Endometriosis...Where It All Began
Some call it a chronic disease and some say it’s just “period pain” and for the longest I thought the same thing. I can say first hand that endometriosis is not something to play with. I thought that my pain was normal and surely everyone got extremely sick a week before their period and that increased pain as I got older made sense. Surely I was fine! The doctor suggested endo to me once before and I brushed it off because her suggestion was to take birth control in hopes of fixing it…not something I was interested in at the time. A few months later as my symptoms grew stronger (Constant nausea, not able to hold food down, constant cramps and weakness that eventually affected my work). I decided to revisit the doctor and follow up on what could be wrong with me. I found out that I had a cyst large enough to cause concern and large enough to be monitored regularly in hopes that I didn’t develop cancer. Umm, no thank you!
Yet again, the discussion of endometriosis comes up again. This time I’m even directed to a specialist…oh joy! We chat for a bit he inquires about my symptoms suggests that he strongly believes I have endo and the only way to truly find out is by having surgery to run a biopsy through laparoscopy…in which they’d also remove the cyst. Is it just me or is this doctor moving his lips without making a sound!? After that my heart dropped. I literally couldn’t hear anything for a brief moment I was so confused I never thought a tad bit of pain would lead to being cut open. I’d never had any type of surgery at all so I was super scared and pretty much in denial which led to me avoiding the idea of surgery (I tend to avoid things so that I won’t stress over them. Pro and con)
Fast forward to the day before surgery…mom is in town, can’t eat, having to clean out my system, take off my nail polish and cut my nails, no ponytails, no energy to do my hair, anddddd I have to wake up early! All very minute things to complain about BUT these are the things that made me truly realize that I was going to have surgery, find out if I have this chronic disease and have scars on my stomach that put a damper on my confidence. Yuck. Yuck! YUCK!!!
In the matter of a day my life would completely change I would have to learn to deal with constant pain and work diligently to find ways to deal with the pain and random side effects from medicine. Later we will discuss the medicine I’ve tried, my opinion on surgery, what endometriosis really is and how people handle this information.
What’s your story? Do you have endo or have you ever had an endo scare? Don’t be afraid to share your story you never know who you may help.