A Letter To The Doc Who Believed Me

Appointment, after appointment, after appointment.

I remember everyone just shrugging their shoulders and suggesting that maybe it was just my anxiety. It can have an effect on the gastrointestinal system. It can cause pain. Therapy would probably help, maybe I should look into pain management.

It was getting harder and harder for any doctor to take my symptoms seriously. I mean, after a clear colonoscopy and endoscopy on an early 20 something-year-old, otherwise healthy, female, what else was there to suspect? It had to be a direct result of the anxiety.

Despite this, my primary care physician still believed me.

She saw me continually decline despite attending therapy weekly. She saw me gain weight at a rapid pace despite doing everything recommended to me.

However, she, nor me, was infallible. After once again seeking the assistance of another gastrointestinal specialist, we both began seriously considering that maybe it was in my head. All the horses had been checked, but none were coming home.

This really began to take a toll on me mentally. I remember just crying in my room wondering why I was this crazy. How was it that I had convinced myself I was sick enough to the point it was manifesting?

It hurt both her and me when she began recommending more pain management therapy. As if radically open dialectical behavior therapy (RO DBT) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) weren't enough.

I remember the whole room falling quiet then. She tried her best to maintain the fact that she still believed in me- but I could tell between the quiet and the fiddling on her keyboard we were both pulling for anything remotely close to a diagnosis. We both wanted answers.

Funny, then, how we fell all the way into the pits of YouTube together spending the last moments we could to find relatable stories.

It wasn't until I got home later that night, and was surfing myself, that I came across people suffering from the same types of illness. It was a myriad of YouTube personalities talking about Ehlers Danlos syndrome and Chrons. We had already checked these avenues at this point, but it wasn't until they started talking about how digestion and the intestines directly affected their periods and pain that I had a lightbulb moment.

The next morning I scheduled an appointment with my primary care physician, and I relayed to her that maybe it had something to do with my uterus or uterus-related. Up until that point, I still had never visited an OBGYN because I had been so sick and unable to make most appointments that a check-up for that was thrown onto the backburner. I hadn't been sexually active, and was constantly taking birth control to treat chronic migraines- I hadn't had a period in years at that point.

Within a few days, she got me in to see an OBGYN. Normally they were booked out for a couple of months, but she pushed and pushed until she convinced the OBGYN to stay after work and do an initial exam.

And holy shit was that the absolute worst day of my life.

The OBGYN and my PCP knew each other personally and were both present for the exam so we could discuss and go over important information. The GYN was not convinced I had anything wrong, but we had resorted to doing an examination now just to rule anything out.

When she did the exam, it was excruciating.

The pain was awful, I was crying and sobbing as the nurse held my hand. Within seconds of starting the examination, the doctor sucked in a breath and stepped out for a moment. I could hear murmuring and she returned shortly later.

They needed to do a cervical biopsy now.

Apparently, my cervix had been incredibly inflamed, and with my history, there were no STIs or other reasons for it.

That biopsy was awful. I had no time for anesthetics, but it needed to be done now. That was probably the worst pain I had experienced up until that point.

Of course, this came back inconclusive. It was just a lot of inflammation- but no root cause. It took off the initial fear of cervical cancer. I didn't have an answer, but now I knew something was truly wrong. A weight had been lifted from us both- we had direction, we had promise.

My and my PCP were both emotional at the next visit, discussing results and next steps. She and my GYN worked closely together, and the next logical step was an exploratory laparoscopy in my lower abdomen.

Lo and behold, a few minutes after opening for surgery my OBGYN found the area surrounding my uterus littered with endometriosis adhesions. One of my ovaries was plastered to the bottom of my pelvic floor, which she released. However, she touch the tissue that had spread across my bowels and bladder. Now, we are in the process of taking pills to try and stop and revert the growth over the areas that couldn't be removed.

To this day I credit my PCP for saving my life. Anyone with a chronic illness, invisible or otherwise, knows how disheartening it can be. It eats away at you, especially when it seems to be an "all in your head" issue. You feel crazy, and eventually, you start to even doubt yourself and your symptoms. Without her, my mom, and my family to advocates for me, I don't know if I would've ever made it past my early twenties. I constantly hear horror stories of people's PCP and other doctors dismissing their concerns.

Thank you, doc, for believing in me.