The end of pain

Summarizing my experiences with 20 years of period cramps, and a surgery with troubles.

The nurse tried to help me to sit upright in the bed. Immediately, I felt dizzy. My view darkened and I had a swelling noise in my ears. She was speaking, but I could less and less hear what she was saying. “I’m afraid I will faint”, I said. “I’m loosing my view and my hearing.”

I sank down back onto the bed, into my state of pain and nausea. They kept taking blood samples and connected bags with salt water to the canula in my hand. It didn’t seem to help.

My neighbour in the chamber looked at me with compassion. “This is not fair”, she said. “I had the same surgery like you, but I am fine. I wished I could take your suffering. So you could stand up and walk around and go to the toilet.”

“For ten minutes maybe? This would help indeed”, I sighed.

I got overwhelmed with nausea, grabbed the barf bag from the night table and threw up the latest painkiller I had taken.

“Uff da”, the nurse said.

I heard the nurse running in the hallway. My latest blood sample was alarming. Suddenly, there was movement everywhere. Several doctors gathered around my bed.

“How are you feeling?”, asked one of them. He looked tired.

“Shitty”, I said.

“We need to take another blood sample”, he said.

“One has been taken just an hour ago”, I explained, exhausted.

“I know. We need another one”, he stated impatiently.

“Don’t take too much. Seems that it’s precious”, I said.

I heard someone talking on the phone in Norwegian, mentioning a helicopter. Did they… plan to transport me in that state…?

A few minutes later, someone threw three or four bags with blood onto my bed.

“We think that you might have an acute bleeding”, the doctor said. “You need to go back into surgery, right now.”

I had spent one night in pain and hadn’t eaten for one-and-a-half days. The canulas in my arms hurt at any little movement. I felt the tears coming. Another narcosis? More gas blown into my body, more pain, another night like this, just worse? I just felt that I couldn’t take any more.

They cleaned my arms. Then they made new pinches and put canulas everywhere.

“Is there a risk that I might die?”, I asked, weakly.

“We gonna take care of you now”, the doctor stated.

I recalled my thoughts about the risk. And the dark moments in which I had fantasised about ending my story myself. I thought about the texts I had written in these moments. What to do with my instruments? Who needs to have a last word from me? But now, in this moment, suddenly nothing of that seemed to matter. People would make decisions themselves. Dying now would, finally, mean the end of my struggles and fears. The end of pain in my body, and the end of deeply engraved pain in my soul. If I died now, it was dying in Norway, in Trondheim, where I always had wanted to go. This thought was warm and calmed me down.

“If I die”, I said finally, “please tell my partner that I love him.”

“We fix you up now, then you gonna tell that to him yourself”, one of the surgeons said.

*.*.*.*

Since age ~14, I was one person belonging to 20 % of female society struggling with period cramps. They were extremely painful and turned me completely helpless. Month by month I dreaded the day that would put me screaming and shivering onto the sofa, praying for it to stop. Pain killers did not work reliably. This suffering, and the problems attached to it while trying to manage my life in society, has strongly shaped me. I’m sharing my experiences in this article, hoping to contribute to more open talk and better awareness regarding this uncomfortable topic. Thank you for reading me :)

One of the first times I got my period was during the precious time of a 6 days class trip I had been looking forward to. Since then I was trying to get used to the idea that this glorious invention of nature would ruin one of every four weeks of my life. How was this supposed to work? To have a life like this, to plan travels, have appointments, classes, exams?

I kept visiting doctors for 15+ years, searching for a solution. The first one told merrily to 16-year-old me: “Oh, this will solve itself after having the first child.” “I don’t want to pass it on to my daughter”, I said. “Then you get a boy”, he smirked. The carefree talks were nice and gave me the feeling: Is it so bad at all?

The answer, always, came later in the month.

First blood in my pants. Oh no… It’s about time. When will it be? Tomorrow? This weekend? Or maybe, this month it will be mild? It surely will be mild.

It rarely was mild. More likely was that it was a bit late.

Then, I cried. I did not really know why, maybe something in my life had happened, but everything seemed hopeless and unbearable. Sometimes I bitched out at my partner. It takes time to learn to question your own brain.

