Life with Endometriosis: The Honest Reality
Yesterday 8th March marked a very important 4-year anniversary for me. This anniversary was certainly life changing for me in 2018 and here’s why:
With the New Year comes new goals, expectations, hopes and dreams to be fulfilled. Most of us want to get fit, get a better job, go on that vacation! Mostly, all of it is on social media for the world to see. Like most of my friends on Instagram, I too was hopeful of having a great 2018. I uploaded the above picture in December 2017, saying 2017 was the best year of my life and that I couldn’t wait for 2018 to surprise me! Little did I realize that I should pay heed to the saying, ‘Be careful what you wish for’ because as it turns out, 2018 was full of surprises, and how! It seems like an impossible task for me now, but I deleted my then Facebook and Instagram accounts (which had 1500+ followers and which would have probably given me an Instagram content creator status in 2022) because 2018 got the worst of me.
I think I can speak for people who identify as female when I say that we have at least one of these problems in our day-to-day life — trying to get fit but not being able to let go of that oh-so-delicious chocolate brownie (or cheesecake. Whatever fancies you, friends), being unable to stick to a skincare regimen, trying to get 8 hours of sleep but getting sucked into a Netflix show, the list goes on…But there’s this one problem that hits people with a uterus every month like a truck, when we want to do nothing else but eat junk food, get hold of a hot water bag, cozy up in some corner of the house and grumble, moan and/or cry — YES, I’m talking about periods.
I’m a small framed person and I’m most often found giggling, jumping around and expressing every damn thing with my hands. But when my period came every month, my health and I would just go downhill. Two days of work-from-home, lots of coconut water, junk food or fruits and rest would ensue in the attempt to feel better, but to no avail. This was literally my routine since forever. All those years, I met a lot of doctors to be put out of my misery. They all usually just said in Hindi, “Arrey! Yeh toh normal hai, sab ko hota hai. Sehen karo!” (This is absolutely normal; happens to all women. Bear the pain!)“I’m not the only one, there are so many women who go through the same thing, Prima”, I said to myself every single time. But then on January 29, 2018, I went for an ultrasound and my life suddenly changed - It revealed that I had cysts in both my ovaries and that I would have to undergo surgery. I consulted 7 more doctors in the hope that I wouldn’t need surgery and I could be treated with medication, but the result was clear: I was and had been suffering from Endometriosis.
What Is Endometriosis?
Endometriosis is a condition where the tissue that lines the inside of the uterus, starts growing on the outside instead and affecting neighbouring organs like the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and the pelvic region. This is a lifelong condition, which cannot be cured, but can be delayed with medication.
Pelvic pain is the most common symptom of Endometriosis. Other symptoms include:
- Cramps one or two weeks around period
- Pain in the lower abdomen before and during your period
- Painful period
- Heavy menstrual bleeding or bleeding between periods
- Lower back pain that may occur at any time during your menstrual cycle
- Infertility
- Pain following sexual intercourse
- Discomfort with bowel movements
Doctors told me that Endometriosis goes undetected for long periods of time, unless a check-up or an ultrasound is done, or when a woman is unable to conceive. Mine went undetected for 3 years. I was also told that my condition was detected at a much later stage and the delay could have been avoided. I underwent surgery on March 8, 2018, and I’m going to be really honest, post the surgery I felt anything but better. I was in so much pain if not for my medication, needed help for almost every basic activity and most importantly, I started putting on weight.
My doctor put me on hormonal medication and told me to work out every day for 30 minutes because I would become double my weight in no time. For someone who had never seen the inside of a gym and is a massive food lover, this was the hardest thing to do. I put on 8 kilos since my surgery and have issues with my formerly fantastic metabolism. Now everything is simply settling in my lower body. With the medication, also came depression. Like I previously mentioned, I was this happy soul who posted everything about my life on social media. But after a while, everything suddenly started getting to me — friends getting engaged and married, vacations, fancy food, parties, the way my girlfriends could wear whatever they want and carry themselves so well, and here I was, getting sadder about everything in my life. It also brought mood swings, which meant one minute I was screaming, wanting to punch someone, and the very next minute I was extremely happy and laughing as if nothing happened. After much contemplation, I deleted my Instagram and Facebook accounts towards the end of September. I did return to Instagram in November, only after I felt better mentally. I got back to Facebook in 2021, because school.
Exactly one here later, here I was; on the slightly heavier side. Like the doctor told me, I would not have been in this position, had I gotten a health check-up early on and took care of my health. All this while, I got depressed only because of the medication, but in the overall 1-year process, I did not crumble. My family did not take it well because they cared for me too much and saw that I’m this ‘tiny fireball’ who handled so much pain, but I took it all head on and towards the end. Its crazy to think of this now, but I was really excited about my surgery, thinking my future is going to be so much better with this out of my way.
Cut to today! 9th March 2022 — March is Endometriosis Awareness Month.
My very optimistic self thought life was going to get better, my uterus was going to get better, but you know what? It hasn’t. The pain is the same, the monthly woes stay the same too. I dread when ‘that time of the month’ is about to arrive because I absolutely hate everything about it. I think it sucks that my whole life revolves around my condition — I say this because I have been on medications since 2018, these cause me mood swings like nobody’s business. Its been 4 long years, and the medication ‘can’t stop, won’t stop’ because the cysts will make a comeback (and I DO NOT WANT THAT)!
At the end of all this, all I would like to say to myself and to everyone reading is that it’s going to be okay. I have been taking each day as it comes — cribbing about it 90% of the time, but I cannot keep complaining forever. Life must go on and I must distract myself to many more important issues at hand, like finishing my schooling at Humber College and then getting an internship (great plug-in, I know! If you do have an Account Management internship for me, do let me know!)
I would also like to say that there are so many menstruators out there who suffer from pains and troubles on a daily basis and keep ignoring them. Do yourself a favour, if you feel that you’re going through too much pain in whatever regard, DO NOT IGNORE IT. And to all the men who are reading this, if you have a menstruator in your life who is/are going through something remotely like this, please take them for a checkup or ask them to go and be there for them emotionally. That’s all folks!
This article was originally written for MissMalini Entertainment. Original article link here with edits by Alisha Fernandes.
