Abby Ellin’s “Endometriosis Is Often Ignored in Teenage Girls” tells us about a teenager girl Senie Byrne who begin menstruating at age 15. Every month, she suffer from her cramp as if “1,000 darts had plunged into her abdomen.” Not only so, she also passed out from the cramps. During that time, she had diarrhea and she saw 22 doctors over the years and none of took her seriously. When Byrne was 21, a doctor performed a laparoscopy and find out that she has severe endometriosis, “a hormone and immune system disease in which uterine tissue is found outside the uterus, causing lesions in the ovaries, fallopian tubes, abdominal lining, bowel or bladder” and will result in “painful bowel movements with menstruation, inflammation, internal bleeding, scar tissue and infertility.” No one understand Byrne’s pain and frustration because she knew something was wrong with her when she was 15, however no one pay attention to her. More over, many physicians do not believe such disease will have affect teenagers, so they rarely give a diagnosis of endometriosis. Similar to Byrne situation, Jill Fuersich, 31, first had her period when she was 12. She often skipped school and social event because she was in agony and the doctor just told her that it is normal to have a period that painful. For Callie in Middlesex, she will never understand the real pain of having a period and will never get a chance to experience the pain of endometriosis since she is a male. Callie never thought about how painful a woman have to go through when having cramp since she is faking her period. She simply think about it is like “somebody’s twisting something inside me” (358) and “there was the twinge, the dull ache, the sucker punch that made ma curl up on my bed” (361). She is doing this in order to calm her mother’s anxieties and to fit into the society in order not be an outsider. On the other hand, Byrne and Fuersich suffer so much pain from their cramps that lead them to missed school day or important social event. Women with endometriosis are infertile and suffer from ovulation and menstruation. This is something that Callie will never experience or understand how disappointed of a woman will be of not having a chance to bear a child.
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