The next day, there was the pain. An exhausting, diffuse pressure in my abdomen, swelling, making it impossible to continue whatever I was doing. If I wasn’t at home, then now was the time to excuse myself and to disappear. "The womens' curse", as we used to say at home, embarrassedly avoiding the uneasy topic which can not be named, maybe because it questioned our idea of equality, and did not regard men.

Then, diarrhea. They came together with sudden waves of nausea and extreme heat. I threw off my clothes, struggling to stay on my legs, then I broke down naked onto the bathroom floor. It was not comfortable, but the slabs were nicely cool, and whatever mess I would make would be easy to clean off.

The diarrhea did not relief the cramps. The pain was unbearable. It was the most terrible pain I had ever experienced. That I kept experiencing. It came in sudden shifts lasting minutes or eternities - then there was a short recession before the next cramp. In the short recession, I could try to think.

So nauseous… I need to open the window or I will throw up. I wish I could call someone to help me. But in long phases of my life, there was no one to call.

Ok, next recession and I will do something. I can’t stay like this.

Eventually, I managed to carry myself over to the bed. There I threw myself from side to side, muttering nonsense. One position was not better than the other. One endless moment passed to the next one. I could not stand the smell of the tea cup on the night table, nor the warmth of the blanket. Every little sensation was too much. I tried to get myself to take the pain killers, and to keep enough self control to not throw them right up again. It would be hours.

There were suggestions, of course - or one suggestion, at least. There’s a universal cure, after all, for all kinds of women’s troubles: The magical pill of hormones. Most women of child-bearing age are on artificial pseudo-pregnancy all the time, right? It works well for them. (Except maybe, for the migraine, random bleeding, change of mood, loss of libido, irritability, changed feeling of body, weight, and yeah, for some of them, thrombosis). The idea to add artificial hormones which take control over my body and mood felt terrible to me. Few other women understood my concerns. It also did not seem a good idea to actually have a child at age 16.

For many years, I carried myself to school and to university, and tried to survive the long days with poor attention. I broke down at a shopping centre in Berlin, at a Christmas market far from home, at university during a course. On the Christmas market, people called an ambulance which took me to hospital. Countless times I tried to explain that this was, well, normal. People wished me good luck and gave me pain killers. Finally, I learned to stay at home.

With age 24 I finally got my hands on something which felt very promising:

One ring to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.

The Ruling Ring was made of flexible plastic, to be worn in the vagina for 3 weeks at a time, adding the hormones locally. Then there was a 1 week break, causing the period. Then a new Ruling Ring is worn. The promise of power was limitless: It was even possible to replace one ring directly with the next one, and so, as it is written, to never get the period at all.

But I realised that, wielding the power of the rings comes with a price, and it was changing me. It changed the feeling of my breast and it changed the smell of my body, or how it felt to me. During the mood shifts I had now I could not help asking myself: Is it me who is thinking this? I got my first migraine attacks which were so heavy that, again, I was out of order for 2-3 days. I hated to carry that piece of plastic in my body which did things to my most intimate inner parts. I had bloody mucus, and random pains, half of the month. But, worst of all: It did not help against the cramps, except making them more predictable. I dropped the cursed magic after ~1 year. I read that it can take up to 10 years to have the corruption gone from the body, but I was glad to, slowly, get back my own smell, my own soul, my own libido, and with the years, the migraine attacks came more sparsely.

The monthly cycle of Doom:

The week of Fire (skin inflammation)

A few days of Bad Omen (bloody mucus)

The Day of Tears (depression)

The Day of Judgement (cramps)

The Day of Blood (an unstoppable stream of blackish jelly)

A few Days of Pain (more steady and persistent)

Sleep.

After this, there was a new dawn. Slowly, I got back on my legs and tried to catch up with household and other tasks left behind. I was extremely exhausted. Going to the store took so much energy that, often, I kept putting it off until I was literally starving and had no choice. After 1-2 weeks, I had gathered a bit more energy, but my body never was able to really make up for the loss before the next period came. Whatever project I had started during these weeks, the period would make and end to it, make my body and mind reset. My doctor explained me that the strong bleeding caused loss of iron, but my intestine rejected the replacement capsules.

