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I was 15 and in the form two when I got my first bout. It was painful. When I talked to my mother about it, she gave me pain medication and told me it was normal. that we just made a woman.
Every month from now on, it was the same story of menstruation accompanied by many pains. The pain was so great: it allowed me to feel paralyzed as I lost the lessons.
My father took me to school one day closer to home fearing I did not like school. I just did not understand why I would lose classes.
But I moved to a different school I did not do the trick: I could not go to school for seven days during the menstrual period.
The pain that accompanied menstruation was so great – Penetrate my bones. I felt it on my feet. I could not walk.
My dad then took me to a foster home away from home, hoping the distance would make me "love school and be present in every lesson."
Nothing changed. Every month, I was in serious pain that did not allow me to do much – let alone concentrate on the classroom.
I finished high school and went to university. There, my friends said the pain would disappear over time. I was told (even by some women in my family) that the pain would only stay after my first baby.
At some point I told myself the pain I felt that could not be normal. I started going to the hospitals. I hit almost all the big doors of private and public hospitals in Nairobi.
There are doctors who have treated me for urinary tract infection and those who think getting pregnant would have my pain.
The pain began to take a toll on me mentally and there were times we encountered for depression.
Doctors did not diagnose the problem correctly, so they were cured for illness I did not have. As this happened, my situation worsened.
Removal of my intestines and urination became painful. The pain struck my body from the basin to the end.
After nearly 10 years of misdiagnosis and bottles of painkillers, anti-inflammatory and antibiotics, they all got to bad in 2015 when we walked in the middle of the streets in Nairobi.
I woke up at Aga Khan University Hospital. The doctor who handled my case has referred me to a gynecologist who told me he would give me a proper diagnosis.
The gynecologist did the examinations – including laparoscopic surgery.
"You have endometriosis," the doctor said. He continued to explain that I have a phase of four endometriosis (I think about it as the stage of four cancer): the worst type of endometriosis.
At that time I was in a stable relationship. We lived together – almost like a husband.
When my friend heard the diagnosis and learned that the disease had no cure and that it could leave me sterile, she wanted out. Our relationship is over.
I was placed in menopausal medication to stop menstruation. But that did not work.
I was still in pain. I was constantly tired. The medicine I was playing with allowed me to feel fuller. And it affected me psychologically. I tried to commit suicide three times.
One of these times I managed a drug cocktail. I survived. The most lively effort in my mind is the time I went to Matatu with the Athi River.
I was a spiritual wreck. I did not know why I was going where I was going. I remember going to a place I did not know. I wanted to cross the road while a car that ran was close enough to crash me dead. My car was missing with a mustache.
I remember someone who cried abuses to me to be reckless. I started to cry. Someone from a construction site approached and approached me.
They asked me what was wrong with me. They took me to a priest. In the evening the priest called my mother and then I explained what happened.
Endometriosis also cost me four jobs. I lost a job in 2013. In 2014 I lost two jobs that I had successfully requested. And in 2015 I resigned (and I traveled home to live with my mother) from a job I had held since 2014, because I was often sick and could not perform as I wanted.
Life seemed very bleak. Once, as I did an internet research on Endo, I came to Kenya's Endometriosis Foundation. I joined the team.
For the first time I was surrounded by women who could relate to what I was passing through. My morale was strengthened.
We ended up returning to Nairobi and returning to the hospital. We went through four surgeries. The latest surgery revealed that the disease had spread to the ovaries, the intestines, the bladder, the diaphragm and many other sites in the pelvic cavity.
That was when I decided to fight the disease with all the fibers in my body. I went online and talked to doctors from India, Dubai, Zimbabwe and other countries who could help.
I especially liked a process called "exision" that I found online. It is a surgical procedure that was only available abroad and which was much more successful than any other way of dealing with endometriosis.
Finally, at the beginning of 2018, I came to a doctor in Romania who was working on a plant that involved endometriosis. He said I could travel to make him do the process.
The only obstacle was that I needed a lot of money for air tickets and treatment and my safety could not cover that.
I took my savings and secured a Sh800,000 loan and I traveled to Romania in May 2018. The doctor had a resection (removal of endometriosis) from my pelvic region. I came back for my next appointment last October. This time the excision was done by my diaphragm – just below my lungs.
It's been five months and I have no pain.
My doctor warned me that it could be resumed in about 10 years. I hope not.
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CrampsEndometryLinda Nyadero
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