Lady Parts

I ran into a friend recently who was stunned when I told her that I had hit a rough patch. My Facebook page, she reasoned, was all hilarity and fabulousness and thus so must be my life. Aha! I understood her thinking. There are two reasons that I keep it lively on the old FB, I explained. First, there is nothing bleaker than a post like this: “Looks like I have a cold. Meh” or “The snow makes me sad.” What does one do with this type of information? Secondly, I like to scroll back through my page to jokes, positive interactions, pretty pictures, and anecdotes. What you put out there you bring back to you. Say something enough and it becomes true. Etcetera.

And so my story is omissive by design, but maybe that isn’t fair. The feminist in me recoils at the thought that I haven’t shared this struggle because it involves my lady parts. What is this, 1940? I wrote a whole essay about women that skew the bell curve on life, painting it as all giggles and hugs and crafts. Am I guilty of the same thing with this secret? My friend actually begrudged what she perceived as my perfect existence! So I will share to level the playing field, and because the vulnerable part of me could use a little love. Woe is me, yes, but woe is everyone else, too. We all have our battles, some of which are invisible, private, and stigmatized. Here is mine.

My ovaries are on fire - not an adorable contained campfire but an inferno – and they have been for over a year. I get shooting pain into my back, digestive trouble, and fatigue every single day in dizzying combinations. Sometimes I feel like I am being disemboweled. If I don’t talk about it relentlessly, it isn’t because I have been miraculously cured, but because it is futile and depressing to obsess and focus on. Words don’t fix it, but neither does anything else. True Life: I have endometriosis.

So let’s get those dream sequence squiggles and take it back to the beginning: After a few months of abdominal and pelvic pain, I finally scheduled an appointment with my doctor. I explained to her that I just needed a second opinion as my primary physician, Dr WebMD, had diagnosed ovarian cancer. Doctors love this kind of joke! Predictably, I left without an answer.

I began an aggressive, expensive, and frustrating schlep-athon from one specialist to the next, each one with a diagnosis more preposterous than the last. My personal favorite: Constipation. Treatment: Laxative. I was told to increase fiber, cut out lactose, limit gluten, eat raw foods, and bathe in Epsom salts. My blood was drawn and tested for thyroid conditions, anemia, STDS, and cancer. On raged the fire in my loins, and not in the good way.

When I returned to my gynecologist for the third time, she literally threw her hands up in the air. So reassuring! I need options, I said. My new doctor, mayoclinicmd.com, is not forthcoming with painkillers. I asked if she would PLEASE open me up and have a look inside. This is completely empirical, she said, and we may find absolutely nothing. This seemed like a fair gamble, which might give insight into my level of discomfort and concern. I suggested that maybe she could triple knot my tubes while in there, and make the surgery a double whammy.

So we set a date, and on August 21 I was opened up and scooped out like a pumpkin. She found lesions covering my ovaries and attaching to other organs which she was able to remove or burn (pretty!). Still gassed after a surgery that took much longer than initially anticipated, I drowsily pronounced my relief to finally have an answer. I erroneously believed that an “answer” meant an effective treatment and less pain.

Fast-forward six months and several other treatments later: I am in pain, I am sick, I am tired. I give those words credence only when symptoms become unbearable. Like my FB persona, I believe that you create your reality; if you say life sucks, so it does. I soldier on and do things that I know are good for me: yoga, running, massage, and acupuncture. I have simplified my life, working less, resting more. I am no Shirley MacLaine, but my façade is good. We are surrounded by actors and actresses, and I feel their pain.