Health and Disability

I’m in pain all the time. Every single day I wake up and my pelvis is heavy, a giant, throbbing ache. No matter how I sit, or lay, or walk, or stretch, it feels like there’s a jagged rock hanging from the fibrous hinges inside of me, the ligaments overstretched, tearing with white-hot pain.

It twinges and stabs, it nauseates me and exhausts me. It’s been part of my life for five years. Five years. For five years I’ve been dragging it around with me, reluctantly having to introduce it as part of myself.

Like most chronic illnesses, Endometriosis doesn’t like to be lonely; women with Endometriosis are more likely to have an autoimmune disease.

Excruciating conditions like interstitial cystitis, bowel disorders and infertility may even be caused by Endometriosis.

I’ve long suspected an underlying autoimmune process in my case, as does my doctor, who thinks the root may be in my adrenals, Addison’s maybe.

As if the Endometriosis on its own wasn’t significant enough; especially with the new research that links the disease with increased risk of heart disease.

Something that I’m already genetically predestined for: my great-grandmother, her mother and her grandmother all died of heart disease at exactly 70 years old.