Guest Post: Gynecology Trouble & Gyn-Ecology

By Maxine Hanks

Note: This post adds to the blog series Menopause and Me.

In October, the greens of summer turn yellow, orange, and red as the seeds we planted in spring fulfill their potential, birthing nourishment.
 
As a girl, I learned that I had seeds within me that could grow into a human being. Hormones triggered ovulation and endometrium, for gestation or rejection. It seemed complex, as cells changed cells. Would it all work properly?

I would learn that often, it didn’t.

The first sign something was wrong was pain. At age 12, a gut-wrenching pelvic ache announced my first period. I was devastated.  I couldn’t fathom such pain returning every month.

My mother’s remedies failed. No amount of Motrin or heating pads brought relief.
“The pain was abdominal, I vanquished it with capsules meant for headaches. It grinds its way through muscle walls and days and nights of silent despair.”  

No one had pain like mine. It made me dread being female.
In the 1970s, female reproductive systems were a mystery.

My first gynecology exam came at age 26, at BYU. My gynecologist was a Mormon bishop.
Dr. G. announced,”You have a mass on your uterus, it has to come out.”
“Is that why I have pain?” I asked. “Yes, “he confirmed. “It’s either cancer or endometriosis.”

I was ecstatic. If they removed my uterus, my periods would end. No more pain.

“Will you take my uterus?” I hoped.
“No, we must preserve your child-bearing organs,” he countered.
“But I don’t want children,” I admitted.
“You don’t know that,” he refuted. “You may change your mind.”

I resented his assumption. So I consulted a female gynecologist. She concurred with Dr. G.
So, I read gynecology books, about “bikini incisions” as less invasive than a lateral cut through abdominal muscles.

“A bikini cut makes it harder for me to do surgery,” Dr. G. protested.

I was dismayed that he valued his ease over my health. I insisted on a bikini cut. He relented. 
I paid a high price for my agency.

My surgery lasted 3 hours. I lost a lot of blood. When I awoke, I felt like they had given me a different body. Dr. G. greeted me gleefully, “It was endometriosis! We saved your uterus and one ovary, you can still have children.”

I was devastated.

“goddess of gynecology” 1992 by Maxine Hanks

I laid in bed delirious with pain. My chart said, “Castration.” They removed an ovary, not testes. It should have said “oophorectomy.” 

At home, my incision opened and blood gushed out. My mom drove me to Emergency, shrieking. A male resident taped me shut and sent me home.

Next day, Dr. G. said, “I need to reopen the wound. We need to drain it, clean with peroxide, and pack it with gauze. You’ll do this every day until it closes from the inside.”

From Halloween to Solstice, I daily birthed bloody gauze from within my gut, poured peroxide inside, let it fizz, packed new gauze, covered with more gauze, taped it, and wrapped an ace bandage around my hips to hold it all in place. It slowly closed one cell at a time.

“I had a gaping wound from stitches that should have stayed. They sent me home with a band-aid. I stare deep inside my pelvis at proof that I am a walking piece of meat.”  

But this was not the worst side effect.

Dr. G. prescribed hormones, “to prevent endometriosis from returning.” I said, “I don’t care if my uterus works.” He refuted, “We have to preserve your childbearing ability.”

His advice was as pastoral as medical. 

My intuition warned me about synthetic hormones. I had a sensitive system.
“I don’t want to take the pill,” I explained. “I sense my body won’t do well.”

He refuted, “You don’t know that, women do fine on the pill.”
I persisted, “I feel my body isn’t compatible with the pill.”
He insisted, “The only cure for endometriosis is pregnancy or the pill. If you were married I’d tell you to get pregnant right now. So, you’ll have to take the pill.”

I was appalled that he saw pregnancy as medicine, a child as cure. My body knew it couldn’t do pregnancy. Wouldn’t endometriosis just come back afterward? It made no sense. 

In 1983, gynecology was primitive. Women’s bodies were treated like they were abnormal males. We had minimal understanding of female reproductive and endocrine systems.

I brooded over battling my body with bovine hormones to defeat my own endometrium. I knew it wouldn’t go well, my intuition was implicit. I tried one last time to refuse treatment.

I pleaded with Dr. G’s nurse, “I really don’t feel I can take the pill.” She blasted me.
“You must think you know better than the Doctor!! You don’t! You have to do what he says!!”

