My Endometriosis Story

I have hit rock bottom time and time again. And they say that you cannot get worse than rock bottom but no one said anything about hitting it over and over again. In fact, there is no limit to the amount of times one can hit rock bottom. My journey to rock bottom started at least once a month and lasted for a week. And I guess that is how my relationship with endometriosis started.

My story begins much like every other woman’s does; with one crappy week of the month. I got my period when I was 10. It was the summer before 5th grade and my mom made me sleep on one of our dogs weewee pads so I wouldn’t bleed on my sheets. It was humiliating. But then again everything about a period is humiliating. From having to wear pads the size of diapers and hiding tampons up your sleeve in school so no one would know that you were on your period. It was all so humiliating. But possibly the most humiliating was the pain.

It is just period pain.

I would be told this by school nurses, my parents, my friends, my teachers, sports coaches and my doctors. To complain about something as unimportant as ‘just period pain’ would be more humiliating than anything else about a period.

The pain usually started in my lower left side. It then would radiate. Going down my legs into my knees and up in my back. It would reach its arms around me and hug my stomach from behind. It was humiliating. Having to smile at the people around me and try to mask the pain that was digging into my abdomen. How can it be that bad? It’s just a period. Take an Advil and suck it up. It’s just a period. Walk it off, if every other woman in the world can deal with it then you can too. It’s just a period. I felt like a broken record. “Sorry I can’t come over, I got my period”. “I can’t come to school, I got my period”. We can’t go on vacation, I got my period”. Having my period became lonely and scary. I thought I was dying every month.

On every one of my 6 month doctor check ups I would tell my doctor, “My period cramps are really bad. What can I do?”. and every month I would be told the same thing, “Take Advil every 4 hours”. It was almost like my own doctors were against me too. Soon after I would be admitted to hospitals for this pain. I have had doctors question if I was passing gall stones, maybe it was kidney failure, maybe IBS. And time and time again, we would come up empty handed.

I am only 19 and I have thought I was going to die of this pain. One summer I was planning on getting an IUD inserted. My gynecologist had me lay on a sterile paper like protection pad. It reminded me of the same weewee-like pad that my mother had me lay on when I first got my period. Humiliating. 45 minutes had passed of me feeling like I would puke from the pain of being opened to a speculum. I was sure I was going to die from the pain. About 45 minutes of being dilated, poked, opened up, and split apart. When I looked down I saw a massacre of blood painting itself onto my legs and the once sterile pad. My doctor looked at me with almost a disappointed face and said “I cannot seem to get the IUD in, this is a failed insertion. You need to get an ultra sound. Something isn’t quite right.”

From that point on I would get an ultrasound every month. I had a cyst that needed to be monitored. After a while we realized it wasn’t going away like most cysts do after some time. Soon after that I was referred to Dr. Seckin.

( This is when my story gets a happy ending. ) He told me that he suspected I had endometriosis, something I had never heard of before. We scheduled an appointment for surgery and for the first time in a while I didn’t feel humiliated by my period. I didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t feeling the pain. I didn’t have hear another doctor tell me I needed Advil or a heating pad. I was free from the prison of pain that endometriosis had me in.

It has been about a month since my surgery and I feel better than I thought I could feel. I had my appendix removed because of the lesions that had taken over it. 27 abnormalities were taken out (11 of those being positive for endometriosis, while the others were inflammation caused by endometriosis). My uterus was retroverted and was scraped to get rid of some inflammation. My ovaries had to be suspended because they were attached to the walls of my abdomen.

I am only 19 years and I have hit rock bottom over and over again. I’ve been told my pain was nothing when really it was not. I’ve been humiliated by doctors and family. I’ve been in so much pain that I thought I was dead. But I didn’t die. I no longer hit rock bottom every month and am not humiliated by pain. I have endometriosis. I survived laparoscopic surgery, I am 19 years old and I survived. If you have this pain, please know that it’s real, Advil won’t fix it and you have every right to feel the pain but not let it define you.

(Below I have attached the link to the Endometriosis Foundation website if you wanted to learn more about the disease or get help for yourself or a loved one.)

https://www.endofound.org

This is the logo for the Endometriosis Foundation of America, I have included a link if you wanted to get more info about it and Endometriosis itself!