This may be a little graphic to some.
Read at your discretion.
2016
It’s been 2 years. Two long years since the cyst ruptured. Since they told me I was infertile. Since I was in extreme pain. Since they’ve suggested an oophorectomy. Since I felt like a lab rat. An oophorectomy y’all… they wanted to surgically remove my ovaries at 21…
Test. Ultrasound. Probe. Test. Ultrasound. Pills. Test. Ultrasound. Probe.
I was in pain and I didn’t know why. And I was in extreme pain around the times of my “menstrual cycle” or lack there of. At times I get the cramps and the pain but no bleeding. So I had vocalized that pain to my doctor. That I would be regular for a few months, then off for a few months then bleed for months. All while on birth control.
“That’s just what happens with birth control your body is adjusting to the hormonal changes… Would you like me to prescribe a pill with more progestin? Unfortunately , you can’t have the estrogen because your family has history of blood clots.”
I know I have some male readers and maybe some of my female readers may not know as well – so progestin is pretty much the synthetic version of the natural hormone progesterone. Progesterone is a female hormone (along side estrogen) that regulates menstrual cycles, prepares the body for pregnancy etc.
The pain continued so my doctor sent me to another doctor. Yay. We did this for almost a year before the cyst ruptured. Shit I didn’t even know I had multiple. I just told him something still wasn’t right, thinking to myself like “okay birth control is crazy but it shouldn’t do this…” and he sent me to somebody else who sent me to somebody else.
“We don’t see anything wrong.”
“Maybe the bleeding is from your method of birth control? Are you physically active? Are you an excessive drinker? Do you smoke?”
Of course these were questions that I had answers to, but none explained the extreme pressure I felt. I’d ask my doctors what could be done for the bleeding (at least solve that) but they’d suggest another birth control. Which did absolutely nothing. I’ve been on the patch, the pill, Depo, Implanon. Honestly every birth control BUT the IUD. (Personally, I’m terrified of it. So I never even consider that an option.) They’d send me to a gynecologist, the gynecologist would send me back to my primary care doctor and the primary care doctor would AGAIN suggest birth control. So I did. I got on the pills again. “Everything should be back to normal”, he said. Then for months I felt nothing. The bleeding stopped and I felt “normal”.
So I proceeded with life as normal – partying, sex, you know doing everything a 21 year old would do. But of all the things I did, the one thing that would bring this on again/off again pain to a head was a trip to Skyzone. FUCK-ING SKY-ZONE. Skyzone is a connected trampoline center so basically it’s a huge bounce house. Even there, I felt “normal” so I drove home and proceeded to shower. I started cramping and I’m just thinking it’s that pain — I must be about to come on or “fake come on”. I didn’t know it was fair game forreal. “Ok…let me lay down” and then it felt like I had been stabbed. That’s the best way of describing the pain — someone taking a knife to your womb.
I walked back to my bed and then I felt like another knife had punctured my pelvic area. I groaned, “What the fuck?” I laid there for about ten minutes cringing and gripping my lower stomach. Then instant tears. Something isn’t right. I dragged myself from my bed, down the stairs and out the front door to my car. Maybe I should’ve called the ambulance but I didn’t. Come on, don’t blame me – ambulance rides are like $600 plus. And I ain got it. And I know I probably shouldn’t have been driving and I also know I probably shouldn’t have ended up at… Johns Hopkins…on Orleans St. If you’re one of my Baltimore readers you already know how this is about to go. I was in so much pain and it was the closest hospital in distance. I parked and sat there for another 10 minutes, doubled over, deep breathing through the stabbing feeling. “Come on just get out the car”
After a few more moments, I walked into the emergency room. I sat in that emergency room from 11PM to 6AM — 6AM I got a room. The first thing they wanted to do was an ultrasound. “Uhhh. Fine”. I was so exhausted from hearing that. But it was quick. When the doctor came back she told me I had hemorrhagic cyst, so basically an ovarian cyst had ruptured. The shit exploded. That was the pressure. And I was bleeding internally. Ovarian cysts are common but I still couldn’t for the life of me understand how they didn’t know I had 6 of them on my ovaries.
“We need you to just sign off on these papers”, she said. “You’ll be getting a laparoscopic surgery this morning”
“Excuse me? A what?”
Some of you probably have never heard of PCOS.
So here we go… polycystic ovarian syndrome – also known as PCOS is one of the most common gland-related disorders in women of child bearing age [so basically 13ish-40ish but varies] and one of the most common causes of infertility. 1 in 10 women have PCOS and about 70% of women don’t know they even have it. Exactly what causes it is unknown. *hard eye roll* Sad to say — women’s health is not something the American healthcare system cares much about. Women are often at odds with combative doctors who don’t listen to them. And that’s me being nice I feel like doctors couldn’t give less fucks then the fucks they give now about women’s health. Because they give no fucks. Especially about reproductive health. Especially about black women’s reproductive health. You tell your doctor you feel something is wrong and they are dismissive or just plain ignorant to your gripe. So something like PCOS goes unnoticed for a long time — which sickens me. Women with PCOS will have higher risks of heart disease, stroke and other blood related diseases.
Bare with me this is part 1. There's more to the story.
Love Y’all + Stay Up,
Nise ♥
NisetheNatural 