A chance encounter at her serving job led to a life-changing medical discovery for 42-year-old Dawn Jemison.
Jemison’s periods have been painful for as long as she can remember. She always had extremely heavy bleeding and painful cramps, but was told that she would “grow out of it.”
That never happened. Throughout her adolescence, she missed school and social events, and her friends never seemed to relate when she expressed just how painful her symptoms were.
With adulthood came a slew of misdiagnoses and unsuccessful procedures. She suffered from severe ovarian cysts, particularly on the left ovary, and fibroids in her uterus. Doctors focused on symptom control – stopping the heavy bleeding and pain – rather than identifying an underlying cause.
She received a D&C (dilation and curettage) procedure to thin the uterine lining and reduce heavy bleeding, was hospitalized for a blood and iron transfusion after reaching dangerously low counts, had cervical polyps removed, which then caused cervical stenosis (scarring), which she says made her periods even more painful.
