Period Drama

A story of Me, My health & Healthcare

Statutory warning: the following content has lots of blood shed — After all it’s a PERIOD DRAMA (#PunIntended)

Hey! Wait, don’t leave, I am not here to make you awkward, on the contrary I am here to tell you why and how not to do exactly that.

Periods aka menstruation, even today is a taboo subject for a lot of people. Mix that with the complications of PCOD or PCOS and we are ready for a rollercoaster ride of misinformation, miscommunication and a lifetime of messy periods.

Fact check-

PCOS is an endocrine system disorder while PCOD is a condition developed by hormonal imbalance.

‘One of every three women suffers from PCOD ’.

I am one of those; one on the extreme end, since I was 10.

My Childhood memories include less of school, friends or fun but more of doctor visits, period pain and blood (lots of blood)!

All the ladies reading this, recall when did you get your first periods?

Well, I got them when I was 10; if that was not abnormal enough my periods seem to follow their own schedule like appearing and disappearing whenever they liked or simply sticking by for a whole year. I was so young that I didn’t even know that wasn’t normal! The irregularities, the bloodshed and the constant hormonal uproar robbed all my innocence away. I transitioned from toys to painkillers and meds so quickly that the only memories I have of that time are of waiting rooms at the gynecologists and those dreadful conversations with the doctors.

(Please Note: The trauma is not as much from the dreadful medications that were pumped through me, but is rather from the experiences with the system that still haunt me)

Conversations I had were like:

“Dont lie, you are exaggerating!” — My Doctor

“Don’t worry, you still have a chance at pregnancy”

“You need to get her married as soon as she turns 18”

“That’s not even possible…What did you do?”

“Hormones are the only way- you have to take steroids”

Instead of holding my hand and telling the 12 year old me, ‘don’t worry we will help you through this. Please don’t be scared you will be fine. This is how you manage your situation and lead a normal childhood.’

Most of my doctors were concerned about irrelevant topics like, pregnancy, marriage, having children and how that was my only solution! I was 12 for god’s sake!! I didn’t care about those things then nor do I today. It was like my life didn’t matter to them… all that mattered was how I could propagate and keep my better half happy (Who didn’t even exist at that point! And the matter of the fact that if I don’t live there won’t be any!!LOL).

From Good Touch and Bad Touch, it was down to nurses and doctors asking me to undress for sonograms at the age when your self esteem is already playing games with you, the lines between diagnostics and molestation were getting blur.

If it wasn’t for my parents who normalised my condition, educated me thoroughly and equipped me emotionally and physically to deal with it, I would have never coped.

I am not saying that the healthcare professionals were not looking out for me, yes they were but there was no empathy. My condition aggravated with stress and the emotional turmoil didn’t help the cause at all.

Magic after 15 years!

Until I met this amazing doctor who not only explained to me my disorder and found the root cause of it but also helped me make lifestyle changes and gave emotional support, that I realised the power of empathy in healing!

She was the first one to ask me about my life plans and helped me achieve them by providing the right medical and emotional support. She was the first one to tell me that I could do whatever I liked, I could pursue a sport if I wanted to and not worry about the bleeding, or I could fly to a completely different country to study, work and live on my own while managing my condition.

It’s been 19 years that I have been a PCOD patient, the disorder doesn’t go away but my doctor taught me to accept, and conquer it. She helped me get off my medication and still be able to manage my condition. It took me 15 years of medicinal abuse and multiple doctors to finally meet a healthcare professional who cared about me and my goals more than fixing my system. (For 15 years they gave me contraceptive hormones so that I could get my periods regularly, but that was just a facade, it was not improving the condition of my ovaries at all, it just gave an illusion that I had a normal cycle)

That is when I realised that this magic is called ‘empathy’ and healthcare can be a happy space too!

All of these experiences ignited a passion in me towards making healthcare a happy experience. After all, you go to a doctor to lessen the pain and not aggravate it. Why can’t waiting rooms, healthcare professions and facilities be a more assuring, happy experience?

What did I do with my newfound passion?

Well, I started Nth Sense, a platform where we focus on empathy, patient satisfaction and transparency to help bridge the gap between the healthcare professionals and the patients with effective communication. At Nth Sense we put you the patient first, so that no 10 year old goes through all this ever again.

Only if the doctors would have treated me with more empathy keeping away the feminine concerns, it would have spared me 15 years of trauma, emotional as well as physical!

Well, this was just an overview. The last 19 years have been a hilarious ride of the medical system with eye-opening situations that deepen my belief in the need of empathy as part of patient engagement. Watch this space for some mindbogelling experiences behind the hospital doors!

Author — Nidhi Gopiani
Co-Founder, Nth Sense