Woe is I, the Daughter of Eve

From a very early age I suffered monthly the wrath of Aunt Flo. I remember having to stay home and lay on the couch watching Andy Griffith and I Love Lucy reruns because I was unable to cope with the cramps that had taken over my teenage body. As I matured, my symptoms lessened and I was able to maintain normalcy during my monthly visits...well, as normal as a hormonal teenager can be.

As I began gaining weight, however, new and rather alarming issues developed. I went from having a normal monthly menstruation cycle, to extended cycles. I'd be on for a week and a half then off for two and a half weeks. This continued progressing for about a year when I realized I was now backwards- on for three weeks, off for one, on for three weeks, off for one.

I went to visit my obgyn or the "Oh Boy You Got Me Naked Dr" as my soon-to-be-mother-in-law calls it, and I was told that it was normal for someone of my "stature" to have irregular periods. Appeased momentarily, though not happy with her answer, I returned home resigned to spend a fortune on feminine hygiene products each month.

A few months and twenty plus pounds later, I was sitting in my office at the top of the highest hill in La Canada, and I fell apart. (Let me stop here and let those with weak constitutions know that they can fast forward a few paragraphs.) I had cramps, bloating and all of the usual monthly friends but as I sat in front of my computer screen typing away, I began to feel something wet seeping through my pant legs. I quickly looked at my water bottle on my desk to see if I'd knocked it over, but alas, it was still there and at that moment I knew what was happening.

I shared an office with another woman so sneaking by her to the bathroom wasn't going to be easy if I did it in the full panic attack I was about to have. Thank God I was in black. I attempted a nonchalant shuffle past her desk and into the bathroom where I discovered the next major side-effect of my morbid obesity. I had bled through all hygiene products, through my underwear and through my pants and clearly my body had no intention on stopping my flow anytime soon. I cleaned myself up as best as I could with scratchy paper towels and cheap one ply toilet paper, made myself a make-shift diaper out of the same products and then shuffled back to my desk, trying not to show the fear on my face or let her hear the rustling of paper products in my pants. This was the first of four identical trips I would make to that bathroom over the next four hours before I was off.

When I finally got home, I undressed, tossed all of my soiled clothes into a plastic bag for disposal- truly no sense in even trying to salvage them- got into a scalding hot shower and proceeded to sob for twenty minutes while I washed off the stain of Eve's sins. When I told my boyfriend about what had happened, he insisted that I go see my Dr. again and so I did. She did a series of exams and came up with a diagnosis. Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. She explained it as a disease that causes the ovaries to produce cysts that can cause irregularities in a woman's monthly cycle. The major kicker was that POS can also cause infertility. My Dr. told me to go home, that there was nothing to be done and that I'd just have to "double up" on my hygiene products during my monthly flows.

For the next three months I did just that, except probably "quadrupled up" not "doubled". I even had a pair of jeans that were a size bigger than my normal 26 that I would wear to cover the wash-clothes I had stashed between my legs. I was wearing these pants the night I went to the symposium about gastric bypass, the night I found hope.

Hope came in multiple ways that night. There is the hope that you'll be able to wear cute clothes again. Hope that you'll be able to go grocery shopping and not have to avoid the cookie and chip aisle in order to conserve as much of your money for real food as possible. Then there was the hope that I received from the Dr. running the symposium. As the event ended and people slowly wheeled and wobbled out of the room, I waited for my chance to talk to him face to face.

I approached him, introduced myself and asked him a few basic questions about the procedure. He answered them just as simply as I'd asked them. I then mustered up the strength to ask him about obesity's effects on a woman's menstrual cycle and told him that I had POS. He asked me one question. "Do you have cysts?" I sat there silently, confused by his question and also shocked because I knew the answer. When I had been through my battery of tests at the obgyn, one of those tests was an ultra sound to look for cysts on my ovaries.

He asked me again, assuming that I hadn't heard or understood him. "Do you actually have cysts on your ovaries?"

"No..." I whispered.

"Well, my dear...you do not have POS and I believe that we can fix that problem of yours. I've had more women come to me with the mis-diagnosis of POS because their Dr's just don't know what else to tell them and after they lose the weight, their periods are regulated and many of them go on to have children."

I cried. Right there in the middle of the room in my too big pants hiding my too big pad. All I could muster was a thank you and he nodded and walked off to greet other potential patients.

Hope. It comes in so many forms, but that night, it came in the realization that there was a future for me where I would not have to be in constant panic about when my home-made hygiene products wouldn't be enough.

I didn't have to think about it anymore. My decision was made. I called the next day and made my appointment for a consultation to discuss whether or not Gastric Bypass was right for me and two weeks later, I would be sitting in the office of the man who had given me the glimmer of hope that I needed to seek out change.