I tried to make up for the loss of energy with motivation and will power, but I struggled during my student jobs with bad attention, and got blamed during my work in audio production for not keeping the monthly work hours. And they were right, weren’t they? Everyone else seemed to be doing well. I tried to make up for the days I missed out.

During my time of worst social phobia, I got into trouble for missing out on work days during an internship in Germany, and was required to bring a doctor’s attest for each period.

When I got to work together with the handpan makers in France, I was determined to cherish this incredible opportunity. I wanted to learn and to live up to their standards. I never went out on the evening, I did not join any clubs, I never made any plans. I did not buy festival tickets. I completely isolated myself socially. But I did not manage to keep up with the guys and their expectations. Things got worse and worse.

Moving to Trondheim to study my master’s, I got troubles with the profs for missing out on lectures. Mandatory attendance is a fixed regulation, and obviously, no woman before had spoken up for such problems.

Why not? Where are these 20% of women with painful periods in society? Do they ever get into crafting, into university at all? Or are these the ones settling into a house wife situation early, taking care for the kids and being supported by their partners? How can we talk about equality if there’s absolutely no awareness, or understanding, for our struggles in daily life out there?

“If I was you, I would just have it removed”, my colleague in France said merrily. “What’s the point in having kids after all?”

It sucked to hear that from a man, someone who never had been confronted with needing to make an irreversible decision about this. But… yeah, what is the point after all? I couldn’t even take responsibility for myself. I never was able to pay my rent without being dependent on the mercy of a man (boss, colleague, landlord, partner). This dependence, always, created an imbalance in power, and an invitation for degradation, pressure, control and abuse. I struggle to find the energy to even take walks or cook food. It has been like this for years. I’m longing for autonomy, and I have so many projects which I want to progress, but I just don’t see how to get there. How shall I ever add a child to this equation? How?

When I first talked about a possible surgery with a doctor in Germany, they told me, no chance, I was too young. “So much wasted potential!” So this door didn’t even seem open. But watching my life over the years, it became more and more obvious that having a child was, simply, not realistic, no matter if I wanted it or not. Making this choice was a luxury for healthy people.

“I want to start my life at some point”, I told the gynaecologist in Trondheim. I had waited for this appointment for 7 months.

“No kids yet?”, the doctor asked.

“No.”

“We don’t make a surgery on women in your age”, the doctor responded, coldly. “You’re too young.”

“I do not want kids”, I said.

“You should try the hormonal spiral. It’s the best solution for your situation.”

I shivered. I was on my period. My abdomen still ached from the examinations they had just performed in my body. Gynaecologist appointments were always a nightmare, especially on my period when I was so extremely sensitive and overstimulated by every little sensation. My brain did no work well and words were difficult to find.

“I’m done with hormones”, I said.

“When we do the surgery, then you can never have kids.”

“I do not want kids”, I repeated.

“But we can’t be sure that you won’t regret it.”

“I do not want kids.”

The doctor shrugged. “I need to talk with my colleagues about it. You get a letter from us.”

On wiggly legs, I took the bus home, crying. Again I was missing out on a lecture in this moment, and I knew it would be trouble. I had a feeling that the doctor just wanted to get rid of me. They would refuse, again. How should I ever get control over my life…?

*.*.*.*.*

For the second time within two days, I, slowly, came to consciousness. I was lying on a bed, my upper body risen up. In some distant closeness, there was activity. Beeping. People moving back and forth, speaking, typing on a keyboard. I realised that I had canulas connected to both my arms, without knowing how many, or at which points. For the moment, the sensations were strangely distant. Something was connected to the side of my neck, this was… a bit disturbing? Sleep. I just need to sleep.

I closed my eyes and sank back into darkness, opened them again. I could see a clock. Another hour had passed. A nurse addressed me a few times. Then, a doctor stepped next to my bed.

“You got some blood transfusions”, he said. “We fixed you up. You should be fine now.”

