Endometriosis is non-cancerous little tumors and sores that grow on the inside of your uterus. Sometimes referred to as lesions or adhesion. It hurts, as in hurt like being punched in the baby maker and in serious pain and you want to cry like a little girl for your mommy to make it go away. It turns you into that girl from the movie "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka". This dude was going to hurt her and she turns around with her face all distorted and screams I GOT CRAMPS and his friend comes running cuz he heard someone scream like a girl.
Your periods are more painful, more bleeding, cramping, in the fetal position, way more than your normal shitty period. This will put you down for a few days. My daughter has been suffering with it for a few years now and thanks me for it every month. I'm like, uh thank all the woman before me too because there is Fibromyalgia, lots of allergies, Rheumatoid Arthritis: its all Auto-Immune problems, maternally inherited....One day we might have lupus or something else, who knows.
So I clearly noticed something was very wrong when the twins were about 6 months old and one crawled across my stomach and it felt like it was pregnant! And it hurt like I was. I had three kids already so I know what it feels like when you get jumped on by a toddler right on your precious pregnant belly! I felt it and pushed on it, and oh ya it felt like I was about 2-3 months but I knew I wasn't because I had a C section and had my tubes tied. This was not good.
This is what happened over the next 2 years! Mind you during this whole time I have infant to toddler twins.
I work full time and come home to an abusive man half that year, the other year and a half was more peace and hard work, including two surgeries, lost two jobs and my dad died. What a fucking year!
I go to the doctor, same OB who delivered them. At this hospital the staples were taken out at 36 hours and we were all sent home at 42 hours. Yes, I had an emergency C-section with twins and we were not even there 48 hours. (AND the nurse laughed when I was scared about her taking out the staples, and said "Ha Ha, what, are you afraid your stomach is going to fall out?, uh YAH!) And when I cough/sneezed the day after getting out, and bloody water gushed out of my sliced open stomach, I wanted to take my clothes to the hospital and rub it in that nurses face and say "Oh yah, then whats this bitch, not from my stomach huh?"
ANYWAY, he examines and yes I definitely need an ultrasound to see whats going on. If he wasn't the actual doctor that tied my tubes he would have thought I was pregnant. He felt around up there like he was looking for his watch or something and doing that push down on your lower abdomen thing. I almost pushed his nuts up his groin with my foot. My periods were horrible and there was way too much pain involved. He said that he would start me on some hormone treatment and probably have one within 6 months. Huh?
Not to mention that this stuff is rarely seen on an ultrasound.
Unfortunately we moved out of state. For every other reason than my health it was time to move. For that exact reason I should have stayed. Once we moved, it took forever to get insurance, find a doctor, get my records sent over and have a few exams. This is already a few months. I'm getting worse. This new doctor puts me on birth control. Birth control. I have had 5 kids and my tubes tied, the last thing I need is birth control, considering that they mess with my hormones anyway. I am trying to tell the doctor this. It's falling on deaf ears.
Over the next few months, again more ultrasounds, more exams, more tests, more follow-ups to the follow up. Finally! A referral to a surgeon. I go see him and he does his whole poking around thing and looks at this and that and says ok, lets schedule this.
One of the happiest moments in my life. Someone finally listened to me after complaining about this for over a year. Getting surgery is pretty serious too.
The surgery goes well and I wake up in the recovery area for Birthing/New Mothers. It was an OB who did it, so I recovered on his turf. It was weird being the only one there without a baby. I thought of babies I had lost, and then I thought of woman who have lost theirs in childbirth. How sad and lonely to be the only woman in the baby section without a baby. The nurses liked me. I was easy to deal with. In fact, I got to spend most of my recovery hanging out in the nurses station holding the newborns. My babymaker was dead and buried so I was going to hold, and give back other newborns.
As it turned out, the Endometriosis had spread extensively and became Adenomiosis, which means same thing but on the outside of the uterus. I didn't realize at the time what that would implicate. Later I would learn that means that it still continues to grow inside your body. Fast forward 6 months later and I had to have a ping pong sized Endo tumor removed from inside my muscle wall of my abdomen, which ripped apart my muscle when it burst, at 2 AM. I thought my intestines burst or something. It was hot and painful and had
this spreading sensation. I thought I was in serious trouble.
The surgery for that was pretty easy. I was only there a few hours actually. It's amazing the technology today. Cut open your gut and your home for dinner. It was painful until then though. This constant knot in my muscle wall. It was just 'there'. Make it go away. It would grow and shrink through out the month and I hated it.
This is the short version of the Endo story. Diagnosed. Hysterectomy. Tumors redevelop. Surgery. My lower back and lower abdomen hurt. It still feels like there are baby tumors growing. All the cutting open from the C-section, hysterectomy, tumor removal happened in 2 1/2 years. The last 2 were 6 months apart. I lost a lot of weight. Let me tell you surgery wipes you out for a long time. I just suffer now. Endo grows on scar tissue so I think there is enough of that down there for now.
It should be the same diet for a cancer paitent. Nothing to help it grow. I try to watch what I eat (too much coffee, sugar, chocolate, red meat makes it worse) before I put it in my mouth. It's hard. There is a different diet for every ailment. But there is no cure. Some woman get better after birth control pills, pregnancy, and in the extreme cases yes, a hysterectomy. But I come from Murphys' Law which states that it will go wrong for me. So even after that, still a tumor, and after that I still have it.
And the whole time I'M SINGLE MOM WITH TWINS. I DID IT ALL BY MYSELF.
Endo sucks, it really does. It's for girls!
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