EDIT: If you wish to send me a card please PM or chat me and ill reply with my address. You can also drop a comment to confirm you have PMed me but that is not essential - I leave it to you. Going through all the comments I am overwhelmed with your love and support and feel blessed, unfortunately at the same time, PMing each of you individually seems like a lot right now. I hope its not a lot to ask for, and I hope you'll understand what my head space is right now. THANK YOU SO MUCH for supporting me in this journey

Hi RAoc Humans :) Sorry if this is too long I seemed to have temporarily lost the ability to he succinct.

I wanted to drop in and share something that has been a difficult process for me. I was recently diagnosed with endometriosis and I will be having surgery a month from now, hopefully, if all goes well with the Covid lockdown situation. I'm 31, I've been menstruating since I was 11 and have excruciating pain for many months in that time span. And only after 20 years did I get the right diagnosis. The reason it took me this long is many-fold. One being that as a society we tend to normalize pain, I don't know if it's worse in india than other countries, but I do see that we normalize pain a lot. Physical and emotional. For eg if someone is crying and you tell him he shouldn't you're not only invalidating his feelings but also making him believe he needs to supress his emotions to be accepted in the world.. how heartbreaking is that. That's kinda what happens with endo too. It's like since for as long as I can remember I've been screaming in pain and people have either told me it's okay, it's fluctuating, maybe your hormones are out of whack and some more unhelpful stuff. Some people comforted me like my family. They made the food that wouldn't make me puke and got medicines and tried every remedy possible that they knew of. I went with it

In 2015 I decided I needed answers and I wasn't willing to wait another minute. I saw a gynaecologist in a reputed hospital who said she suspected endo, asked me to do a scan but didn't see any endo on the scan. She did not try to investigate further. She put me on a contraceprive pill. This eased the pain but it wasn't the answer I was looking for.

Another gynaec told me it would go away after marriage and children 🤦‍♀️ I wonder how she's even allowed to practice. Though she did prescribe a 3D pelvic ultrasound which I will couldn't get in part because I was finishing my treatment for another illness, perhaps a bit of laziness and also because Coronavirus

In January I developed gastric symptoms. I'd feel bloated and nauseous after eating just one slice of toast. This was alarming and I booked a visit to the gastro and thanks to my dad's advice went in for an ultrasound immediately before seeing the doc to save time. The ultrasound showed a 6cm endometrioma also called a chocolate cyst ( i hate the term)

It was this cyst that lead me to do some more research where I was no longer looking for a gynaec but for a specialist in endometriosis. I was all prepared for no results to show up in my vicinity. Hallelujah I found the right doc not too far away.

So this great doc diagnosed me with endo, explained in great detail what the surgery will be like and patiently answered all my questions. And I will still have more and I know he will answer them as well. So I'm in safe hands and confident my surgery will go well.

But I have many other feelings inside. The anger of not being diagnosed all this while. The anger at the world for creating the circumstances that allowed this to happen. The deep sadness of knowing so many women will never get to this point and perhaps go their whole lives normalising and accepting pain as their fate. These are the things that plague me often. Surgery bothers me in much smaller doses.

It would be most kind if you could send me a card with good vibes to support me through this time. Any and all kind of cards are welcome. I have a soft spot for handmade tho ;) If you've had endo you can also tell me about your journey I would love to hear it

I'd also want to know about your prefoessin because I am also starting a movement in India to normalise talking about menstruation, soon after surgery and I could use all the expertise you have to give.

I know some cards may not reach befeor the surgery but that's totally find and I'll still love to have em cause post op will also be rough for a but.

I hope this essay format is okay,🙈

Please PM if youd like to send me a card and I'll share my details. Thnk you so much for reading through the end of this this community is my lifeline❤️