Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

I have a story to relay for you, Tumblr. About life, about perseverance, about sticking it to the man, and about super cool secret passageways.

In the late 70s/early 80s, Illinois State built a brand new dorm building where the rooms all had two closets, one on each side wall. But because they built the dorm on the cheap, the backs of the closets didn’t have real walls, only thin pieces of pressboard. That was all that was separated one dorm room from the next.

Once students figured this out, they cut big holes in the pressboard so that you could get to the adjoining dorm room by opening the closet door and scooting through the hole in the back wall.

They did this in room after room, until they had effectively built a huge secret passageway connecting every single dorm room on the floor.

The creation of this secret passageway led, almost immediately, to a culture of endless, enormous, authority-proof dorm parties. As soon as anybody knocked on the door or the party room, everybody could bail through the closets and be seven doors down the hall by the time the R.A. or campus security were let in. Or they would keep all the alcohol and what-not in one room, and have all the people in the next. So even when the R.A.s KNEW there was a ginormous party happening, they couldn’t do jack shit about it. It was total non-stop chaos.

Some of the bigger hooligans would commit all manner of mischief on campus, and then high-tail to this dorm building, knowing that once they were safely inside any room, there was no way the cops could ever find them.

Every summer, the school would replace the ripped out pressboard with sturdier and sturdier material. But students just got stronger saws, and kept rebuilding the secret passageways, year after year.

Eventually, only a few years after they built it, the school gave up and tore the whole building down.

Multiple gynos refused me an IUD because  “oh, it hurts so much to put in when you’ve had kids! We don’t want to put you in pain!!”

I was at a 7-9 on the pain scale regularly for my periods, and the docs were determined to make me run the gauntlet.

“But what about the pill?”

“Symptom-swap.”

“Have you thought about depo?”

“Mood drop.”

“And the patch?”

“Family history of breaking out in rashes.”

“Well, what about the nuva ring?”

“How will that NOT give me the same symptom-swap issues?”

“…”

“Look, I’m in pain so bad I wake up in the middle of the night. I’m in pain so bad I didn’t know I had appendecitis. I need SOMETHING.”

“Have you tried an ibuprofen protocol?”

“YES.”

“There are yoga poses that help with cramping.”

“I can’t uncurl from the ball of pain I’m in. How the hell am I supposed to hold position?”

“Well, how much caffeine do you drink? That could be a factor.”

“I have three cups of coffee a day and drink lots of water.”

And so on.

Then, one day, I made an appointment and went to Planned Parenthood.

“Yeah. Hi. I have incredibly painful periods that are fucking crippling me, and I need an IUD.”

“Okay. Do you have a chart of your periods I can look at?”

“Yup.”

“Okay. Looks like you have regular, heavy periods where the pain is worsening. Is that right?”

“Yup. And the fatigue. And the mood swings. And all of it.”

“Fatigue and mood swings, too?”

“Yup.”

“…is there any history of endometriosis in your family?”

“Yup. I’ve never been diagnosed, though. They say it takes a biopsy.”

“The biopsy can confirm tissue, but if you don’t have excess tissue, it doesn’t really help. You can have endo without excess tissue.”

“Okay. So, what are my options?”

“I suggest Mirena. Paraguard can make period symptoms worse even though it’s got no hormones while Mirena has a low-dose hormone that should help with all your pain and other issues. Here’s all the info on both of them. Here are models of both of them. Why don’t you take everything with you, read through it, then call if you have any questions? We can go ahead and schedule for insertion before you leave, and you can just call and say which type you want after you’ve read up. Is that okay?”

“…Yeah. That’s. That’s fine.”

“Do you have any questions right now?”

“Um, I got told a bunch I shouldn’t get an IUD because the insertion will hurt too much because I haven’t had kids.”

“Looking at the pain you’re usually in, I think you can handle it. It will definitely hurt, but it should only last about twenty seconds.”

“Twenty seconds?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been refused the best option for dealing with my symptoms because of TWENTY SECONDS?!”

“Sadly, we hear that a lot.”

Planned Parenthood treated me like a PERSON who was in pain, not a walking uterus bitching and moaning about womanly things. Planned Parenthood showed me respect and kindness and respected the knowledge I brought of my own medical history to the conversation. Planned Parenthood respected my autonomy where other doctors rarely had and paid attention when I explained why I felt the IUD was the best choice. Planned Parenthood showed me I mattered, and I want to show how much they matter to me.