“Please can you send an ambulance – my wife is in so much pain she’s been vomiting and has now passed out.” “Yes, right away. Does she have any underlying conditions?” “Endometriosis.
” In my case, they cannot send anyone. “We would advise a hot water bottle and a bath.” The phone line goes dead.
It’s almost impossible to articulate the intensity of chronic pain when it’s been part of your life, day in, day out, with episodes like the above being the norm for more than 30 years. I was 11 when my period started, an age when the only thing you should be caring about is what homework you have to complete and who is hosting the sleepover that weekend. To have the arrival of any change at a young age is already daunting, but the additional, unexpected, excruciating agony I experienced – mixed with the chaos new hormones can bring – was overwhelming.
The confusion over why my period pains seemed so much worse than my friends’ carried on for the next 10 years. Ten years of being rushed to the hospital every few months because no one, particularly the doctors, understood how someone so seemingly fit and healthy could be in such debilitating pain. I lost count of the number of times nurses, friends and family told me, “It’s just your period” or, “It can’t be as bad as you are making out.
” To anyone even thinking these words, let alone uttering them, I want to say this: women know our bodies. We don’t want to be in pain. When we say it, take u.