Page 12 - March 2021 Issue.indd

symptom of this horrible disease and endo take over any more of my life than
that I was not alone. it already had.

It takes years for most women with this There are still days when I am in so much
disease to get diagnosed. I had the fi rst pain and it breaks my heart because I
of 12 surgeries and was diagnosed with feel like my family and friends have to
Stage 4 endometriosis. I was so thank- pay for what this disease has done to
ful I finally had an answer and could me. I was angry for a long time that it
hopefully begin treating it. During the took so long to get a diagnosis because
Endometriosis surgery they burned off the endometrio- maybe the outcome would be diff erent.

Month sis that they could see and that would Maybe I wouldn’t have all of the other
help for a little while but then the pain health issues I have that are related to
A Personal Story would come back. The pain feels like my endometriosis. There are days that

someone is carving out your insides I sit and cry because I want to have a
By Shannon Pinder Hannawald
while stabbing you with thousands of normal life. I want to be able to get out
I am 1 in 10. I am the 1 in 10 who has knives in your ovaries. of bed every day and play with my kids
been diagnosed with endometriosis. One of the biggest problems with endo- and go to work and do normal things
When I was around 15 years old, I metriosis is infertility which was crush- that everyone else does, but I can’t. I can’t
started having horrible lower abdominal ing to me because I always wanted to stand for long periods of time or clean

pain and the first diagnosis I received be a mom. By the grace of God I was the house all in one day without having
was ovarian cysts that were rupturing. I able to have my first son in 2006 and to lay around for a few days to make the
had surgery to remove my appendix so the doctors said that my endometriosis pain level go down.
that if it happened again, we would know should get better because pregnancy I’ve spent years going to a ton of doctors
exactly what the pain was. However, it normally helps with that but that did to get help and answers but unfortu-
wasn’t that easy because the pain got not happen, it just got worse. Over the nately I’ve found that I have known more
worse and spread to more areas just not next ten years, I went to so many doctors than most of them. When the pain is
the one spot.
I lost count trying to find answers as unbearable, I end up in the hospital and
My parents would take me to the doctor to why I was still in so much pain and I have doctors come in and ask me ques-
and the emergency room, but every nothing seemed to help. It was ten times tions about endometriosis which I think
time they would say they couldn’t fi nd worse during my menstrual cycle as it is is completely unacceptable. I should not
anything. Over the years I lost count of for most women. know more than someone in the medical

the number of ultrasounds and CAT This disease took so much from me field when it comes to a disease that so
scans I had. The doctors kept telling my during that time. I lost friends and many women have. I have made myself

parents there was nothing wrong. I felt missed important events with my family a promise to educate, raise awareness,

so alone because I knew I was in excru- and best friends because I couldn’t and raise financial support to make sure
ciating pain; pain that cost me living get out of bed. I got married in 2015 that no other girl or woman has to go
the life of a teenager like my friends. It and we decided we wanted to have a through what I’ve been through over
affected my mental health because at child. We knew this was not going to the last 20 years.
this point nobody believed me and my be easy because of the endometriosis Endometriosis is medically defined
parents thought I was just making it up and because the older you are with this as: a disorder in which the tissue that
to get out of school. I think that was disease the harder it is to get pregnant. normally lines the uterus grows outside
probably one of the lowest points of my We went to fertility doctors and we got of the uterus and it can be found on the
life as I was not only in so much pain but pregnant with our first baby in Octo- ovaries, fallopian tubes or the intestines.

my family didn’t believe me.
ber of 2016 and then lost the baby nine Newer research has also found it on

I spent five years living with this pain weeks later. It was so devastating that the brain and lungs. Endometriosis is
emotionally, mentally and physically. again this disease had taken something one of the silent diseases that aff ects so
When I was 20, I went to a different from me. We tried again and got preg- many girls and women and some have
doctor and I explained my pain to him nant in April of 2017 and our baby was no idea they have it. Some women do
and right away he was positive I had born in November of 2017, seven weeks not experience any pain or any other

endometriosis. The only way to diagnose early. The doctors said if we tried to symptoms and do not find out they have

endometriosis is through laparoscopic have another one, they didn’t know what it until they are unable to conceive. Over
surgery and not one doctor had even the outcome would be and I would be the year’s, endometriosis has become
considered this. After some research, extremely high risk so I had to have a
I realized I basically had every single hysterectomy to try and not have the (continued)

Governor Hogan will be lighting the State House yellow on March 5th for Endometriosis Awareness
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