If you clicked on this blog post, you probably already know that today is International Women's Day. But you may not be aware that March is Endometriosis Awareness Month. I appreciate that the two intersect today. As I've reflected today on feminism and what it means to be a woman in 2017, my feelings about my incurable illness have also come up. To me, endometriosis bisects so many issues that women collectively face - those with and without endometriosis. When I found out I had endometriosis in 2014, I didn't quite understand just how many layers of sexism and gender inequality were pack ..read more

My entire life, I have always been a planner. In college, I'd have brief anxiety attacks if I couldn't find my day planner. I wrote out everything I needed to do, to the hour. I'd lose my mind if my friends couldn't tell me the exact time we were hanging out that night or where we were going. Even now, I color-code my Google Calendar in addition to my paper planner. When I found out I had endometriosis, that changed. It's difficult to plan around a chronic, painful illness when you're not sure how you will feel from one day to the next. Or one hour to the next. Or minute... you get the ide ..read more

Sick Girl Club So the photo above represents the past few (crappy) weeks of my life.  About two weeks ago, endometriosis handed me a horrible bout of menstrual cramps, which have been weird to adjust to. Up until my surgery in November, I had been on continuous birth control for about two or three years and hadn't had a scheduled period during that time. Now, with my IUD, I get one every month - at least for a little while. When I knew I'd once again be joining this world I thought I'd left behind, I was like, "PFFT. I'm a seasoned veteran of painful uteri. I've got this." Any ..read more

My health care story isn’t necessarily dramatic. I don’t have cancer. I’m not disabled. I’m not dying. And I’m not in danger of those things any time soon, hopefully. But I think that’s what makes my story compelling — how ordinary it is, how easily it happened to me and could happen to you. 2014 was a great year for me. I turned 24. I started a job I love. I adopted a dog. I moved into a new place. I got married. And all of that was within one summer. Just a few months after my husband and I said “I do,” 2014 became the year I found out what 13 years of chronic pain and other symptoms s ..read more

I'm certain Bowie left this shirt for me after he passed... (Fair warning: This will be an exceptionally nerdy blog post because I really. really love Star Wars.) So Saturday was the two-year anniversary of me being diagnosed with endometriosis - my endo-versary, if you will. But my mind wasn't really on it or even on what it should have been, which was the fact I'd be seeing Rogue One in mere hours. Instead, feelings of sheer hopelessness and inadequacy decided to pile up that day. My husband, Andrew and I drove that afternoon to a local humane society, hoping to adopt a sister o ..read more

I pretty much wanted to show off my new gym shoes. Approximately three weeks after my surgery, I emerged the cave that is my home, shriveled in the sunlight and trudged to the gym. I was anxious to get back, and not only because my in-laws gave me a sweet early Christmas present: bright pink running shoes. I could feel my back and shoulders aching the way they do when I'm inactive. And I was feeling pain up and down my legs that I thought some cardio would fix. So when I finally scanned my neglected gym membership card and hopped on to the elliptical, I felt empowered. I basked in t ..read more

It's a little early to be thinking about 2017. But maybe because I'm so anxious for the disaster that is 2016 to be over, I've already started planning parts of next year. Instead of a New Year's resolution, like many people make and often break, I create mantras for my year. It's an idea I picked up in therapy for depression and anxiety a few years ago. When faced with a panic-inducing situation, my therapist recommended repeating a mantra to help me work through it. Her suggestion was something like "This, too, shall pass." Mine ended up being "Will I die from this? No, I won't." (It ..read more

Giant hands again This week, I had the unique pleasure of having surgery the day after Election Day. (I will reserve my comments on that for a later blog post.) If you've followed my journey for a while, you'll know my first surgery (the one that diagnosed me) was done by a different doctor. I'm no longer with him because, in short, he wanted to prove I didn't have endometriosis, didn't give me any medication after my follow-up appointment and just told me to get pregnant. NEAT. My current ob-gyn, despite being chronically unavailable, is pretty great. She's always willing to work w ..read more

I was going to wait a few days to write this, but I can't get it out of my head, so I guess I'll write everything out right now. So basically, if you're not interested in reading this entire post, I'm going in for my second surgery on Nov. 9 - just a month shy of two years since my first one. And I... I'm feeling utterly, hopelessly and devastatingly defeated. This feeling actually started a few weeks ago on a Tuesday morning. I'd spent the night prior wrapped up in my heating pad and drifting in and out of sleep on the couch. It was that kind of hazy, confused sleep in which you keep try ..read more

So last month was really tough. In addition to some above-normal pain, I spent a lot of September in a kind of fuzzy, not-really-aware zone in which I have to do things to double-check that I'm actually awake.  It's like Inception. I need one of these. Actual footage of my tantrum As you may know, that ongoing sleepiness led me to finally seek help from a specialist. I endured a miserable sleep study at the end of August, and two weeks later, I got some vague test results that essentially said, "Yeah, you're sleepy, but we're not really sure why..." I wouldn't ge ..read more