The Pain and Symptoms
I was in my middle 20s when I started to have severe pain each month before and during my menstrual cycle. The pain was like menstrual cramps on steroids. Nothing I did seemed to make any difference.
The MD Doctor Visit
I went to my regular doctor to ask him about the pain. He did a vaginal exam, which was very painful. He then told me I needed to see an OB-GYN doctor.
My First OB-GYN Visit
I went to my first OB-GYN visit to find out what was going on. He wanted to do surgery right away and told me I had cancer and could die. He did not bother to explain anything to me. I left upset and just ignored the pain for a while.
My Second OB-GYN Visit
I found another OB-GYN doctor who explained to me what he thought was going on and to be sure he had to perform a simple surgery, a “Laparoscopy,” to confirm it. The laparoscopy confirmed that I did have Endometriosis.
My Medical Options and Choices
My OB-GYN gave me three medical options with the discovery of endometriosis, which were:
1. Do nothing and suffer until I was ready for a Hysterectomy. I really did not want to live with the pain each month.
2. Take fertility pills if I wanted to get pregnant. I had a 0-10 percent chance of getting pregnant even with the fertility pills.
3. A total hysterectomy. I wanted children at some point in my life.
My Choice
I decided to take fertility pills for six months and try to get pregnant. I had not gotten pregnant within the six months. At this point, my chances of getting pregnant had gone down to zero. It was time to make another decision, but I pleaded for one more month of trying to get pregnant.
The last week of that month, I became pregnant! However, right away I started to have pain. It could be only one of two things:
1. The first being that I was having a tubal pregnancy and it would end in surgery.
2. The other reason was that the pain was from the hormones that pregnant women create which also destroys the endometriosis tissue. This was what was happening. I had a beautiful, healthy baby boy.
Endometriosis Comes Back
In the beginning, the doctor informed me that it could come back and when my son was a year old, I had started to have pain again. I went back to my doctor and it was back. He gave me the same three options. I was lucky and got pregnant with my second child, a beautiful and healthy baby girl.
The endometriosis came back yet again. I was not mentally ready to have a hysterectomy. I was only 30 years old. Therefore, I decided to just suffer with the pain each month and see what happened.
Last Choice
Three years later, the pain became unbearable. A new symptom appeared. This time I started to have issues with my bladder and what seemed like infections all of the time. My Urologist told me that the endometriosis was causing this.
I finally gave in to having a radical hysterectomy. This is removal of all my reproductive organs. I was having a hard time accepting this reality.
The day after my surgery, I felt so much better. My OB-GYN came in to see me and told me that the endometriosis tissue had formed large cysts and had spread over all of my female organs and had fused my bladder to my uterus, which was why I was having urinary problems. The doctor had to scrape off the uterus from the walls of my bladder.
My doctor asked if I wanted to see a picture of the organs showing the growth tissue on them and I said “yes.” It was the best thing that he could have done for me. Seeing everything allowed me to accept the outcome.
