TREVISO – Cristina who is ill. Cristina feeling tired. Cristina out of order fifteen days a month. For twenty five years. It is a disease that to a certain extent has no name. And for many it doesn’t exist except in her head. Instead there is, and how. Giorgia Soleri was needed to make it clear to everyone: it’s called vulvodynia. “I am happy that they are finally talking about it openly and I am happy that when I talk about it, for some months now, they ask me is it the same illness as Damiano of the Maneskin’s girlfriend?”. Because this question means that Giorgia Soleri has centered on her: by bearing her testimony, she has managed to enter people’s minds. And she hit the target too Damiano because he stayed close to her, understanding, accepting and supporting ». June 1, 2022 is a date destined to remain engraved in his calendar: Cristina Tronchin at 37 years he faces a decisive chapter in his life: the definitive intervention to eradicate adenomyosis and endometriosis at the Sacro Cuore don Calabria hospital in Negrar. A radical and irreversible operation, which will preclude the possibility of other children. “At 37, after twenty-five of pain, I choose to be well”.
Today this term is often mentioned. But what really causes this disease?
“Adenomyosis and endometriosis are two bastard sisters in which the endometrium, a part of the inner tissue of the uterus, goes around doing damage in places it shouldn’t be. Hence the constant pain ».
But endometriosis is not a disease of today
«At the time of my grandmother, endometriosis was not known: she too, like my mother, was always ill, each of us kept the pains, dabbing with constant doses of analgesics and anti-inflammatories. I played rugby and I remember very well the fatigue, the nausea. The pain was sawing my legs. ‘
The stages of his life were marked by the constant of evil
“That’s right: I went to university with pain, to work with pain. In 2012 I had the baby, in my condition (they explained to me later) it is a miracle that I had a child. In 2013 I heard about endometriosis for the first time “
Is it difficult to manage a child with chronic fatigue?
«He has seen me sick many times, he is a very lively child and requires a lot of energy. Being a mom with adenomyosis and endometriosis, which she works, is not easy. It is doubly difficult if your child also has some heavy health battles to carry on. The slalom between work and health commitments, medical examinations, school meetings, meetings with the services, the infernal machine of the Italian bureaucracy and the rights to be enforced becomes a routine ».
When was the disease officially diagnosed?
«In 2017 in April I was so sick that in the space of a month I accumulated ten visits to the emergency room in Treviso, until they kept me under observation and ordered an MRI scan. There it became known about the disease. The result was a liberation: the others also understood that I was not inventing anything. Because this is one of the worst aspects: people think that you make everything up, that there is something wrong with your head “
What happened then?
«I was diagnosed with the disease in 2017. In January 2018 I had a pharmacological menopause which did not take away my pain but instead gave me a lot of collateral pain. In January 2019 we try the last resort and the progestrin spiral is inserted, but the benefits lasted a year. At 37 years old, twenty-five from the first cycle, I decided to definitively tackle this problem ».
A first intervention and then the final one last June.
«I made peace with the physical pain since it could not be done otherwise, and with chronic fatigue. I made peace with the fact that I won’t be able to have more children. I am lucky to have one. That’s okay ».
What is the appeal you feel like making?
«I want to address men: if your wife or your partner or daughter is ill during her period, know that she could have one of these two diseases. Never tell her she is exaggerating because endometriosis is classified as one of the ten most painful diseases in the world. “