Blogging my period: Day 5

CONTENT WARNING: PERIODS. Obv. There Will Be Blood. And possibly other things that you might not particularly want to read about. In which case, my advice is: don't read it. And if you do read it, and come across something you don't like, don't come crying to me about how you read something you didn't want to read even though I very clearly warned you you would read about if you continued reading.

Well, the wait is over. It has graced me with its presence. On Day 5 of my period blog, I actually now have a period to blog about. Hurrah.

I woke up this morning with a banging headache and a dull ache across my abdomen (I like the word abdomen. Life does not afford me with enough occasions to use it). Thankfully my husband was around to get the kids up, dressed and out to school, so I got to lie in bed while my head kept hurting, and the dull ache turned into a plain old ache, which turned into pain, which turned into ow pain ow pain ow pain ow. It felt, as it always does, like someone had smashed their fist through my belly button, grabbed hold of whatever they could find in there, and then twisted. Hard. After a couple of hours of this, two ibuprofen and an episode of Gossip Girl, both the pain in my head and the one in my uterus subsided, and I was able to get on with my day. I cleaned my house. It was epic.

Bit anti-climactic, innit? It doesn't really support the case I wanted to make, which is that period pain can be an absolute bitch. So, to demonstrate that more effectively, here is the charming tale of My Worst Period Pain Ever.

I was 17 years old, and at sixth form college. I'd just had lunch, and I was cramping like hell. I was meant to be going to a lesson, but decided I really couldn't take it any longer and I needed to go home. I headed towards the bus stop. Halfway across the car park, the pain intensified even further, I started feeling dizzy, my vision started to swim, and before I could do anything about it, I vomited on the ground. All I wanted to do was to crumple up into a heap on the floor, but then I looked at the gravel, the broken glass, and the regurgitated chips and thought better of it. Somehow I staggered back into college and into the toilets. I sat on the floor, shaking, crying and wondering what the hell I was going to do now (I didn't have a mobile phone then. No-one did, apart from about three people in our college who worked loads of hours in McDonald's and so could afford those little Nokias that everyone seemed to start off with. Actual aerials on them and everything, remember those days?). And then, in one of those sweet, sweet coincidences that only ever seem to happen in films, my next-door neighbour walked in, and I begged her to drive me home. She'd only popped in to go to the loo before her next lesson, which she really should have been at, but at the time I couldn't care about anything other than how much pain I was in. She took me home like the angel she is, where I spent the next few hours sitting on my own bathroom floor (I find bathroom floors incredibly comforting places to be when I'm ill for some reason, and at least the one at home was warmer and cleaner than the one at college), wrapped in towels to keep warm, and curling my knees up to my chest, hoping that that would make it stop.

I'm lucky. It had never been that bad before that day, and it's never been that bad again since (touches ALL the wood). Mostly my pains are like the ones today - yeah, I'm intensely uncomfortable for a couple of hours, but with some 39p painkillers and a bit of time, that's it. Some people - some of you lot reading this, in fact - deal or have dealt with pain like this for multiple days, every month, for years and years. All I can say is that you women are fucking NAILS. It's been 17 years since that day, and I still remember it vividly, it still ranks up there as one of the most painful and horrible physical experiences I've ever had (and I have given birth twice and epilate my underarms, so I'm no stranger to pain). Apparently period pain can be as bad as a heart attack, and yet it's still not taken seriously by much of the medical profession. I doubt me wittering on on my little blog can do anything to change that, but maybe by sharing our stories, we can remind each other that there are people out there willing to listen, sympathise and care.