Pain Without Pity: Society & Female Suffering
Ouch! Excruciating pain is spreading from the front of her pelvis to her back. She hasn’t even woken up yet. She decides against waking up. What’s the point, at least it’s dull now with the drowsiness. Balling her hand into a fist she tucks it under the right side of her back and leans onto it.
A fist or a fist!
External appeasement for the internal rigidity of ovaries and organs imploding and stretching into fibroids and complex cysts. The lining of the uterus that grows in places it’s not supposed to grow have been a lifelong battle. She finally has a name for it after 20 years, Endometriosis.
She keeps trying to disappear into sleep. Sweet relief comes in the form of sleep. It does more to knock her out than the pills. They take too long to kick in, if they do at all.
Chasing sleep, chasing unconsciousness, chasing a month without pain.
The pain is increasing the sleep is not coming. She’s feeling everything. She wonders why putting excruciating in front of the word pain hasn’t made a difference. It’s redundant she knows but pain seems to just be pain when you’re a woman so she tried.
Excruciating pain
She’s described her monthly experience to doctors and used it a few times but saying it’s excruciating pain has never changed the outcome. The male doctor is never moved. The female doctor is never educated on what to prescribe.
They all take cues from the pharmaceutical companies. Their solutions have the doctors’ attention.
So far, suppressing her hormones is their best advice. When she finds The Center for Endometriosis in a few years she’ll be glad she didn’t listen. They have no clue what to do with her pain, excruciating or not.
Turning to face the ceiling full of consciousness and reality she allows the tears to roll down the sides of her face. The things is, her period isn’t even here yet. It’s just letting her know it’s coming. The pain from all the things that are oversized and overgrown inside her have heated up and like a volcano it’s getting ready to erupt.
All this pain so the lava of her blood can spew and release itself from itself.
Her pain brings nausea which used to bring vomiting. The old holding of the toilet bowl intervals while collapsed on the floor. Scenes of a girl drunk on pain, begging painkillers to please work.
Mrs. Dismay’s daughter also goes through this or so she’s heard. They never talk about it. Word travels through circles but never directly, always the undertone of pity with lots of homemade remedies that might help.
No medical help, just hysterectomies and only after you have babies.
It’s normal to have pain every month as a woman. She balls her fist again and leans into her back to try once more to relieve the fist inside with her fist on the outside. It doesn’t work. Nothing works. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps.
Her pain is normal
It’s commonplace. Placing excruciating in front of the word pain makes no difference. Doctors aren’t moved, women have accepted it, men don’t care.
She puts on the TV to distract herself from this reality. A commercial for ED for hims. A discrete solution, it touts it’s progress. To solve erectile dysfunction so men don’t have to feel embarrassed even in addressing this issue. So their ego’s don’t have to face further humiliation. Even in accessing the solution.
She rolls over facing the army of painkillers and orange prescription bottles with wondering eyes.
Oxy, Percs, Aleve, Midol, Tylenol. Who’s next?
Resources for women with endometriosis include Nancy’s Nook on Facebook or Dr. Ken Sinervo’s Center for Endometriosis. Excision is the golden standard but it’s not always the end of the disease.
I’m not a doctor, just someone who has lived with the disease for a very long time. It’s scary painful and totally unacceptable that the medical community is so uneducated about a disease that affects so many women. Anyway, if you know someone experiencing painful periods don’t think of it as normal please. Female pain is real pain and should be addressed not normalized.
Thanks for reading!
