Ask Me About My Uterus summary

Over the next year, Abby sought the advice of several doctors. However, they were unable to produce an accurate explanation or a cure for her pain, and they also failed to take her suffering seriously. In fact, in the 12 months after that terrible shower, Abby received little from her doctors beyond patronizing behavior and misdiagnoses. 

The first doctor Abby saw, for example, assumed her symptoms must have something to do with her sex life. When she tearfully replied this was impossible as she was a virgin, he gave little other explanation. Instead, looking deeply uncomfortable with her crying, he prescribed strong antibiotics and as much cranberry juice as she could drink. He didn’t even offer her a CT scan, which would have helped explore the problem further. After a week without improvement, Abby got a second opinion. This doctor suspected an ovarian cyst was to blame, merely because of her age. Then he shrugged and advised her to seek the opinion of a gynecologist. 

Devastatingly, Abby’s problems were not limited to an ovarian cyst. How did she know this? Well, after her pain returned, she desperately began researching her symptoms. Delving deep into medical textbooks and research papers, she eventually hit on the underlying cause of her pain: a disease called endometriosis. 

Although endometriosis is thought to affect between 2 to 10 percent of women, frustratingly little is known about it. 

Endometriosis is a very real and debilitating disease. Nonetheless, during her quest for an accurate diagnosis, several doctors advised Abby that the cause of her pain was psychosomatic, meaning that her illness was all in her head. Though this might seem extraordinary, there is a tragic history of women with reproductive diseases being wrongly diagnosed with mental illnesses. 

A shocking example of this medical gaslighting comes from comedian Gilda Radner, one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live. 

Endometriosis has robbed Abby Norman of many things. Her education, for one: she was too ill to return to Sarah Lawrence College to finish her degree. As you’ll see, it also robbed her of her sex life. In this respect, though, the disease also gave her something back in return: awareness. Specifically, an awareness of how differently doctors respond to your health complaints depending on whether you’re a man or a woman. 

Endometriosis has made sexual intercourse, like many other activities, unbearably painful for Abby. 

The extent to which men and women biologically differ is a subject of fierce debate. Nonetheless, there are some verifiable differences between the sexes. Women, for example, have a higher amount of fat to lean body mass. Despite physiological differences like this, scientists have historically excluded female subjects when studying the human body. Instead, men have been seen as the human “average.” But equally disturbing is that in other health contexts, women and men are seen as different, even when there is no basis for this discrimination. 

Sadly, all this adds up to inadequate healthcare for women. 

In some parts of the world, menstruating women are locked away from their communities. In certain places in India, for example, they are sent to special huts where they’re forced to stay for days, considered too unclean to be seen. But whereas the menstruation hut, historically known as the red tent, is a terrible reality for some women, for others it is a painful metaphor. They may not be physically ostracized, but when it comes to their reproductive health, they still feel completely alone. 

Abby Norman is fighting to change this.