Chronically Fabulous

💛My Story💛

      Hello! For those of you who are new, I am Vaeh. I've been on Wattpad for four years now; I started by publishing 5 Seconds of Summer Fanfiction, then merged into Divergent fanfiction, and eventually built up the courage and confidence to publish my own personal stories, so you if you like stories about hot criminals and sexy foreign men, check those out! 💛
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    Within these four years I've grown what I would consider a relatively large platform (3.27k is big to me, although small in comparison to many other talented writers on here) of primarily young girls and women (Shout to those male readers as well though, of course! I love you!💛) . With that platform I want to use it to do some good and spread awareness for things I am extremely passionate about. The main thing being chronic pain.
    At the age of 8, almost nine, I started getting intense period cramps that would cause me to pass out. The first time it happened I was getting ready for school, my mom was doing my hair, and I lost all color to my face (my mom says it always looks like I wipe white chalk all over my face before I pass out); the next thing we knew I was falling down and when I snapped back into it a minute later the stabbing pain in my abdomen erupted. When I went to doctor they overlooked it because of my age and said "I was just a kid who passed out." Flash forward a year, in the fourth grade, I got home from walking from the bus stop and couldn't stand up to leave the bathroom. My grandma and mom had to lift me up and when they did I collapsed, another pass out episode caused by intense period pain.
    They ran tests just as they did the first time and every result came back normal; I was perfectly healthy. Before releasing me they wanted to do a ultrasound, this where they located two golf ball sized cysts on my right ovary (for a 9/10 year old that's big!)! Due to this finding they ruled it as just a cyst rupture.
    Thankfully, the next two years after that weren't too bad. I would get very bad pain with my period to which I was given prescription pain medications like Advil and Aleve. It wasn't until the seventh grade when things took a turn for the worst for my body. The pain become more severe to the point where I would throw up, pass out, and have to leave school early because I couldn't handle sitting in class with such unbearable pain. (There was even one time at lunch when I literally had to go back to class because I felt like I was going to pass out and had to have my friends practically carry me to class, where, thank god, my English teacher was nice enough to let me stay in there because of my pain.)
   I then started seeing a doctor in the sixth grade that listened to me and didn't overlook my pain. She brought up the suggestion of me having: Endometriosis. For me this was both terrifying and amazing; to hear someone give me a title to what could be the source of all my pain, but it also put a face to the monster and made me feel like nothing but someone with a chronic illness. This here is where my journey to understanding chronic pain and illness awoke. I became passionate about wanting to learn more and spread awareness; to let people know they aren't alone and THEIR PAIN IS REAL!
    At 12 I was put on the all known and sometimes beloved/sometimes hated "Pill" in attempt to hopefully stop my period. This didn't work, if anything it worsened my pain and caused me to flare up more often. I was prescribed Tramadol and Ibuprofen to manage my pain but they only do so much if anything at all. The Depo shot was my next resort in my journey with using birth control to manage my pain. Still, nothing changed pain wise, but it did help with my actual period. Instead of getting it every month, I got it every other month but the pain was so bad and remained constant that it wasn't worth it, not for me at least.
    My goal was always to get a laparoscopy but because of my age no doctor would touch me. It was hard to get any doctor to just see me for what I needed even though I was suffering! It took a year before I went to see my first gynecologist, who went into great detail on what Endometriosis was and what was going on in my body. However, he wouldn't refer to anyone who would do the laparoscopic surgery because of my age and told me that I shouldn't consider getting a hysterectomy because, and I quote, "might want to have kids one day" after repeatedly telling him I don't care if I can't bare my own children, which with with this illness that in some cases causes infertility and makes it very hard to conceive or withhold a pregnancy full term it might be hard anyways. I never went back to him after that appointment.
    I went back and forth between the pill and shot again for years to try and give it more attempts, desperate for relief but nothing helped. It got to the point where come my freshmen year of high school I couldn't continue attending after the first week. I started doing online schooling with counselors and *some* teachers who are understanding of my situation.
      With an insurance change I could no longer see the doctor I was seeing who originally brought Endometriosis to light for me, which also meant I was losing a doctor who even though couldn't do much to help and doesn't have much knowledge with the illness, listened and understood me. My junior year I started seeing a new doctor, this one who has more understanding in what Endometriosis was but didn't listen. She couldn't do anything to help and also won't prescribe me pain medication in fear of what it'll do to my liver even though I'm in severe pain constantly.
    Because she couldn't help me, she referred me to another doctor, this one three hours away but I didn't care. I would go however far I have to in order to eventually get the relief I so desperately want and deserve. She knew what Endometriosis was, listened to me, took my feelings and fears into consideration and told me she would  be doing the laparoscopy in December. I literally cried in the elevator on the way to the main lobby, I was so happy to hear I would be getting the surgery I prayed to get for years!
    Then come December, I had the surgery done and...nothing. No Endometriosis or anything else that could be the source of my pain was found, but she did remove some tissue that she seen was darker than the rest. She put in an IUD in hopes to stop my period, but said if it doesn't stop my period it'll at least slow it down. Which it has but my pain is worse than ever and I'm still left without answers.
   Thankfully, still she told me that because of my age she still thinks it's Endometriosis that they just can't see yet. The typical age of Endometriosis diagnosis is 25-35 years old. This is because of the way it grows outside of the uterus it can take a long time to actually become visible. Because of my age a Hysterectomy is completely off the table. The only things I am relying on now is the years to pass until getting another surgery to go back in and look for Endometriosis at a more "accurate" age and the IUD that my doctor said could take up to 6 months to take affect (almost at the six month mark 🤞🏼).
    My purpose for sharing my journey with chronic pain and illness is to let others know they aren't alone, especially the young women like myself who are often told our pain is just a "bad period" and that we should just tough it out. This isn't something we can just tough out, it's something we have to live and cope with everyday until we can get the relief we hope and pray for.
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   I want to be a voice for young girls, and women in general, who may be suffering and don't know if it's normal because we're taught that pain with periods is to be expected. I want to educate those with little understanding and help give advice the best I can.
    If any of you have any questions or topics you would like to ask or hear about, please comment whatever you want or PM me, or message me on my Instagram: vaehwrites
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Take care and believe in yourself -Vaeh 🎗💛