Disclaimer: I am no way affiliated with, supported by, or under the duress of the Center for Endometriosis Care.
I'm an over-dramatic person in all aspects of my life, except when it comes to my health. When I was diagnosed with a heart condition at 15, I thought, "cool". My parents were petrified, and 5 years later my Mom still didn't want me to ride a roller coaster at Universal Studios.
When my doctor found the cyst on my ovary I thought, "crap, I'm gonna have to take that final exam early!". And when he explained the severity of my endometriosis I thought, "I feel justification for complaining about the pain all this time".
I am a professional worrier. I hear it comes with the extra-X chromosome territory. I worry about Brint getting into a car accident while commuting to and from work, or him getting run over by a piece of equipment on the job, and more recently about earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods. The exception to my worrying? My own health.
All last year when I was in terrible pain, I never worried about what it meant. I think the pain became the norm, so I mentally discarded it. In fact, I never would have sought out a new doctor in this region if the symptoms had not begun affecting my marriage. When sex became painful, I knew I had to do something. I could handle the pain, but it wasn't fair for my husband and my marriage to suffer.
But now I'm beginning to worry about all of that pain that I ignored. Doctors don't know if pain = active endometrial growth. Maybe it does. If so, then I have reason to be concerned. When left unchecked, endometriosis can bind internal organs together so tightly that doctors can do nothing about it. The uterus can fold over onto itself permanently. The fallopian tubes can become fused to the ovaries.
In an attempt to find answers about the meaning of the pain, I found the Center of Endometriosis Care website. It's located in Atlanta, but it doesn't matter if you're local or not. They offer a FREE service to women to review medical records (even women who haven't received a formal endo diagnosis) and provide recommendations for how to move forward based on those records. You just send them your information, they request your information from your doctor(s), and then the doctor calls you after reviewing the information. Ladies- take advantage of this! I plan on doing so this week. I'm not comfortable asking my doctor point-blank for another surgery. But I really want to know to know the extent of my disease after nearly 2 years of hormone therapy.
If you have endometiosis, or think you might - give them a call! It doesn't cost a thing, and being proactive with this disease is imperative to living a well-balanced life.
