mentioned in the post.

6. Happy Endo-Versary!: I wrote this to celebrate two years post-excision surgery with a renowned endometriosis specialist. I am still endo-free and it feels great!

7. Actually, It IS Brain Surgery!: A post describing my second day in the hospital following transphenoidal removal of my benign pituitary tumor, a prolactinoma called Mini.

8. Endometriosis: A Profound Effect on the Women of Our World: Believe it or not, I wrote this post in response to a word prompt for the word “profound.”

9. Always a Zebra…: This post describes my experience from this summer during my second surgery at the Center for Endometriosis Care in Atlanta.

10. The Eviction of Mini: A post describing my surgery and first day in the hospital following transphenoidal removal of my benign pituitary tumor, a prolactinoma called Mini. Bye bye, Mini, and good riddance!

Honorable Mention:

Fear of the Familiar: I’m including this one because it was, quite surprisingly, next on the list, despite the fact that I only wrote it two weeks ago. I guess it resonated with a lot of people, so here it is again for those who missed it.

Many thanks to my loyal followers and casual readers for making my blog what it is now. I could never have imagined six months ago that I’d have written almost 170 posts and had nearly 30,000 views by the end of 2016. I hope my blog has meant something to you and provided helpful information and awareness. Please continue to visit in 2017 and if any of my posts are especially helpful to you, please comment and share!

Also, if anyone has any blog ideas they’d like to see me cover, please feel free to let me know in the comments section! I do love a challenge!

?ribbonrx