Ever since I was young I would get these amazingly nasty lower abdominal pains. When I was like 8 or 9 my mom would tell me they were growing pains. I was young and didn't know any better so I went with that explanation. Skip forward a few years and mother nature came a calling that's when it became clear things were a little bit more complicated than growing pains. At 13 years old I would have periods that would last up to 16 or 17 days and were not talking light flow were talking 2 to 3 packs of heavy duty pads each month with cramps so bad I would miss no less than 4 days of school at the beginning of every cycle. Finally after months and months of this it was decided I should probably see the doctor and after and examination and ultrasound it was discovered I had a cyst on my left ovary. It was only the size of a golf ball, so they put me on pain meds and birthcontrol and took a wait and see approach. A month later my next period came and I literally was in so much pain I was crying and had to crawl to the bathroom. So back to the surgeon I go. In that month it had gone from golf ball to soft ball size and had ruptured but not all the way it was only slowly leaking it's poison into my body. Yay. The surgeon sent me to the hospital for immediate surgery for removal, and thus began my journey with reproductive misery.
That first surgery went well they got the cyst and after healing I was cleared for normal activities, but every month was still hell and that just became the norm for me. I had more cysts over the years never like the first and with the help of meds they were kept under control and pretty much took care of themselves. Then when I was 21 I got pregnant with my daughter. She wasn't planned and I honestly didn't think I could get pregnant since we hadn't used any type of protection for years but she was a happy accident none the less. She ended up being an emergency c-section, but after healing from her birth the first year was actually pretty easy. I thought I was home free from the horrible periods of the past. Then right after her second birthday I decided to have a little bit of cosmetic surgery done to my upper regions. Everything went well, healed beautifully and was going on with my life. When all of a sudden about 3 months after that surgery the incredible pain from hell came back with a vengeance. Now I was in pain weather it was that time of the month or not. I was literally living in a Vicodin induced haze because otherwise I couldn't function. Walking hurt, moving hurt, picking up my little girl hurt like hell, not being able to take care of her was killing me though. So doctor visit after doctor visit, test after test every thing was ruled out, a few cysts but not enough to cause the pain that I was having, no cancer, no STD's (thank god), finally my doc decided to do a laperoscopy (sp?) and tada we have a diagnosis I have Endometriosis. (A diseases my spell check doesn't recognize by the way.) Finally a name to go with the pain, but no great way to fix me. I'm to young for a hysterectomy, especially since I still want more kids, pain killers help but I hate taking them not to mention they don't completely make the pain go away, there's a shot I can get but it may not work and the side effects are pre-mature menopause which I wanted to avoid at the time, so we decided to try getting pregnant again. It took over a year but we did finally conceive and all was well at my 3 month check up, but somewhere between my 3 and 4 month appointments the baby died and at my 4 month check up we found I had what they call a missed miscarriage. I had a D&C the next day and was told to wait 3 months to try again. We waited the 3 months and it took another year but we finally conceived again this time I was able to carry to full term and Nicky was born at exactly 39 weeks by scheduled c-section.
Right after he was born I was put on the 3 month birth control pill hoping that would help control the Endo and for awhile it did. Now 4 years later I'm back to where I started. In pain all the freaking time. A lot of people think I'm exaggerating, I'm sure some think I just like to take drugs, but the fact of the matter is I walk around with no less than mild cramping everyday of my life. I love my husband and have sex with him on regular basis because I know he wants to, but if it were left to me we would have no sex life because I leave the room damn near in tears after every round of love making. Do you have any idea how it feels to have to take pain meds just to be intimate with your spouse? Probably not, but I do.
I went back to the doctor 4 months ago at a loss because I'm friggin exhausted from dealing with this shit, he won't give me the hysterectomy, and I may still want one more rugrat so the doc says there's this shot it's helped 96% of the women who've used it. It'll put you into pre-mature menopause while your on it but afterwards you can still have kids and things should be a lot better. Last week I had my 4th shot. Today I woke up and I can barely walk I hurt so bad. Apparently I'm in that 4% that the shit doesn't work for. I'll go in and get the last two shots in the hopes that by some miracle they'll suddenly start working, But I'm honestly past any real hope. I've lived with this for so long I've come to the conclusion I must have really sucked ass in a past life and this is my punishment, to live with this for ever. I can only pray that my baby girl never ever has to deal with this bullshit. I'll tell you one thing if she tells me she has a pain in her lower area I'll be rushing her little butt right to the doctor. You'll never, ever hear me say the words oh it's just growing pains.
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