Going with the Flow: A Story of Menorrhagia
"CRIMSON TIDE"
In the middle of the night I wake with a pulse in my abdomen so painful I writhe in bed for hours wondering how to relieve the spasms; or I rise in the tenebrosity of my abode—anguished, bleeding, a wounded animal seeking solace. Until dawn I lay perspiring on the sofa, towels laid with little assurance that crimson will eschew leather.
What if I was shipwrecked in shark-infested waters where, bleeding profusely, I’d become bait?
It’s morning and I’m biding my time. Inside my uterus there’s a blood bath—blood, tissues, and any vigor I had for life.
Anywhere I sit gets drenched with blood. If I stand, I’m brought to my knees by the agony. If I eat a few morsels, it regurgitates and makes itself known. I try meditating but any semblance of sanity dissipates.
And then my crimson tide recedes. By noon my pain escapes my memory. After all, I’ve been performing this dance for six years now. I attend my classes. I go to work. My manager says I need to smile for the customers. A smile appears, Cheshire-like. He scoffs. Just before returning home, I head to the elderly aisle and purchase a plethora of adult diapers and bed pads. Maybe tonight my sheets will survive.
A female-specific disease like mine bestows meaning to the words “mixed personalities.”
"UNCHARTED"
This female-specific disease of mine, menorrhagia, is no longer medically recognized by this term as doctors as female pain is so often ignored. While doctors have finally agreed that period pain can be as painful as a heart attack, they are reluctant to acknowledge the validity of a disease if they cannot diagnose it. It started with bleeding continuously for a month and an eventual hemoglobin level of seven, two values away from heart failure and death. That is what was needed for them to realize the validity of my suffering.
Menorrhagia affects more than ten million American women each year. Therefore, approximately tens of millions of American women wake with their sheets soaked and pelvis ablaze: Considering how it’s regarded by society, menstrual bleeding is a visible yet somehow invisible chronic disease. Imagine how society would differ if this multitude—ten million women of all ages and backgrounds—demanded society to acknowledge their affliction.
As any women said to have mixed personalities knows, the resources of those close to us are scant. Family members do not know how to help, friends hear the same complaints daily, and healthcare workers do not take you seriously. Eventually, the afflicted woman believes it is all in her head. And it is this diagnosis—referring women for psychological evaluations before even addressing physical symptoms—that leaves women to suffer in the shadows.
The awareness of menorrhagia has been shrouded from the public eye for being such a common chronic condition in women. Is this disease so foreboding to our healthcare system it must be cast into the abyss? Is its interminable continuity cloaked with the term “abnormal menstrual bleeding” to trivialize a disease belonging to the one-third of the female sex?
In the middle of the night I wake with a pulse in my abdomen so painful I writhe in bed for hours wondering how to relieve the spasms; or I rise in the tenebrosity of my abode—anguished, bleeding, a wounded animal seeking solace. Until dawn I lay perspiring on the sofa, towels laid with little assurance that crimson will eschew leather.
What if I was shipwrecked in shark-infested waters where, bleeding profusely, I’d become bait?
It’s morning and I’m biding my time. Inside my uterus there’s a blood bath—blood, tissues, and any vigor I had for life.
Anywhere I sit gets drenched with blood. If I stand, I’m brought to my knees by the agony. If I eat a few morsels, it regurgitates and makes itself known. I try meditating but any semblance of sanity dissipates.
And then my crimson tide recedes. By noon my pain escapes my memory. After all, I’ve been performing this dance for six years now. I attend my classes. I go to work. My manager says I need to smile for the customers. A smile appears, Cheshire-like. He scoffs. Just before returning home, I head to the elderly aisle and purchase a plethora of adult diapers and bed pads. Maybe tonight my sheets will survive.
A female-specific disease like mine bestows meaning to the words “mixed personalities.”
"UNCHARTED"
This female-specific disease of mine, menorrhagia, is no longer medically recognized by this term as doctors as female pain is so often ignored. While doctors have finally agreed that period pain can be as painful as a heart attack, they are reluctant to acknowledge the validity of a disease if they cannot diagnose it. It started with bleeding continuously for a month and an eventual hemoglobin level of seven, two values away from heart failure and death. That is what was needed for them to realize the validity of my suffering.
Menorrhagia affects more than ten million American women each year. Therefore, approximately tens of millions of American women wake with their sheets soaked and pelvis ablaze: Considering how it’s regarded by society, menstrual bleeding is a visible yet somehow invisible chronic disease. Imagine how society would differ if this multitude—ten million women of all ages and backgrounds—demanded society to acknowledge their affliction.
As any women said to have mixed personalities knows, the resources of those close to us are scant. Family members do not know how to help, friends hear the same complaints daily, and healthcare workers do not take you seriously. Eventually, the afflicted woman believes it is all in her head. And it is this diagnosis—referring women for psychological evaluations before even addressing physical symptoms—that leaves women to suffer in the shadows.
The awareness of menorrhagia has been shrouded from the public eye for being such a common chronic condition in women. Is this disease so foreboding to our healthcare system it must be cast into the abyss? Is its interminable continuity cloaked with the term “abnormal menstrual bleeding” to trivialize a disease belonging to the one-third of the female sex?