2. How I found out…
It is quite a long story and to be honest I seldom talk about it. Why? I think it is too complicated and most of all too long to explain. Oh, well… Here we are.
When I was younger, my periods were very heavy and I used to get real sick for at least 1,5 week every month. Sometimes fainted a few times a day. It got pretty bad, so I started taking birth control at the age of 15 to get more grip and control of my body and period. (This is by the way completely normal in The Netherlands at that age.)
I was so scared, I didn’t know what was happening
I just finished my third year of my Bachelor, turned 20 over summer and I was totally ready to rock my last year and graduate. I quit taking birth control, because my body started to change and reacted heavy on the hormones. During my internship, the beginning of September 2016, it felt like I captured a massive flu. I got lower tummy pain, my back was hurting like crazy and I could barely move. On top of that I got a pretty high fever, so I decided to go see a doctor.
The doctor measured my temperature and it was 38 degrees and told me to go to the emergency room. She didn’t know what was actually wrong with me. Within half an hour another nurse measured my temperature and it had risen to 40 degrees. She told me I had to be admitted to the hospital so they could check what was wrong with me. I was scared. I never had to stay a night in the hospital and I never had to have an infusion in my arm. I hate needles.
They ran like 20 tests on me, made different x-rays and echos. No results, except there was an infection visible in my blood. One of the doctors told me to see a gynaecologist to check if everything was OK on the inside. Luckily the gynaecologist was a very nice women and she found an infection in my ovaries. The doctors advised me to spend the night in the hospital to monitor my reaction to the medication, which were 2 types of antibiotics that I had to take for 2 weeks straight.
It all started to come back and didn’t go away
Back home the antibiotics hit me so hard that every time I took them, I had to throw up. My body was rejecting and wanted it out of its system. Obviously, the doctor prescribed another set of antibiotics which my body could take easily. The medication worked. For a week or two…
A few months passed and I, nor the doctors, didn’t know what was actually wrong with me. They couldn’t find anything. This made me question my own mental health. Is this all made up? Am I going crazy? Whatever it was, it hurt like hell!
In December I switched hospitals. To be honest, it was because the hospital where I was admitted kind of gave up on me. They didn’t find anything, so they stopped checking. Which I found very weird since I was still in pain every single f*cking day. (Pardon my French…). Anyway, the new gynaecologist was a perfect fit for my symptoms and he helped me right away.
After a few tests, check ups and conversations he asked me if endometriosis occured within my family. It does. He immediately told me everything about the illness and what had to be done in order to make the diagnosis. A laparoscopy.
I told my mum I didn’t want to do the surgery because I was way too scared and that it wasn’t possible at that time combined with me graduating. I. Had. To. Graduate. Period (haha). I was graduating, not matter what, so the surgery was planned at the end of my graduation project. My graduation year was horrible. I was in constant pain and most days couldn’t even get out of my bed. Writing my dissertation was a huge obstacle for me, because I was only able to focus for a few hours per day.
July 2017, almost one year later, I finally got the laparoscopy surgery. I was so scared going into the surgery, it was my first, and I woke up very confused. It felt like I somehow fell asleep for 5 min and completely blanked out. The weirdest thing was when I looked at the time, I was gone for 2 hours?! Imagining that I was also thinking that I would wake up during the surgery with the anesthesia… Nope, I was totally knocked out. I also looked very fabulous when waking up, haha!
My gynaecologist told me that they had found endometriosis in my body, but they also removed it. There was an inflamed sphere of tissue the size of a table tennis ball next to my left ovary and some few other spots. I started crying because I knew all the drama and horrible situations my cousin had to go through with this illness…
I was so shocked, sad and angry although I actually didn’t even know what it all meant…
