Valentina
Reggiani*
My story is unfortunately the same as that of many other girls, adolescents and young women who every day fight against pain but above all against indifference. My diagnosis arrived in 2007. It will seem strange but it took me years to be able to get a hearing and, above all, credibility: the doctors categorically excluded that I could be suffering from any pathology. This led to a very serious delay in diagnosis, with a consequent worsening of my condition and infertility, which for me and for many other women represents the greatest pain. The one battle none of us were ready to lose. It all started when I was little more than a teenager: with the period comes the first pains followed by fainting, nausea, recurrent cystitis. For a while, I was saved by the pill, which I decided to stop taking when I was 23. From that moment my life falls into a nightmare: every time, before and during the menstrual period, the pains are excruciating: it is impossible to eat, sit or walk. The pains in the rectum are too strong and the belly is swollen more and more. Then comes the bleeding along with dysentery alternating with constipation, a high fever that lasts for days and terrifying back pains. He starts shuttling from doctor to doctor but none of them ever mention endometriosis. So time passes but the pains only increase and the quality of my life decreases drastically. At that point I decide to resort to powerful painkillers with the result that I am repeatedly seized by allergies and even by anaphylactic shock. I continue to lose weight but I hear from multiple doctors that I am not accepting my period and that I probably need some anxiolytics. Basically, mine is madness. The disease also begins to clean up around me: it is difficult to explain to the world that you are not well and that you just cannot go out in the evening because you cannot get out of bed if no one believes you, if it is not written down that you are ‘ sick ‘. After not even that much-desired child shows signs of arriving, I look for a center, at the time the only one in Italy expert in the diagnosis of endometriosis and in the end, at the age of 26, it arrives: fourth stage and, in those conditions, few months of life ahead. Every organ was compromised. Since that moment I have been subjected to over twenty surgeries, all very heavy because she – the endo – continues to make its way into my body. What saved my life was an expert team in ‘eradicating’ the beast: that’s what we call it. The last surgery, on January 28th, allowed me to save the kidney I was losing. What is missing in Italy? Doctors who know how to recognize this pathology before it is too late. Skills, trained and prepared multidisciplinary teams and, above all, funds for research but also support for women: economic, psychological, clinical. Last year I wrote a book that I will present in Carpi on March 25th: a text that recounts years of suffering but, above all, that intends to turn the spotlight on this pathology. Prevention is key. Silence and indifference, on the other hand, are never the solution.
* Journalist and woman
suffering from endometriosis