Ask me about my uterus
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15
Ratings1
Average rating4
"For any woman who has experienced illness, chronic pain, or endometriosis comes an inspiring memoir advocating for recognition of women's health issues. In the fall of 2010, Abby Norman's strong dancer's body dropped forty pounds and gray hairs began to sprout from her temples. She was repeatedly hospitalized in excruciating pain, but the doctors insisted it was a urinary tract infection and sent her home with antibiotics. Unable to get out of bed, much less attend class, Norman dropped out of college and embarked on what would become a years-long journey to discover what was wrong with her. It wasn't until she took matters into her own hands--securing a job in a hospital and educating herself over lunchtime reading in the medical library--that she found an accurate diagnosis of endometriosis. In Ask Me About My Uterus, Norman describes what it was like to have her pain dismissed, to be told it was all in her head, only to be taken seriously when she was accompanied by a boyfriend who confirmed that her sexual performance was, indeed, compromised. Putting her own trials into a broader historical, sociocultural, and political context, Norman shows that women's bodies have long been the battleground of a never-ending war for power, control, medical knowledge, and truth. It's time to refute the belief that being a woman is a preexisting condition"--
"As patients, we're asked to rate our pain on a scale of one to ten. Yet as any woman who has experienced illness, chronic pain, endometriosis, or childbirth can attest, even if you report a level ten, you'll have to fight hard to have your pain taken seriously. In the fall of 2010, Abby Norman went from a healthy, ambitious college sophomore to an emaciated, wandering girl. Her strong dancer's body dropped forty pounds and gray hairs began to sprout from her temples. For weeks she was repeatedly hospitalized in excruciating pain, but the doctors insisted it was a urinary tract infection and sent her home with antibiotics. Unable to get out of bed, much less attend class, Norman dropped out of school and embarked on what would become a years-long journey to discover what was wrong with her. Along the way she would come to recognize--and repeatedly battle--medicine's systemic gender bias, pushing for treatment and a diagnosis as doctors shrugged at her unusual symptoms. It wasn't until she took matters into her own hands--securing a job in the hospital and educating herself over lunchtime reading in the medical library--that she found an accurate self-diagnosis of endometriosis, one that she had to convince an open-minded doctor to confirm. Here, Norman describes what it was like to have her pain dismissed, to be told it was all in her head, only to be taken seriously when she was accompanied by a boyfriend who confirmed that her sexual performance was, indeed, compromised. Through it all, Norman has become a patient activist, speaking out on behalf of female patients everywhere, and sharing her experiences wherever she can. Her story is a powerful and disturbing reminder of how far we have to go before healthcare can live up to its dictum to "do no harm.""--
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This is kind of an odd mix of traditional memoir and illness narrative (I'm not sure that's the right term for that, but it's definitely a thing). It's definitely more illness- and endo-focused than something like [b:Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir 34079155 Love, Loss, and What We Ate A Memoir Padma Lakshmi https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1537395391s/34079155.jpg 45626006], and post-diagnosis, I think it does a really good job of showing how endo affects every aspect of her life. This doesn't have a tidy narrative resolution, which makes total sense, since it's a story about coming to terms with a chronic pain condition, and the author has to fight again and again to get the medical treatment she knows she needs, no less at the end of the book than at the beginning. It may be frustrating in that respect if you're looking for a neat story, but hey, welcome to being an endo patient. It's hard to say whether I liked this or not - in a way, a lot of this is my story, and will be the story of a lot of people reading this, so I feel almost too close to it to review it fairly or discuss how it might come across to someone else. It's not satisfying in the way you'd expect a traditional narrative to be, but as the author learns to advocate for herself and becomes an expert in her condition, there is the satisfaction of going on that journey with her. (Special shout-out to the section at the endometriosis conference, where she gives a presentation and all the (mostly male) doctors are astounded and almost offended that she's still in pain even after having surgery. Spare me, dudes.) If you have a chronic illness or chronic pain, read this and know that you're not alone, no matter how difficult things are. If you have someone in your life with a chronic illness, read this to see why we're so frustrated.(This doesn't have anything to do with the book itself, but per the author's Twitter, the Korean edition is titled MY UTERUS IS EXTREMELY LOUD AND TERRIBLE, which is 1) delightful and 2) true. https://twitter.com/abbymnorman/status/1123903010516631552)