She killed my will. I didn’t know I could refuse treatment. In 1983, few Utah women knew they could do what they wanted.

I took the pill for six months, feeling bloated. I complained.
“Your symptoms are mild,” Dr. G reassured. “It’s best to stay with what’s working, it could be worse.”

Ah, the pill had side effects after all. I wanted to feel normal. So I told him I’d stop taking it.

“No, let’s try another.” He ordered Demulen. The name evoked malevolence.
I mustered all the courage of a 20-something female in Utah, “I don’t want to take it.”
He insisted, “You must.”

In 1984, I took Demulen, a demon that changed my biochemistry forever. I told Dr. G. I needed to stop. He countered, “You need to stay with it, there aren’t other options.” Yet I learned later, there were many options.

In Dec. I went to ER, feeling intense disorientation, like my soul was trying to leave my body. My blood pressure was 180 over 120. The ER doctor said, “I’m taking you off the pill.”
I thanked God.

Dr. G. was livid, “He should not have taken you off!” Dr. G. was willing to kill me. His authority died that night. I never went on the pill again.

“You’ll never see 40 with your uterus,” he threatened.

Fine with me.
I wouldn’t survive a pregnancy. Hormone pills alone nearly killed me

In Feb. 1985, my period returned, and the pain was unbearable. A laparoscopy revealed that I was full of scar tissue, my abdomen was a mess. (I later learned that Dr. G. botched a woman’s stomach operation that had to be redone.) No wonder my stitches hadn’t held.

A host of new symptoms dominated my cycle. Dizziness, fainting, spontaneous bruising, blood clots, hemorrhaging, allergic reactions to foods and plants, heart palpitations, pressure in my head, headaches, inflamed joints, swollen lymph nodes, inflammation, digestive trouble, and nausea. And excruciating pain. My symptoms splayed across days all month long.

“Grume my womb will bear, sobs of inhuman progeny.”

My health was 10x worse after surgery and pills. My scar tissue ached madly. The pill disrupted my endocrine system, and triggered auto-immune disorders. I was allergic to my own hormones.

I took Anaprox and Hydrocodone, sat in hot baths, unable to function 4-5 days each month. I consulted doctors, nutritionists, gynecologists, endocrinologists, healers, homeopaths, acupuncturists and chiropractors desperate for help. No one could solve the problems. My endocrinology was scrambled. Plus my surgeries, emergencies and constant symptoms took a catastrophic toll on my work and schooling.

My new career was coping with my health.

In Dec. 1985, I was in ER again, with dizziness, disorientation, a scary feeling. I wasn’t on the pill. They couldn’t find the problem. So I tried minerals, miso soup, homeopathic formulas, herbal teas, vegetarianism, vitamins, supplements, even enemas.

Nothing cured me. I felt sick every day.

In 1986, I tried other doctors in Salt Lake. Dr. L. gave me Depo-Provera. It stopped my symptoms but made me gain 50 pounds that summer. I’ve battled obesity ever since.

By now, I knew that male doctors didn’t comprehend female health. So I studied gynecology myself. I learned that estrogen didn’t cure endometriosis; it was genetic. My aunt and sister and nieces all had it, too.

We were a matriarchy of menstrual disorder and pain.

I learned that hormone pills weren’t safe, they caused blood clots, stroke, and death. Demulen had the worst record of all. Yet bad reactions to the pill were “exceptions” to the rule, not taken seriously in research. Only the “norm” was reported.

I learned that women suffer in ways that men don’t see or believe. Our endocrinology and gynecology weren’t real. We were punished twice, by suffering for being female, and by society for being sick.

My symptoms were miserable. Hormone pills hadn’t stopped my endometriosis at all, instead they ruined my health. I was trapped in a malfunctioning body. With every cycle, the pain and inflammation were disabling. The scar tissue in my gut affected my spine and leg. When I tried to exercise, my muscles strained.

I was non-functional 1-2 weeks each month, then manic on pain-free days to compensate.
“The pain was cutting up my life into jagged pieces of time.”

I ate Anaprox and narcotics like candy. I wasn’t getting well.
I was getting angry.

In 1988, I enrolled in Women’s Studies. I needed female validation. I read feminist history and theory and theology. I read women’s texts, and learned they lived in suffering.

A feminist doctor became my savior. Dr. Jones gave me Synarel to shut down my cycles. It had no side effects. It simply worked. I could finally function, work full time, attend school, and write about women’s issues.

