She was told to suck it up, then needed a hysterectomy.
A guest post from Missy Ewing
Today, I’m honored to share an essay from my dear friend Missy Ewing. I met Missy on the first Catholic Feminist pilgrimage and we became fast friends. She currently writes at Little Conversations on Substack, a place for a practical theology of motherhood, deepening and widening our faith through conversations grounded in the Scriptures. She’s a convert, a mama, and has a Master’s degree in Pastoral Studies. Today, she’s telling us about her story of healthcare discrimination in the field of women’s health and her eventual hysterectomy. Thank you, Missy, for sharing your story.
A little over three years ago, a couple of months before my 38th birthday, in the midst of the pandemic shutdowns and a cross-country move, my period started only 19 days after my last one. I wrote it down and shrugged it off as stress.
Three years later, I no longer have a uterus.
The physical suffering I’ve experienced these past three years has been nothing compared to the ignorance, apathy, and ridicule I’ve been subjected to by the medical community I sought treatment from.
My experience is too common. Women get stuck in a healthcare system that doesn’t care about them and can’t actually restore them to health, although it makes both claims.
At first, I thought it was me. As I’ve shared my symptoms and treatment, this has been the message that I’ve heard time and again from medical providers: It’s just you. This is normal. This happens to everyone. Just suck it up.
For a year, I tried to handle my symptoms myself. The symptoms seemed minor, mostly irregular bleeding. I was sure that if I went to the doctor, they’d tell me it was nothing and I was too busy to waste my time like that. But in the second year I was bleeding more than ever, afraid to have sex, and experiencing both hair loss and collapsing energy. I knew I needed help.
The first medical provider I saw told me that it was “probably vigorous sex” and put me on a course of antibiotics in case I had a uterine infection. When that didn’t work, another provider told me that my symptoms were caused by cancer, an STD, or cancer caused by an STD.
Gynecologists have repeatedly shamed me about my sexual history and my desire to have sex. Three providers told me that either my husband or I must have been unfaithful because an STD is the most common cause of my symptoms. None of these providers believed me when I said that I had only ever had one sexual partner, my husband of 19 years. One scoffed and said, “Maybe you’ve forgotten.”
Providers also shamed me for wanting healthy intimacy with my husband. Midway through my second year of symptoms, I had begun to bleed the majority of every month. A provider came into the exam room and said, “Oh, you’re the one who actually wants to have sex with your husband.” I had two other providers tell me to lie to my husband about my treatment to “get out of sex.” Every provider I sought treatment from was a woman.
That second year, as I went through antibiotic treatments, blood tests, PAP smears, trans-vaginal ultrasounds, a cervical biopsy, and a uterine biopsy, I told almost no one. I was afraid others would shame me the way these doctors had.
When it turned out that I didn’t have at STD, a doctor suggested I have a uterine ablation. The lining of the uterus is destroyed, usually by heat, so that regular menstrual bleeding cannot occur. I met with a surgeon. She told me that 1 out of 5 patients end up having another procedure within 5 years because the procedure doesn’t work or leads to serious complications.1 I was shocked.2 This failure rate is determined by the number of women who either have another ablation or a hysterectomy, which, of course, doesn’t consider all the women who give up and just suffer with their symptoms.
I walked away with my head spinning.
Was this really the best women can expect? I’d seen three doctors in this clinic. I had no answers as to why I was bleeding. With a clear cancer screen and a clear ultrasound, I was told, there were no other options besides birth control pills or an ablation. Well, except one…maybe I should talk to my primary care doctor about going on an anti-depressant?
I went to a fourth provider. After almost a year of treatment from three providers, she was the first to suggest hormone testing. But when it turned out I did have serious hormone imbalances, she didn’t have background in the treatments I wanted to try.
My husband found my fifth gynecologist after painstakingly going through a list of all providers within 15 minutes of our home who took our insurance and actually treated hormone issues. She diagnosed me with unknown uterine bleeding, most likely premature menopause.
Even after two years and all these doctors and tests, I knew more of what my symptoms weren’t than what they were. It wasn’t cancer. It wasn’t an active STD infection. It wasn’t a historical STD infection. It wasn’t polyps or fibroids. For no reason that could be discovered, my sex hormones were at menopausal levels and my uterus seemed, according to my fifth doctor, “tired.”
