The War Inside My Womb

When I woke up from surgery yesterday, I knew it had been bad. The pain was unlike anything I had felt before. I was shaking and crying, and it took two hours and so much pain relief before things finally settled. Last night, I still couldn’t sleep. The pain was so heavy that I woke every five to ten minutes, trying to find even a sliver of comfort.

This morning, my doctor came to see me. He began by saying, almost casually, that “I’ll be honest with you, I hadn’t expected to find much”. But then his tone shifted. “Far out though,” he said, “there was a quicker regrowth than I anticipated.” What he found shocked him. There was quite a large amount of endometriosis regrowth. Both of my ovaries had been stuck down by endometriosis. The disease had grown deep and aggressively, especially around the bowel area. On top of that, there was a lot of free fluid and blood that had to be suctioned out.

The surgery took longer than expected because there was simply so much to clear. Out of all my operations, this has been the biggest endometriosis surgery I’ve had. The scale of it explained the agony I had been in, and why the recovery already feels so brutal.

Hearing all of that was both validating and devastating. Validating, because it proved what I already knew that my pain was never in my head, never exaggerated, never “just period pain.” But devastating, because it showed how relentless this disease really is, how quickly it takes over, how little time it gives you before it returns.

Still, I feel relief. Relief that it was found. Relief that it was removed. Relief that the battle I’ve been fighting inside my body was finally seen for what it truly is.

Endometriosis is a lifelong illness. I know this won’t be the last challenge, and maybe not even the last surgery. But for today, I am holding on to the fact that I made it through. I am sore, I am exhausted, I am broken open in more ways than one, but I am also still here. And with that comes hope… hope for more days without this level of pain, hope for moments where I can just be myself again, hope for more life to live beyond this disease.