Chapter 27: Endometriosis is a Nightmare

I've always been prone to having vivid nightmares. It's fairly common in adults who have anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression are fairly common in endometriosis patients.

I'm almost 7 months post op (as of Wednesday) and one thing I didn't expect is the emotional toll from the surgery. The fact that the excruciating pain could be mostly fixed by an hour and a half long surgery is wonderful, but it makes it hard to deal with the fact that I needlessly suffered for 17 years of my life. Ovulation and menstruation pain every month for 17 years is a lot to deal with emotionally. That means I spent 408 out of the last 816 weeks in pain when it could have been fixed if a doctor had just listened to me.

My anxiety and depression have been worse during the pandemic. This is also common, as it's a very scary and unpredictable time. When my anxiety gets worse, so do the nightmares. I've had some very upsetting nightmares specifically about endometriosis, which is not something that happened before surgery. I never saw them coming, so it was definitely a bit of a shock.

Since this blog is about sharing my experiences to help others, I figured that it's important to share this part, too. It's very personal and hard to talk about. It's even more difficult than talking about the physical aspects of this condition. The basic theme of all of these nightmares has been this: I'm living my normal life when i need to go in for more endo surgery. Usually it's viewed as a routine thing- Oh I have to stop and get an operation before I grab milk at the grocery store. Oh, we're going to Disney, let me stop on the way and get endo removed. It'll only take a bit. These sound stupid as I'm typing them out, but they leave me feeling upset when I wake up. I think these dreams are my brain working through the fact that this can and probably will return at some point in my life, the fact that such an "easy" surgery helped improve my quality of life and should have been done much sooner, and being upset that I wasn't listened to for so long.

These are definitely things that I will have to continue to work through. Endo can be treated, but there is no cure. It will be part of my life for the rest of my life, which can be daunting. While my pain is way better than it was, I still have bad pain days. There are much more rare, and they only last a day, as opposed to a week. For that I'm very grateful. I could have woken up from surgery without answers and a diagnosis. My surgeon was kind and skilled. He was thorough. He listened to me. A lot of endo patients don't even get those things, and I'm thankful for the care I eventually received. Hopefully that like the pain, the nightmares will decrease and become more rare as time passes.