Just two days before one of my best friend's wedding I started crying at work. My stomach hurt so much that if it had not literally been with me the whole day I would have thought I had been stabbed with a rusty knife.
An endometriosis flare up.
About 7 months earlier I had been diagnosed with endometriosis (on top of few other things), a chronic pain issue in which my endometrial tissue implants and grows in places it isn't supposed to. Not really a big deal. Nothing life threatening, except that a flare up hurts bad enough that I usually end up laying on my couch, contemplating my own death, for 4 to 5 days. When this happens, the internet is full of extremely helpful answers for dealing with the pain; electric heating pads, comfy sweatpants, and accepting that you will just have to cancel plans sometimes. That's all well and good, when you don't have a once in a lifetime event on your agenda when a flare up happens. I couldn't exactly call up the bride and say, "sorry, I actually won't be there Saturday." There was no way I was going to show up at the wedding in sweatpants and slippers, I didn't own any that matched the color scheme.
I took to the internet again, like a good millennial. Searching for some tips on how to live an active life during an endometriosis flare up. What could I do to mitigate the pain while I could barely stand up in pain?
Nothing. The internet is totally useless when it comes to refusing to accept the circumstances of endometriosis. The best advice I seem to be given is to just take time for myself when it hurts and accepting that I have to dive below most waves rather than trying to work and stand in them. Everything always seems to point to letting this thing control my life.
Well, I have never been particularly compliant. Most people use the word stubborn but the preferred term is headstrong. Nobody controls my life but me. Absolutely nothing gets to stop me from being part of some of the most important moments in mine and my friends lives. So, with the internet being unhelpful and my endometriosis app being even less so, I decided to do for myself. I didn't own any extension cords long enough to strap my heating pad under my dress and walk out into the meadow they planned for their wedding. Instead I found a pack of thermacare disposable heating pads to wear beneath my dress (pro tip: go with the neck ones and not the actual back pads. They stick to your skin rather than wrapping around and stay in place much better). I still had a few of the big pain pills from surgery left over. I took both and forced them to fit in the tiny clutch I planned to carry to the wedding. Beyond that the only other thing I could do was be stubborn.
Honestly, it was hard. It was a very long and very hard day but it was also a nice day of getting to celebrate two of my favorite people.
It is important to remember that we do not have control over our circumstances but that does not mean that they define us. No person is their illness. That is not their life. That is not my life and I will not allow it to control it.
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