Endometriosis - What a Pain!

When I was 21 I was diagnosed with endometriosis after many years of battling monthly pain and being told to get up and move around, exercise, it was all in my head and what-not. The pain was excruciating and no one seemed to understand what I was going through. It was definitely not in my head and it was becoming dehabilitating and causing me to miss work every month.

Once I went in for tests, an ultrasound showed a growth on my right ovary and a laparoscopy confirmed that I had stage 4 endometriosis. The doctor told me the severity of it and when I asked him if I would be able to have children, he just looked down and didn't answer me. I looked at him in horror and said "Are you trying to tell me I can't have kids?!!!" He said that it would be unlikely. It was horrible news for me to hear. After all, my only real dream in life was to get married and have children. I really wanted to be a mom. Now that dream was being ripped away from me, just months after I had committed my life to Christ. I was a single woman and now that I knew I might not be able to have kids, what man would want me? Certainly not any man who wanted to be a father.

I was so mad at God. I thought He would make my life better and little by little He was taking things away. I used to have plenty of dates and boyfriends and now no one was asking me out because I was a Christian. I remember standing out on my balcony one night and looking up at the sky and telling God off and flipping the bird. Looking back on it now, I realize that was an awful thing to do but I was a new Christian and my world was falling apart.

We were changing medical insurance carriers right at the time I was diagnosed and they weren't going to cover me for the $189/month drugs I would need to take for the next nine months. My employer was an awesome and compassionate man who had treated me well. He called the insurance rep and said that if they didn't cover me, he wouldn't go with them. Needless to say, they covered me and I began a nine month regimen of Danazol.

Danazol is a synthetic male steroid which shuts down the ovaries for a time so there is no monthy cycle and you go into a pseudo-menopause. It lowers the voice, causes a boxy hip/waist shape and for some women, reduces their breast size significantly. It puts on weight and changes the muscular structure so that it looks like you're working out and ripped even though I didn't do any additional exercise or weight training during the time I was on it. I really didn't want to go on the drug but that was the best option for me at the time. Some of the side effects can be permanent. I prayed that if God was going to cause me to feel like a dried up female that He at least would allow me to keep some boobs. He answered that prayer, but I have never been able to get back to the weight I was prior to Danazol. I can be the same size in clothes as someone else and weigh 15 pounds more than them due to the muscle structure change. I also lost the ability to sing and went from a soprano down to an alto/tenor range and my voice cracks while singing.

Over the course of nine months I discovered that several other women I knew were battling endometriosis. One women had a full hysterectomy in her early 30's and another one was on Danazol too. Finally there were some people who understood. I found out that one of my aunts had never had kids because she had been diagnosed in her 20's with endometriosis and had a hysterectomy. Endometriosis tends to run in families.

The Danazol did what it was supposed to do and the endometrioma on my right ovary shrunk to the size of an almond after four months and was gone completely after nine months. As a maintenance program, I went on a birth control pill, continually, for the next 9-10 years with six month breaks from the pill every three years. I was able to maintain a pain-free life for several more years by being on the pill, but weight gain continued to plague me.

Some good Christian men started asking me out but once I told them about the endometriosis and the possibility that I might not be able to have kids, they immediately dumped me. The rejection hurt me, a lot. I still wanted to be married, and I still wanted kids.

I went to a Bible study in 1986-1987 and the leader of the study sent me a postcard and it said "I believe that you will bear children someday." I still have that card. Once I was reading my Bible and came across Psalm 113:9 "He settles the barren woman happy in her home with children." The verse sparked hope in me and I claimed it.