Health
Endo is more than “bad periods.” Whether you’re seeking a diagnosis, recovering from surgery, or managing chronic pain at work and home — you belong here.
The HR portal. A dropdown that wanted a category. I was not sending a one-line that I could not sit upright. I was trying to get a Tuesday at home onto a calendar that only knows sick hours. Status: pending. The form does not have a box for a flare week. Did anyone else try to pu...
Flare day. Heating pad, nausea, the kind of pain that makes you breathe weird. I called in sick. My manager replied "again?" with a question mark — like I'm choosing this. I sent a one-line "I can't sit upright today" and felt like I was oversharing just to be believed. Still wai...
In the car I almost said the word. Then I talked myself back into a bad period. The phone offered a quiz. I did not tap it. I do not have a tidy third thing the lists want. I have pain that wrecks a day and a story that still sounds ordinary when I say it out loud. Did anyone els...
The letters were already on the chart. Then they asked if I had thought about getting pregnant — like that was the next treatment. I had come in for pain. Paper gown, a plot I had not brought. I am not holding a stick tonight. I am sitting with a sentence that turned the visit in...
The tech turned the screen. Gel still in my hairline when the printer started. Unremarkable uterus and ovaries — that was the whole paragraph. In the hallway someone said if it was endometriosis they would see it. I put the disc in the paper sleeve on the passenger seat and sat w...
The third time they said it was a normal period I stopped bringing the list. Years of that sentence. A pill that quieted some of it and never named it. I left with the same word I came in with: periods. I have the letters now. I still hear the filing. Did “just periods” keep show...
Urgent care. Dipstick. Negative. I had already left the toilet twice in the parking lot. Period week the urgency is a different clock. They still handed me the UTI sentence. I am not here to sort a culture. I am here because a clean stick did not match the morning. Did a clean di...
Three months. Frozen peas. A pull I used to know before they wheeled me in. The discharge folder is still in the kitchen drawer — they treated what they found, neat handwriting, a date. I am not opening it to shop a second operation. I am standing under fluorescent light with a b...
Yesterday’s jeans. This morning the button was a different conversation. Not soft bloating I can ignore — a hard front I cannot hide in a waistband. People still say ordinary bloating. Mine looks like I borrowed someone else’s month. Did the belly change like that for anyone else...
The pain is quiet today. The laundry is not. One wet towel went back in the drum because the basket by the door was too far. Last visit they asked about the cramps. They did not ask about the sofa. Did the tiredness show up as the whole day for anyone else — on a day the pain was...
Two PDFs. Different logos. The first visit left me with endometriosis like a finished sentence. Weeks later someone circled the muscle of the uterus on the screen and used a word I googled in the parking lot with the engine still running. Adenomyosis. It sounded like they had swa...
After, I sat on the edge of the bed until the room went ordinary again. We stopped in the middle. The next visit asked how my periods were. Nobody asked about this. I did not volunteer it. It felt like a different kind of private than cramps. Did the pain show up in sex for anyon...
They took the uterus. A cousin said that would be the end of it. There is no period to point at. The pull is still in the same place. The scar is a thin line I can ignore. The map underneath is not. Did the “they took it out” sentence show up for anyone else — while the map did n...
Period week I sit on the closed lid first. Sitting down onto the bowl is the part that tears. The GI visit had a Bristol chart and a sentence about fiber. Nobody asked what week it was. A later scope was “reassuring.” The stall on day two of a bleed is not reassuring. Did the toi...
Fourteen months without a period. Someone said menopause would starve it. The heating pad is still on the reading chair. I am not in a client meeting. I am not waiting on a date. The calendar is empty in a different way than a Tuesday with a cycle still underneath. Did anyone els...
