My spinach prescription
My periods have always been heavy, resembling a murder scene, but in 2018 I needed help. I was working in a secondary school and had no way of leaving the kids unattended to go to the toilet. My only form of communication with my colleagues, wonderful humans but an all-boys team, was our radios. So this is how our conversation went. Please bear in mind that anyone in the vicinity of the radio holder can hear this conversation as clearly as if I was yelling it in their face.
Me: Can someone come up, please.
Boy team: Just picking up a student in B Block, then on my way.
Me: Thank you.
Ten minutes pass, and the panic is rising. If I do not change soon, my workday will be ruined, as will my chair and pink Zara trousers.
Me: Guys, can someone get up to me? It is urgent.
Boy team: There's some kind of issue in the science corridor, just having a wander and then coming.
Me: Please try to be quick, it is urgent.
Another ten minutes pass. I am officially fucked.
Me: I have moved to sit in your chair as I am bleeding, and I don't want to ruin my desk chair.
The boy team arrived within 0.4 seconds. I was unable to stand for the rest of the day and had to tie my blazer around my waist.
And so this bleeding continued through January. The tiredness set in, and I thought it had to pass at some point. On the last day of term before the Easter holidays, a sudden wave of dizziness hit me as I was walking up the stairs. The faint, sicky, head-spinning continued into the evening. My mum took me into A&E as Wednesday before the bank holiday weekend, no GP would see me just because I was bleeding and feeling faint. It’s what women do every month, I am obviously being dramatic. And so I waited, head on my mum’s shoulder until I collapsed and a gurney magically arrived to take me past the door that is the end goal for patients in A&E. Usual triage: bloods, pee in a pot, temperature, questions, awkward conversations, checking my vagina, my belly, a transvaginal ultrasound, and then the long-awaited diagnosis. After eight years of struggling, pain, and bleeding, I was finally going to know what was wrong with me. These incredible doctors who have trained for years and specialized in their field were going to help me.
"Miss Hypochondriac, you are on your period. Try to eat iron-rich foods to help with the low iron."
These people diagnosed me with my period. They did not understand or care that I had bled like this for over four months. They prescribed me spinach. There are no words to describe the heart-wrenching feeling that no one is listening to you, implying that you are not strong enough to deal with what every other woman goes through. So I ignored the symptoms. I put swelling in my joints and chest pain down to my hypermobility flaring up when on my period. I powered through the days of crippling pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and bleeding because that was what every woman in the world was doing, and I was just being dramatic about it. It was the talks at work that hurt the most. They noticed the pattern of me taking a few days off each month, and so I had the meetings to discuss my attendance, and the questions were asked about how they could help, and I could never say, "My periods hurt so much that I pass out." The embarrassment was too much if I said, "I have to change my pad and tampon every half an hour, so could someone please come and watch these students so I can go to the toilet?"
But there was something wrong with me, and it has taken 14 years for me to get a diagnosis and help. For me to learn that what I am going through is not normal. I am not weak. I am not dramatic. I am not pulling sickies. I am ill. Women deserve better than being told to eat more spinach.
