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Sparkle (1)
Before you go running for the antibacterial wipes I just want to let you know that I’m not contagious. What I have is not catching. What I’m about to relay will not travel through your computer’s innards as a deadly Trojan virus or spread through the air like an uncovered sneeze. It’s called stage IV endometriosis and according to the information traffic jam, over 70 million women around the world live with it every day and, I’m guessing another 50 million or so women don’t even know they have it. Those women are probably lying on the bathroom floor right now, gritting their teeth, clutching their wombs while saying, “What the Fuck!?” and praying for the strength to live through the next couple of days.
So what is endometriosis?
I usually tell people, strictly out of exhaustion, that it’s a “girlie” disease. This comes from being raised in a household where you don’t talk about stuff like this. If by some circumstance of extreme horror a particularly cute boy asks, I worry that he thinks I have funky bacteria of the hoo-ha and imagine him running home to Google. A medical professional might say something resembling a foreign language like, “endometriosis is a disease in which the lining of the uterus grows outside of the uterus so that when one menstruates this displaced tissue bleeds as well, but has nowhere to go, thereby causing pain, infertility and various other problems.”
That is, when it’s been diagnosed. Unfortunately there is no diagnosis without actually opening ‘er up and going in by laser, chunky dagger, or perhaps heading up there with an extraordinarily long tube the length and width of an elephant’s trunk. Those of us who have been diagnosed would describe it by asking you to imagine the worst pain you’ve ever felt multiplied by 108. We sufferers would not say, “endometrium lining has moved into our bowels.” We would say, “I think I might shit my pants at any moment,” or, “my anus is falling out.” Those of us “blessed” by it would NOT say, “endometriosis causes painful intercourse.” Rather we would calmly ask our partners to “put that thing back immediately,” or say, “I’ve made up the bed in the guest room.”
For me, endometriosis pain is the kind of pain that hunches you over, makes you nauseous, causes sweat to bead on your upper lip, and forces you to bed. Frankly, pain is difficult to describe, and when people ask what it feels like, I tell them to imagine a three inch tall Benihana griddle chef. Yeah, that’s right, and this knife wielding guru is standing there at the prep station in his white toque, with a red kerchief tied around his neck, and he has my ovary, fallopian tube, uterus, <insert pained womanly part here> pulsating in front of him and he’s poking, stabbing, slicing, dicing, said part before squeezing it dry and placing it on the scalding hot grill where it proceeds to sizzle and pop. To say one suffers from endometriosis is to say “Oh, I stubbed my toe.” So let’s just say I’ve been stubbing my toe for the past twelve years.
Broaching the topic
Before we venture further, I think it’s important to address the fact that few people want to hear that you’re sick, period. It makes people extremely uncomfortable and I’ve seen people act against their normal compassionate nature when talking about illness of any kind. Some folks gloss over it and pretend they didn’t hear you, others rapidly change the subject, and still others will actually cut you off and physically step away. I’ve come to the realization that we’re not so far removed from animals in this regard. Weed out the weakest, the sick, leave them to die, hunt them down and put them out of their misery. Not to mention that our society doesn’t look kindly upon weakness of any kind. So imagine adding the terms: vagina, blood, uterus, and cramps to the equation, you’re pretty much pushing people beyond their limits to cope. It’s better that I don’t say a word, or that I just
