Can I recover REALLY?

This week in the Monday Motivator I'm sharing with you a piece of writing that has inspired many of my clients. Even when symptom-free and recovered, many people are still very concerned about relapse, the idea of relapsing. Why would x surgery have helped if a lot of it had been completely ineffective before?

When you've only recently become symptom-free and are tasting a pain-free life, it's natural to feel uncertain. Something is changing inside you, a new outlook on life is emerging, you are peeking out of the "pain prison" and opening up to new values and ideas. But you are not yet fully sure of yourself, you are just awakening to the resolve, the acceptance of recovery, the preparation for a healthy life.

There are relapses, there are harder times, and as you probably have to go for more frequent gynaecological check-ups, this has also taken you away from being a healthy woman.

Many years ago, after such a check-up, I too realised that not only the healing process, but also the process of returning to a new, full life, begins in the head.

When you don't confuse stomach upset with endometriosis symptoms, you can say you're cured "in your head". It takes some time, but it is not impossible:-)

Do you know the feeling when your stomach clenches, your stomach tightens, your mouth goes dry in an instant, your head races with blood, your heart beats in a mad rhythm, your face turns white, your hands shake? It's only a moment. Usually. But today is different. The examining doctor takes longer than usual to study the ultrasound scan.

He leans closer to the screen, narrowing his eyes as he concentrates. He doesn't speak. Seconds pass but they drag like years. The silence is so heavy you can almost feel it pushing you into the examination chair and weighing you down.

You know something is wrong again, because that's why you're here. You already know your body's every move, you're in a relationship where you know exactly when it's "so". But you hope. That you're overreacting.

That it's something different now, and no big deal.

You close your eyes and squeeze them so tightly that they hurt. Somehow you blurt out:-Doctor, can you see anything?

Clearing his throat, the doctor leans back again, still staring at the screen, not looking at you, he says: -Yes, there's something here... at that moment it all runs through you.

All memories. All the pain.

You have all the years of suffering in one package.

You feel unable to start again.

You would scream loudly, but you just whisper softly to yourself, "No, no, no, no, it can't be. No. -The right ovary has a space the size of a walnut...

-Doctor, is it endometriosis? Is it back????

This moment, if possible, is even more serious. You forget to breathe.

Your head is empty, your thoughts surrender and fall dizzily to the dust. If you could look at yourself, you'd see how pitiful it is to shiver, to be crushed and overwhelmed by fear.

You know the moments of waiting?

When you feel that everything, everything, depends on that one word.

And you just wait, wait for the judgment that will decide your fate. The doctor's hand rests for a moment on your cold, wet palm. A soothing, reassuring gesture, caressing words. It's just a cyst, it'll resolve itself in a few weeks."

So, not all abdominal pain is endometriosis, you have to get used to that too,

I wish you a lovely week!

Nóra Árvai

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