Tuesday Styx

A Cyst, Cancer, and a Hysterectomy at 32

When I told people about my experience of being taken into hospital in April with severe abdominal pain so many of them told me that I must have been scared. Having an ambulance sent out to me at 3:30 in the morning, being alone, having waves of crippling pain course through my abdomen every 30 seconds, laying alone in a room waiting for pain medication that wouldn’t be effective must have been so scary. In truth though I was never scared; I was convinced that I was overreacting and that I’d be told they couldn’t find anything wrong with me and be sent on my way. I believed this even when I was left in the middle of A&E, crying, “Ow!” out loud, toes curling in pain and banging against the sides of the gurney because the pain was so intense that I didn’t know what to do with myself. When my mum came to see me and I told her what I’d been doing she told me that “nothing is painful enough for you to need to make any noise,” and I felt instant shame at my actions.