by Miss Tara

Created on: September 19, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Pain was re-defined for me over the last year and a half. I have had knee surgery, large kidney stones, and osteo arthritis; nothing compared to my uterine issues. I have a whole new understanding of pain after my 18 months of debilitating cramping, excessive bleeding, and total exhaustion. Add to that my 4 young children and life in our house was suffering.

My entire life I have been active. Doing yoga, swimming, biking, hiking, park days, and kids activities was all in a normal day for me. I love to be out doing things rather than sitting around. With my fourth pregnancy I was confined to bed for 8 months and fed via IV. This was mental tourture for me!

I finally had my baby and as my energy returned I tried despratley to get back to myself. To my disappointment though something was not right. I had constant cramping in my pelvis, and when my period would come I wouldn't be able to leave the house for the heavy flow. I kept asking my Doctor for advise and he just kept saying I should be patient and take it easy. Finally I had enough and started making appointments with him. He was happy telling me I had chronic pelvic pain and medicating me with painkillers. This theory didn't help me with my situation at home though. I was no good to my kids on the drugs, so most of the time I just pushed through the pain. I finally pushed my doctor enough that he granted me an exploratory surgery.

They went in through my belly button and "took a look". My doctor said they didn't find anything, and that it would get better. It was not meant to be though, and I got worse. I would cramp so badly that I would have to get friends to deal with my kids, that my kids actually missed school because I was in too much pain to get off the couch to drive them to school, and I could no longer stretch let alone be active. In short my quality of life was slipping quickly. I would have sharp stabbing pains in the night and had to start sleeping with a heating pad. Only problem with that was that when it would cool I would have to wake up to turn it back on. As one can imagine this practice and constant pain got to be draining.

I bounced in and out of my doctor's office nearly every week complaining of the intensified, burning pain I was having. My doctor kept telling me to work through the pain until I was 40 (would have been 10 years in pain) and then I could have a hysterectomy. Apparently 40 is the socially acceptable age no matter how miserable life gets. Finally after 4 months of this,

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