What Endometriosis Is & Why You Should Give a Sh*t
Austin, TX | September 5, 2021
Well, if you have Endo you probably already did sh*t a few times today and it was excruciatingly painful!
For every ten menstruating people, one is suffering from this and many other symptoms of Endometriosis, a chronic, full body disease where tissue similar to the endometrium grows outside of the uterus. Endometriosis has been found on every major organ in the body and has been found in all types of bodies, including cis-men. There is no cure and the average journey to diagnosis is 7-13 years. It is hard to find through the multitude of smoke and mirror symptoms; migraines, hormone irregularity, heavy bleeding, fatigue, infertility, bloating, back and leg pain, food allergies, painful bathroom breaks, vomiting and nausea, constipation, diarrhea, ovarian cysts, painful sex, acid reflux, cervical cancers, debilitating periods and ovulation, and the ever-present pelvic pain. Doctors have no official cause for Endometriosis, nor a sure fire way to treat it.
Chances are, someone you love is living with undiagnosed Endo. You might be, too.
After 13 years of chasing symptoms, I was finally diagnosed with Endometriosis via laparoscopy in 2020 and treated properly with excision surgery in 2021. The only reason I even knew to ask my doctor about Endo is because I met other people suffering from it that were honest enough to share their experiences with me. Learning about Endo through the candid stories of others was the missing puzzle piece for me. The years of undiagnosed pain, the myriad of health challenges I’ve had- it suddenly all made sense. I had a new vocabulary to communicate with my physicians and a new understanding of my body.
Had more people talked openly about their health, my diagnosis probably would’ve come sooner.
Had more educators taught inclusive health, my diagnosis would’ve come sooner.
Had more Healthcare Providers listened to me when I talked about my health, my diagnosis definitely would’ve come sooner.
The day I started treatment for Endometriosis, I found courage in the words of my dear friend, Ethan Santo. He reminded me that with great pain, comes great responsibility. Thus began Cysters, a conscious effort to use my experiences to prevent someone else from suffering as long as I did, with some laughs along the way. What better way to give an “invisible illness” a voice than with a raunchy felt puppet? With Ethan voicing my horribly brash Uterus puppet, we choose to laugh at and with Endometriosis to take away its power and give power to all who live with it. If we can get people laughing about Endometriosis and all of its friends, we can get people thinking about it, too.