About Steph
I have had Endometriosis since menses started at age 14. Nobody, including my mother, ever took me seriously when I was a teen. My mother thought I was faking the pain to stay home from school, even if I threw up from the pain. She thought Midol or 400mg of Advil would be enough to treat my pain, because it was always enough to treat her pain.
Though my mother had three sisters who also had severe period pain growing up, she just chalked it up to them being sissies, too. However, in 1996, a gynecologist told me that with the complaints I was presenting, he felt that I hit every symptom in the book for Endometriosis. It was the first I’d heard of this disease. I spent the next eleven years fighting HMO insurance red tape, just to get a laparoscopy to officially diagnose me with Endometriosis. And it wasn’t until I was 32 years old that I got my aunts, as well as my maternal gramma, to tell me about their own battles with debilitating period pain. When I was 35 years old, I finally got approval through my fiance’s insurance for the laparoscopic surgery.
Diagnosis? Stage III Endometriosis. My left ovary had so many adhesions that it was wrapped around and stuck to the back of my uterus. Not all of the disease could be removed, because it’s also too close to my bladder. So the pain continues, but at least I have an official diagnosis.
After my surgery, I tried hormonal suppression in the form of a low-dose birth control pill called Yasmin. Within three months, I was suicidal and had to be taken off the pill. I have refused any form of hormonal treatment since that time, and now I’m back to doing what I did before surgery – taking vitamins, trying out various alternative medicinal therapies, exercising, and eating a gluten-free and yeast free diet.
In 2010, I underwent a second laparoscopic surgery by a different surgeon.
The pain remains, and I continue to fight the pain.
My goal for this blog is to collect the past 36 years’ worth of diary entries about my pain into one place for easy reference.