PERSONAL STORY: KRISTA SMITH

My name is Krista. I am 24 years old and have been struggling with "women problems." At age 15. I started having unbearable pain with my periods. I went to see my gynecologist and he put me on every pill they had. Nothing seemed to work. When I was 16, I had my first laparoscopy to have my nerves burned so that I would be "pain free," or so they thought. The pain continued.

I felt worse as time went on with constant pain rather than just with my cycle. The following year my gynecologist sent me to a specialist who did a sonogram to discover that I had cysts growing all over my ovaries. They did another laparoscopy to pop the cysts. This surgery gave me temporary relief. During this time, I was able to get pregnant for the first time. The pain did not subside with the pregnancy and I had heavy bleeding. About a month after my daughter was born, I went in for my third laparoscopy. They again popped my cysts and found that I had endometriosis. They gave me Provera to slow it down and hopefully reverse the progress. The pain seemed to increase with time so I went to see another specialist and he did laparoscopy number four.

This time I had so much damage that my right overy was dead and they had to remove it along with my fallopian tube. All of this surgery seemed to do absolutely nothing for the pain I was still having. I went back to see what my options had come to and once again they opted to do surgery to find the root of the pain. They found a small amount of endometriosis and removed it and said that I had significant scarring from the previous surgeries. I have been trying to get pregnant for 2 years now and have had no luck.

I went 3 months ago to have a sonogram and they again discovered endo, this time a large amount compared to a year ago when I had the small amount removed. I have opted to take Provera to see if my body will do well on it. If not, I think I will opt to have a hysterectomy so that I can take back my life. I feel as though my options are simple to say but very hard to do. This is a part of me that has caused me so much pain but not something that is easy to just do away with.

Krista Smith

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