Stories
Get that out of me!
I was giving birth to something truly monstrous!
Writhing around in the twisted bed sheets, I screamed as pain gripped me. Bewildered, I gawped down at my blood-soaked bedding.
Please… make it stop…
I was 12 years old and having my first period. But this wasn’t just any period. It had already lasted nearly two weeks, leaving me doubled up in agony. Towels and tampons were soaked in minutes.
‘It’s okay,’ hushed my mum Tanya, as she handed me the adult nappies she’d got from the hospital where she worked as a nurse.
‘Use these, love… they’ll help,’ she soothed.
Horrified, I snatched up the lumpy, over-sized nappies. They were hideous, but what choice did I have?
‘I know what you’re going through,’ Mum sighed, stroking away the sweat-drenched hair from my forehead. ‘It was exactly the same for me.’
Mum had always been open about the painful, heavy and irregular periods she’d suffered. After she’d had me, she’d even had a hysterectomy to avoid the constant agony of the monthlies.
If this was what becoming a woman meant, they could keep it! No wonder in the past, they called it ‘the curse’…
My nightmare bleed finally ended after a fortnight. But over the next few months, that horrific pain came back to taunt me. Like a gushing tap, some days I bled so badly, I had to stay home from school.
‘I can’t carry super-sized nappies around in my school backpack!‘ I sobbed to Mum, curled up with my new best friend – a hot water bottle.
My carefree childhood was over, the thought of messing around in gym class or swimming sessions filled me with horror. My periods were so irregular, I didn’t know when I might get caught out…
‘Erm… gotta dash!’ I’d squeal to pals whenever I felt that familiar flood seeping through my knickers.
Over those next few years, there was more misery though when, despite cutting back on my favourite pizza and chips, I started piling on the pounds. By the time I was 14, I’d ballooned from a size 12-14 to a 16-18.
Dad had died when I was 10, but Mum was my rock, urging doctors to help. Finally, they came up with a diagnosis…
‘It’s polycystic ovary syndrome or PCOS,’ a gynaecologist confirmed. ‘It means you’ve got lots of tiny cysts dotted over your ovaries, which affect how they function. As well as irregular periods, it can cause weight gain.’
Mum nodded sadly. ‘I was diagnosed with exactly the same thing,’ she whispered.
Tears started to fall. Just how much more could I possibly take?
‘We can put you on the pill, Stephanie,’ suggested the gynaecologist. Turning to Mum, he added: ‘It’ll help regulate her cycle and lessen the flow.’
‘Whatever it takes,’ she agreed.
Later that night, as I swallowed the tiny tablet, I couldn’t help feeling slightly bitter. I wouldn’t need the pill for any other reason – as far as I was concerned, no bloke would touch fat, sick me with a barge pole.
Popping the pill failed to ease the horrendous bleeding or searing cramps, though. My body showed no mercy.
One morning, when I was 17, I woke up with a stabbing pain in my right hip. When I got up, my legs buckled beneath me.
‘You’re going to hospital,’ gasped Mum, worried.
At hospital, they did scans, tests, all sorts… until, finally, we were ushered into a side room.
‘The CT scan has revealed something…’ the consultant began to explain.
My hands trembled as I stared up at a fuzzy x-ray image.
A gigantic, sausage-shaped lump stared back at me. The size of an adult human head, it was stretched tight and filled with a sort of gooey liquid…
‘It’s a cyst on your ovary,’ the consultant told me.
That thing was inside me?! My stomach churned in disgust as I imagined this giant pustule burrowing away among my bits.
‘We think it started off on the edge of your right ovary,’ he continued. ‘But now it’s grown so large, it’s encircling both the ovary and your right fallopian tube. The pain in your hip was caused by it pressing on a nerve.’
My ovary and right tube were stretched around this pouch of flesh! It was eating my insides!
‘Is it cancerous?’ asked Mum, clutching my hand.
‘We’ll operate to remove it,’ the consultant answered, solemnly. ‘We’ll know more then…’
Weirdly, I didn’t panic – whatever it took to get rid of this thing… Every time I wondered what damage this fleshy intruder might have done to my body, I pushed the thought away.
Five days later, I was wheeled in for the three-hour op. When I came round… pain hit me. Argh! I thought this procedure had been to help me, not make things worse! Why was I in agony?
‘They got it out,’ Mum smiled. But it wasn’t all they’d taken…
‘The cyst, your right ovary and fallopian tube had all become one big mass. We had to remove them all,’ explained the surgeon. ‘It means you may struggle to conceive in the future.’
If I were older, had a partner, I might have been terrified. But all that mattered now was that monstrosity was out of me. And more important, it hadn’t been cancerous.
‘Ummm, actually I’ve never seen anything like your cyst before,’ the surgeon added. ‘It took two of us to pull it free of you…
‘It weighed 17lb – that’s more than twice the weight of a newborn baby,’ she said. ‘Would, umm, would you like to see a picture?’
The doctors had been so amazed by what they’d seen, they’d actually taken pictures!
I shivered at the sight of its stretched, mottled skin and sticking out veins. Mum and the other nurses crowded round.
An angry scar snaked from my belly button to my pubic bone. I felt hideous.
But as I recovered, I vowed not to let the traumas I’d faced becoming a woman blight my life.
And soon afterwards, I started dating Scott Ansley, an old school pal I’d known since I was 11. He didn’t flinch when I told him the pain I’d endured, or explained my op had reduced my chances of having kids.
‘You’re all that matters,’ he reassured me.
Four years later, me and Scott married. The next month, I stopped trying to control my periods with hormonal injections, and started trying for a baby.
Two years later… nothing.
The hormone medication I’m on now means, while my periods can still be quite heavy, they no longer control me. They only last a week and I don’t need adult nappies.
But due to my PCOS, I weigh almost 21st. I’ve been told my size and the fact my remaining ovary will deteriorate faster because of my condition, mean my chances of conceiving are slim.
I‘m determined to shift the pounds, however, and save for fertility treatment.
The journey from girl to woman has been traumatic. But one day, I hope to have a baby growing inside me – not a super-sized cyst!
Stephanie Ansley, 24, Santa Rosa, California, USA
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