Endometriosis Narrative

When I was twenty-three years of age, I was newly engaged to a wonderful man and starting a career in Cosmetology. I was also experiencing severe hot flashes, brittle bones, panic attacks, hair loss and mood swings, thanks to a new drug called Zoladex. This hormone therapy put me in the throes of what my doctor called “fake menopause”, and made me feel like a stranger in my own body. Before I went into hormone therapy, I had undergone a laparoscopic surgery to determine an endometriosis diagnosis. My doctor at the time told me the recovery would be quick (a few days), and rather painless (should be fine with Tylenol, he said), but he seriously underestimated on both counts. Two days after the surgery, I was in the emergency room with an infection,

I had add-back therapy now so the hot flashes subsided, but my migraines were more frequent, the mood swings were more severe, and the pain was much worse. I am not an emotional person by nature, but I was crying sporadically and getting angry intermittently; it was impossible to focus. No matter what evidence I found online that Lupron’s side effects surpassed the misery of Endometriosis symptoms, my doctor insisted we continue until I was ready to try and conceive. We were in no way prepared for a child, and we weren’t even sure if we wanted one just yet, but we gave in to my doctor’s plan. When faced with such uncertainty, what can you do? I became pregnant after completing the first cycle of Lupron, and we allowed ourselves to get excited as a couple. Though we weren’t sure of how it would work, we figured it was a good sign. The false hope we had only lasted until the week of my first sonogram. I was spotting and cramping, so I called my doctor, who then admitted she hadn’t viewed the sonogram, even though it had been sent over almost a week earlier. She called me back to confirm the lack of heartbeat, and prescribed me medication to induce bleeding. My fiancée was completely heart-broken, and I felt for him more than the loss I should have been