I researched Mormon women’s history and feminist history and theology, seeking female healing. I wrote about birth control and compulsory motherhood. “Motherhood should never be mandatory. There’s no such thing as risk-free pregnancy.”

In 1992, my feminist book went to press. And I began hemorrhaging. The symbolism was striking. I birthed a feminist book and I was bleeding. Dr. Jones doubled my Synarel dose, at $300 each, costing $600 a month. But it kept me functional, as long as I could buy it.

Eventually, I couldn’t afford Synarel, so I returned to Anaprox and narcotics, and suffering.
Gyn-ecology was my life companion.

In 1995 my boyfriend confided, “If I had your pain, I’d want to kill myself.”
I gave up full-time work, exercise, and serious relationships, too sick to be reliable.

In 2002, at 46, I finally told my body, “stop.” I willed myself into menopause. My periods ended, my life returned. I could function, exercise, date, travel, attend Harvard, live more normally for a dozen blissful years.

Then in 2014, my body tried to have a period. I was violently ill, back in ER with incapacitating pain, projectile vomiting, hyper ventilating, I couldn’t eat or drink. Only hydrocodone helped. A menstrual cycle was no longer survivable.

My endocrine disorders were lurking beneath my menopause all along, gradually worsening.
Menopause hadn’t cured me.

In 2017, my hormone levels dropped, my menopausal pause faded, symptoms creeped back: inflammation, fibromyalgia, arthritis, hot flashes, and pain. I realized then that a hysterectomy was just another path of suffering, no goldilocks balance of hormones.

We need our ovaries.

In 2019, I had thyroid antibodies, hashimotos, and positive ANA. I was tested for everything from Lupus to RA to Lyme. But it was just ghost cycles, endless allergies to hormones.

In 2021, I learned that the scar tissue in my abdomen over time had pulled my left hip joint too tight, and my pelvis off kilter. I went to physical therapy for a year, but it didn’t help. I was limping, with serious sciatica.

In October 2023, it was 40 years since my surgery and hormone treatments in October 1983. I’d been semi-functional all that time.

Yet suffering taught me to love my femaleness, value my gynecology.

Dr. G. was wrong about the pill; it made me ill. And he was wrong about losing my uterus, still intact at age 68. But he was right about keeping my ovary, not for pregnancy—but for my endocrine health. 

My pain and stiffness worsen every year in muscles, joints, hip, pelvis. I don’t walk, I shuffle. I work lying down since age 60, wondering if I’ll make it to 70. I can’t do surgery. I don’t heal normally. I can’t travel or exercise or be in a relationship. I simply exist.

I knew at 12, that being female meant pain. What if I hadn’t done surgery or Demulon but relied on nutrition and massage instead? Who would I be today? A professor, traveler, wife, adoptive mom? 

Gynecology trouble gave me my vocation as a feminist theologian, along with my solitude sequestered single by pain. Striving for gyn-ecology has governed my life. 

I sense it was meant to be.

Biology is constructed—by biology, and hormones, and surgery, and will. Yet biology is not simply performative. It’s encoded in the nucleus of every cell—from chromosomal to cellular, hormonal to endocrine, systemic to being.

Biology is also essential—in several ways, in spite of variations on its binary theme.
All sexes are real, yet each is different.

What if we didn’t diminish female biology, or try to control it? What if we comprehended female endocrinology and gynecology, with full respect for their own complexity, functions?

Female endometrium is like stem cells, it has regenerative power. Mine migrated from my uterus to my sinuses, where it still bleeds. What if we learned to work with its mysteries, not against them?

I pray every day for healing, but mostly I just cope.
What keeps me going? Hope,
that I can still find endocrine and cellular healing,
that I can help women, by validating female biology and authority,
that I can inspire gyn-ecology.

(*with homage to Mary Daly’s Gyn/Ecology and Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, polar opposites of feminist theory, both needed. Art by Maxine Hanks 1992, “goddess of gynecology” and “madonna on the cross of life.” For mothers and birthing in December, incl. my own.)

Maxine Hanks is an historian and theologian focused on feminist work in Mormon tradition and Christian liturgy.  She lectured in Women’s Studies at the U. of U., with bachelor’s in Gender Studies, masters’ work in History, graduate studies in theology at Harvard, and liturgy at Holy Cross. She writes and lectures on religious studies in Salt Lake.