Never Surrender Blogfest Entry

Elana Johnson is hosting the Never Surrender blogfest this week in light of her newest book  Surrender.

The Rules:
 All you have to do is blog about a time you didn't surrender. 

My entry:

At 14 years old, a sharp pain crushed my left side with an iron grip. By the time I was 18 years old, intercourse was the bane of my existence. Every doctor sent me home with something new.
 
At first they said I must have an STD. But nothing was found on any tests for them. 
Then they sent me home with the idea that the pain was in my head. 

By the time I was 26, I crawled back and forth on my hands and knees daily just to get from my bedroom to the bathroom or to the living room to feed my children.

 I had been sent home from doctors with indigestion, constipation, UTI, "all in your head," Irritable bowel, a self induced stomach ache, ulcer possibility, and "there is nothing wrong."

I didn't give up. I knew my body and there was something terribly wrong with it. I didn't have bowel movements for weeks at a time. I couldn't be intimate with my partner. I couldn't freaking walk!

 Something was very wrong and it wasn't in my head.

 At 27 years old, I found out my grandmother had a hysterectomy because of adhesions. Back then they had no idea what happened to her, only that they needed to remove what they could to help her. I told my regular doctor about my grandmother. 

All of a sudden, I was referred to another doctor and decidedly diagnosed with Endometriosis. A hysterectomy followed a few months later.

Today, I'm 30 years old. Though my insides aren't perfect, I didn't surrender despite what all the other doctors told me. I kept going back to them, I kept trying to show them, and I knew my own body well enough not to give up on myself. It took years, but it paid off in the end. 

I never surrendered.