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A review by bookwyrm_kate
Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women's Pain by Abby Norman
5.0
This book changed everything I thought I knew about my own condition. I was firmly taught that endometriosis was a disorder somehow caused by abnormal menstruation, though the mechanism hadn’t yet been pinpointed by modern science. To find out that endometriosal adhesions have been found in fetuses, and in adult males was completely new to me, and calls deeply into question my doctors’ assertions that there can be no genetic component!
As someone who has been an outspoken advocate for her own health, who has had to struggle to convince doctors that my “silent” symptoms were not silent or normal for ME, as they patted me on the head and tried to send me on my way, the circumstances in this book tapped into a simmering rage I’ve had at the patriarchal health system that killed one of my best friends (through apathy and disbelief when she sought help for her symptoms) and could have killed me too, had I trusted their smug confidence with my health. WHY are the conditions that killed Gilda Radner and countless other, less famous women, still being ignored or dismissed decades later? I hope everyone I know is able to read this book at some point. I feel it’s deeply important, even for those (actually, ESPECIALLY for those) who don’t menstruate, who don’t know much about endometriosis, or who have never even heard of endometriosis.
As someone who has been an outspoken advocate for her own health, who has had to struggle to convince doctors that my “silent” symptoms were not silent or normal for ME, as they patted me on the head and tried to send me on my way, the circumstances in this book tapped into a simmering rage I’ve had at the patriarchal health system that killed one of my best friends (through apathy and disbelief when she sought help for her symptoms) and could have killed me too, had I trusted their smug confidence with my health. WHY are the conditions that killed Gilda Radner and countless other, less famous women, still being ignored or dismissed decades later? I hope everyone I know is able to read this book at some point. I feel it’s deeply important, even for those (actually, ESPECIALLY for those) who don’t menstruate, who don’t know much about endometriosis, or who have never even heard of endometriosis.