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Now on to this week’s musings…
Two weeks ago, after more than three years of fighting a broken health care system that doesn’t respond to women’s health issues, I had major surgery to remove endometriosis.
Mine is a common story. I started getting symptoms about five years ago. Pain, longer and heavier menstrual cycles, more pain. I ignored them because women are brought up believing periods are painful and you just get on with it. Then my symptoms got worse. Early in the pandemic the pain got so bad that I couldn’t stand up, and so I rang my GP. Who saw me despite Covid, referred me for an ultrasound, and prescribed strong painkillers. I got the ultrasound, and it came back clean, so I took the painkillers and tried to get on with life.
But the pain kept getting worse, and lasting longer, until I only had a single week a month without pain. It was exhausting, emotionally and physically. I was sent for another ultrasound. Once again, the ultrasound showed nothing and so the GP advised taking the contraceptive pill.
Thankfully, at around this time that I happened to visit a doctor friend of mine while on my period. She was deeply worried by what she saw and told me to ring my GP once again. She told me to ask for a referral for a laparoscopy, because, it turns out, endometriosis is rarely visible on an ultrasound. Having a doctor tell me I was entitled to ask for something that might actually diagnose my condition empowered me. I got the referral and then spent over a year on a waiting list. It would have been longer, but I started to bleed fortnightly despite taking the pill and the change in symptoms worried the folks at the gynaecology department.
Turns out doctors don’t like your symptoms changing.
Finally, in April this year I had a diagnostic laparoscopy, and a very lovely surgeon who put me at ease with typography jokes, took photographs of my insides. The photographs showed endometriosis spreading everywhere.
After a follow up consultation, an MRI, another wait, and a hormone jab with menopause like side effects later, I finally had my operation. Which thankfully went as well as it possibly could, with the surgeon able to remove all the endometriosis without having to remove any part of my bowel, bladder, or womb. Once I recover from surgery, I should finally be pain free.
I said this is a common story. The only thing about my story that is uncommon is that it only took three and a half years to treat after my first conversation with a GP. For many women, endometriosis can go undiagnosed for far longer, often crippling their lives or resulting in a hysterectomy that could have been avoided. Like most women’s health issues it is criminally under researched, undiagnosed, and uncared for.
I am so grateful to the first GP who took me seriously enough to see me in person during a pandemic. And eternally grateful to my friend for taking one look at me and refusing to allow my pain to continue. Before this journey started I didn’t know what endometriosis was. Ever since I was diagnosed I’ve met so many women who have either suffered from it themselves or whose sisters, mothers, best friends have had it.
Something so common being so commonly missed or ignored is criminal and sexist. It needs to change.
Yesterday was Halloween, my favourite holiday of the year. I was in too much pain to do much so I celebrated with excellent movies: Nightmare before Christmas (the only film that can be appropriately watched during two holidays), Coraline (one of the greatest stop motion films of all time), and Edward Scissorhands (which I hadn’t watched for years and remains a masterpiece).
I also celebrated by creating healing pumpkin magic: a rabbit (or hare) and a moon.
In many cultures around the world the rabbit or the hare are associated with abundance, fertility, transformation, overcoming fears, new beginnings, and creating your dreams. They are also often associated with the moon, which for obvious reasons is physically and spiritually connected to women’s menstrual cycles.
Halloween, All Hallows, Samhain, Día de Muertos. However your culture celebrates October 31st and November 1st have huge importance and meaning throughout history and across the world. It is a time when the walls between worlds are thin, when we celebrate our dead, and the changing of the seasons. For Pagan peoples across Britain, it was and remains an important celebration: the end of harvest season and the passage into winter. It was the Celtic New Year, as summer was left behind and the darker half of the year began.
So, though I couldn’t celebrate as I might usually, Halloween seemed the perfect moment for quiet healing focus, for calling on rabbit and the moon to help me. Pumpkin carving seemed the perfect way to do this. I love pumpkin carving and always have. It feels important, special, like I am creating something powerful. Yesterday I harnessed that feeling for my own healing.
I look forward to a proper Samhain celebration next year. For now, I find joy and comfort in my pumpkin healing magic.
Wish me a speedy recovery and I will write again in a fortnight. Though paid subscribers can read on for this month’s Photo from the Archives...
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