I Can’t Work During the First Few Days of My Period — Is Endometriosis the Culprit?
A few years back, my husband and I worked at a hotel together. We had a split shift, as we were responsible for breakfast (morning) and the bar (evening). We each had one day off per week, but never the same one.
One morning, during my husband’s day off, I had begun my ritual. I turned on the lights of the dining room and began setting the buffet. Then, it hit me.
My period.
I knew it was due that week, so I had taken some medication before hand. The problem was (and always has been), no medication could combat the power of my uterus.
Within minutes, I was on the floor, trying to breathe methodically to decrease my panic and pain. Issue number two: I’d been doing this since I was 13 years old, and it too never mitigated the agony.
Lying on the kitchen floor, knowing guests would be arriving in thirty minutes or so, I had no other choice but to call my husband. On top of the pain and panic, I was now riddled with the guilt of asking him to give up his only day off.
He, of course, came straight away. He had witnessed my suffering and understood the I no longer had control over my own body.
When he arrived, he lifted me off the floor, and helped walk me to the bathroom, where I sat on the toilet, crying, with my head nearly between my legs, as my uterus contracted at (what I have recently learned) an abnormal rate.
The blood was gushing out of me, and it didn’t matter that I now had a night-time pad lining the inside of my underwear and pants, the flow was too violent to manage.
I don’t remember walking back to our apartment.
There is something about that kind of pain that, when forced, your body takes over. Survival mode, I guess. Upon arrival, my hands were shaking — unlocking the door was a challenge. Once in, I got on my hands and knees and crawled to the closet, grabbed a new pair of underwear, a pair of shorts, and a pair of my comfiest yoga pants. I put them on, in that order, lining each with a new pad.
Then, I took more medication and collapsed onto the mattress. I pleaded into my pillow, begging for sleep to relieve me of the…
