I Am An Endometriosis Warrior

While getting diagnosed with PCOS seemed like it would be the solution to my problems, that was not the case. Along with the PCOS came trying to figure out how to manage it. Since there is no cure for PCO, this was the only avenue to take. After rigorous medications I still had no relief. It was at this point that I chose to speak up and tell my doctor exactly everything that I had been going through. That I believed something else was wrong with me. 

Deciding to do this took quite a bit of time. Initially, I had been hoping that once I was diagnosed with PCOS and the steps were taken to manage it, that would be the end of all my problems. It wasn’t (And it still isn’t). It was rather like a rollercoaster, in terms of the emotionality that I went through with this process. There is hope, then bewilderment that all is not well, longing for it to be ok, wishing it all will go away, disappointment that it hadn’t all disappeared, then the realization that something else really is wrong. All the while, you are trying to distinguish if all of this is in your head. You may even be told that it is all in your mind, or some kind of something that you yourself manifested. 

Reluctantly, I made a doctors appointment to go over everything. We had a lengthy conversation about the things I was experiencing and that led to the doctor saying “There’s no pain.” To which I replied, “Oh there’s pain!” My having been in ballet and other art forms meant that I was good at masking pain and not discussing it. I also thought the highly painful, extremely heavy periods I regularly endured were some type of normal. They were not. The pain was unbearable and unmask able. 

I agreed to more testing and surgeries and was finally diagnosed with having endometriosis. Endo is an extremely painful, incurable condition where the uterine tissue grows outside the uterus.