As a diagnosis, premature menopause simply means developing symptoms of menopause before the age of 40. About half the time, it’s caused by the conditions I’ve mentioned above. However, for the rest of women, no known cause is ever determined.3
After trying a variety of hormone replacement therapy options for over a year and continuing to decline in health, my doctor and I agreed that I needed a hysterectomy. To be clear: my uterus was removed even though no one knew the cause of my symptoms. Also, the only guarantee was that I wouldn’t bleed anymore – all the rest of my symptoms might continue.
I did end up getting a diagnosis post-surgery.
I had adenomyosis, where endometrial tissue grows within the uterine wall. It’s difficult to detect and a hysterectomy is the only way to stop the bleeding. I made the right choice, but I did it completely blind.
This isn’t what God wants for women, and this isn’t the way women deserve to be treated. I got the right treatment, a diagnosis, and I am healing. But many, many women cannot afford to take the time off work or get the childcare support necessary to pursue treatment. I’ve spoken to several women who have delayed a hysterectomy because they need to work or no one can care for them during recovery. Our broken and sinful health care system chews women up, spits us out, and asks us to pay for the privilege of being shamed and harassed.
I could never have made it to this place of healing if it wasn’t for my husband and my close friends who have prayed for me every single day, urged me to make the next appointment, taken care of my kids, and cooked weeks of dinners for my family. Without my community, I’m not sure I would have made it. I hope that the many of you suffering like I have suffered will hear that you are not alone in your pain, the shame you shouldn’t have to carry, or the fear of an unknown diagnosis. This isn’t your fault and you deserve so much better.
Thank you, Missy, for sharing your story. Let Missy + I know in the comments: were you surprised her providers were female? If you’re in the medical field, what would you have done differently? And how can we help more women get better access to quality healthcare?
On My Nightstand
Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young: A cozy, witchy-read for autumn. It was a little slow but had beautiful, atmospheric prose.
The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila: My spiritual director’s having me read this and I fling wildly from being afraid of St. Teresa to absolutely adoring her. I do really enjoy her writings on the Our Father, her spirituality is just kind of scary at times. If you’re feeling a little shaky in your spiritual life, I’d recommend reading with some kind of group/mentor you trust. (If you’ve read this, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!)
5 Things That Need to Change for Our Country to Be More Open to Life: Overturning Roe v. Wade should have been a beginning, not an ending. Where do we go from here?
In case you missed these Letters:
The Gospel as a Fairytale - for subscribers
Trigger Warnings and Taylor Swift - for subscribers
In Defense of Paying Campus Missionaries - for everyone
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https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21138-premature-and-early-menopause
Missy, I’m so sorry for your experience! I am a gynecologist who was very well trained between 2000-2004 in hormonally suppressing the cycle or ablating the uterus. We thought this was such a step forward in gynecology to reduce the number of hysterectomies! And it worked for the most part for the women who could tolerate the treatments. That said, we have lost any knowledge we had about women’s bodies, physiology and restoring health rather than covering up symptoms. We no longer know how to restore fertility without pushing ovulation with a pill and when that doesn’t work subverting the whole system and referring to IVF. Thank the Lord for restorative reproductive medicine - Napro, then FEMM. All based on the medical science available to all physicians, but not applied to women’s concerns until these medical management frameworks. Thank God for the Catholic Church standing firm on the need to help couples work with their fertility to achieve or avoid pregnancy in practicing “responsible parenthood.” Without the research in natural family planning from the 1960s to now, we would not have the options for FABM or the understanding of women’s physiology at all anymore!
I came into the Church after residency, and it took me 13 years to learn how to practice without reliance on hormonal suppression. what a joy it is to be able to do this work with women. I am passionate about working with students and residents, advance practice providers to obtain this knowledge as well - slowly we can turn this tide around. 20% of women in their reproductive years in the US are not using contraception - I suspect the number is higher; who is caring for them? This is not a Catholic issue - this is a reproductive Justice issue.
Thank you for telling your story - I just wanted you to know you are not alone, and that there are some of us within ACOG itself that are doing our best to change things.
Thank you for sharing your story, Missy. There is so so much that is wrong with how the medical establishment treated you. One thing that stands out to me is the immense cultural cynicism regarding sexuality. The *assumption* of an STD, of infidelity (because that's obviously all we can expect from ourselves and from others, right?). And then, scoffing at a woman for desiring good and healthy intimacy with her husband (because why would anyone want or need that?). This all betrays a deep cynicism. Our culture has a warped understanding of the meaning of sex and fails to account for the dignity human person, and regrettably, this bleeds into our healthcare system and further propagates the harm.
Thank you, Claire, for this guest post. A lot to think about. I'm not sure where we can start to tackle such a mess, but pondering the issue is a good place to start.