HOW MUCH CAN ONE WOMAN TAKE?
“I don’t want to look like what I’ve been through, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be disheveled either,” Solomon said. “You have to find that happy medium and persevere. Find your support networks and be kind to yourself. I’m living with endo and thriving with it as well.”
Solomon’s pain began 38 years ago with her first menstrual cycle. She was 10.
“It was horrible. My cycles were always horrible,” she said. “My father would have to pick me up from school. I’d throw up and be incapacitated for a week. I had to drag myself everywhere because the pain was surreal.”
This continued every month throughout middle school, high school, and college.
“I don’t want to look like what I’ve been through, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be disheveled either,”
“I was 19 and woke up one night in excruciating pain. My boyfriend at the time had to rush me to the emergency room,” Solomon said. “At first, they thought it was my appendix, but a transvaginal ultrasound showed I had 15 to 20 cysts, and two of them had ruptured.” She had her first excision surgery in 1997. Doctors removed 17 cysts from her ovaries and found stage IV endometriosis throughout her body, but the operation did little to ease her pain. Solomon had a second surgery two years later.
SERVICE MAGAZINE
35
Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software