My Arch Enem-iosis
If you have someone in your life battling against endometriosis, you know just how discouraging and deabilitating it can be. However, if you’re like I was, knowing next-to-nothing about this “ambigious” condition — it can be a very confusing concept to wrap your head around.
Before I delve into the nitty gritty — let’s rewind to a little biology to show what endometriosis truly is.
Here is your generic female reproductive system — which I hope you’re all somewhat familiar with. Without the presence of any disorders, conditions, or diseases (or any other name you wish to call them — I’d love to know), this is in theory, what the reproductive system should look like.
Now this is that same female reproductive system, but with endometriosis. Endometriosis is a disorder where endometrial cells are found anywhere outside of your uterus — and let me tell you, these cells are nasty little buggers. These little cells like to leak fluids and blood during various times in ones menstural cycle; causing A LOT of pain! The frequency and timing of this pain varies from person-to-person. Without the excision of these cells, over time they cause scarring and inflammation, which can sadly lead to infertility.
Now that you know a bit about endometriosis (that is if you didn’t before), it’s time for me to share my experience with you. All my haphazard tips, and things I’ve done to manage — although most of the time I feel like my butts being kicked!
I began having heavy, painful periods at age 12ish (the exact year has been up for debate). Going through the classic Aussie sex ed curriculum — I thought this pain was pretty normal. Some teachers cracked it up to be the worst thing in your life, others seemed rather complacent, so young Jasmine thought ‘welp, each to their own I ‘spose’.
It wasn’t until around age 15, I began to realise maybe this wasn’t so normal. I began speaking to my doctors during my body’s fight with The Pill, and apparently it wasn’t normal to be missing school for the first 3 days of my period, tucked up constantly with my wheat pack and my handy naprogesics. Now you might be thinking ‘how on Earth did her mum think that was normal!?’, and I have a good answer to that! We’re quite sure she had Adenomyosis (practically the opposite, but equally painful) that she never knew much about. What about her mum? well she has endometriosis too — which we only found out after it was no longer relevant.
I got put through the standard tests, just an external ultrasound to begin with. I had to travel quite a way to have this done, as we lived in a tiny little town with no sonographers in a 400km radius. I can’t really remember what my doctor told me, other than she couldn’t come to a conclusion, but it wouldn’t be wise to rule endo out. So I went on about my life, began receiving the Depo injection, stopped bleeding — therefore I didn’t really care.
Fast forward about 10 months, I was now living in the big smoke — aaaaand the depo stopped stopping my bleeding. I got even more ultrasounds — which also showed nothing, and then FINALLY ended up being referred to the coolest gynecologist.
I sat in my little chair next to mum, listening closely as she went through every option I had in detail. Initially I was just there to be put on some form of contraception that would work for me, and stop my irregular bleeding. She ran through the last option — perform a laparascopy, in which endometriosis will be taken out if found, and chuck in a Mirena whilst at it. All that was going through my head was ‘well that way I don’t have to be awake for the IUD to be put in, woop woop! Oh, and I also get to check if everything’s okay’. I had an inbuilt sense that I was just a hypochondriac, so I wasn’t expecting them to find anything.
Then comes the surgery. I remember arriving to the hospital in the morning — just wanting to go back to bed (it was way too early). I laid down in the theatre, surrounded by just about the nicest team of medical professionals I’ve ever seen. I remember talking about my pup, right before I went lights out.
When I woke up, I was in a whole world of pain. I was also pretty mad I had three holes instead of two — my inattentiveness made me think I was only guaranteed two wounds. The nurse in recovery pumped me up with meds — she could definitely tell I was in a dreadful amount of pain. Some time passed and my surgeon came with the news — I did have endometriosis. I felt a sense of relief almost that I hadn’t been overexaggerating all these years, and that I had an explanation! I also felt a wave of fear, I’ve witnessed just how hard it is to live with, and I didn’t think I could be ready for that. Over top of all those feelings, I mainly felt gratitude that I had found out at 16. It was early stages of endometriosis, and upon reflection, I can see how leading up to the surgery it began to slowly get worse.
Let me tell you that recovery was PAINFUL. I was out of action for about a week, and I couldn’t even sit up — which was a real pain with two assignments to be working on.
I’m about 5 weeks post-op now, and still get pain every now and then, but it’s hard to distinguish whether it’s the Mirena kicking in, or the pain that just comes with having endo.
So that is my story with endo so far! I tried to condense it as much as I can. Feel free to ask any questions, I’d love to hear other people’s experiences. I will continue to document all the experiences I have on here, because it’s important to know that this is an issue, and those who are suffering from endo are not alone (and are super strong people!).