I thought about the blood bags which they had thrown onto my bed before, and slowly comprehended.

“Seems that I got some Norwegian blood in my veins, finally”, I joked, weakly.

He laughed.

I spent some more days at the hospital. I had a tube connected to my abdomen which, disconcertingly, slowly drained blood into a bag which was attached at the side of my bed. Another tube was connected to my bladder via my ureathra, which I hated to feel at every movement, but it did a good job. The nurses forced salt water into my body via the canulas, and took blood samples twice a day - for controlling that everything was evolving in a better direction than before. Obviously, this was not the end of pain. I could feel the gas used for the surgery accumulate around my upper belly and press against my lungs. I could not turn myself onto the side and the canulas in my hands started to hurt. I was not confident to eat, and the painful demand for sustenance melted into the undefined feeling of pain allover. I got overwhelmed with dread as the nurse tried to access the canula on my neck, and felt the tears running down my cheeks.

The minutes passed slowly. My eyes could not read and my brain did not have capacity for any distractions, other than my own thoughts.

“This one hurts”, I stated, pointing at the canula on my left wrist.

“Oh. Then it means that it will stop working soon”, the nurse said. “We should remove it. Let me just check if the one on the right works. Then we can use that one if needed.”

As she removed the canula, it was like taking away a layer of pain. I could use my left arm freely now. Some knot in my brain relaxed. I felt hungry.

“You need sugar”, she stated, “and drink a lot, so your blood can regenerate”. She brought me a sparse dinner with a glass of strawberry sauce. I carefully nipped the sauce, and realised that I really enjoyed it.

Later at night, the nurse doing night shift, a woman around maybe her 60s, addressed me in German with a tone which sounded so much like Berlin that it felt like family. She messed around with one of my canulas, without the tactfulness of the respectful Norwegians, and spilled blood over my blanket. Without bothering with forms of politeness, she told me about her frustrated experience with working in health care in Germany, and about moving to Norway at last. She did not regret it. Her boldness, so characteristic to Eastern German culture, felt good and made me laugh. It hurt in my body.

It was good to talk to the nurses about the period pains and the surgery. They had been through similar situations themselves. It was one of the rare times at which I really felt heard and understood.

The surgeons told me that, during the second surgery, they had removed 2 liters of blood which I had lost inside of my body. Slowly, I understood how dangerous the situation had been - and what efforts they had taken. The inhabitants of the area, these great people, donated blood to the hospital, and the doctors had used it to save a nameless university guest from Germany with not many useful skills, but a weird obsession with Norway and ambient music. They had not known exactly where to problem was, but they had found and fixed it.

So, here I was, the blood of the unknown Trøndelag people slowly bringing back consciousness to my mind. What if we were to talk to each other? Chances were low that they had ever thought about the animals they were eating. I did not complain. I thought about how me might not have much to talk about, but how they had saved my life. Maybe it was a lesson about respect, and gratitude.

My partner came to visit my in my guest room at the main hospital in Trondheim, where I spent the last day of my stay. I had one last plastic bag connected to the canula in my neck: A dark red infusion, this time containing iron. I watched the slow drip with a mix of aversion and satisfaction. He sat next to my bed and we ate dried peaches and told each other our adventures. The window of the room watched over a part of the city, the lights of the houses on the hills and the evening sky, faintly glowing in the last daylight.

Home looked like I had left it - fresh sheets on my bed, a plate collecting used, now dried tea bags on the table. My partner had not bothered to clean up, why should he? Life had been busy. Through the window, I could see a small, white boat crossing slowly over the fjord, dark blue during these sunny days of March. I could hear the crows on the large trees next to the house. I took a shower and a good night’s rest. I still had pain when lying down, and the patch hiding the wound on my neck was pulsing. But I could move around by myself, sit down at the computer, write. The struggles and pressure points from my life before I had left for the surgery feel strangely distant. Have I changed? Is it a kind of rebirth, some variables changed?

I am looking forward to a life without periods. With less pain, less exhaustion. To enjoying sex without lingering worries. I hope to get more out of this new life than I got out of my life before.

Sophie