A long forgotten nightmare

I'm scared to give word to this.  If I do, then maybe it will become truth once again instead of just being a long forgotten nightmare.  I'm having abdominal pain.  Sometimes its a low achey pain, other times it feels like somebody is stabbing me.  I'm nowhere near due for my cycle to start, and even if I was it isn't that kind of pain.  I was hoping that maybe it was just a problem with my digestion but I have no other symptoms leading me to really believe that anymore.  One of the hazards of being a nursing student, I know what signs and symptoms are actually related to digestive issues and the ones I'm having just aren't.

So, you're wondering what is this big scary thing I don't want to give a name to?  What is it I'm so afraid of?  Endometriosis.  Why is this so scary to me?  I don't have time to deal with the body crippling pain I went through last time around.  I have two kids and am in nursing school, how does that leave me time to deal with that kind of pain?  It just doesn't.  I don't want to be rocking myself to sleep in the fetal position every night and I don't want to be walking down the hall or standing in the kitchen cooking and fall to my knees in agony.  I don't want to be scared of anybody touching me because it will likely trigger an episode, especially if the touch is intimate in any way.  I don't want another relationship to crumble down around me because of my complete inability to deal with anything except the pain that is wracking my body.

Aside from the pain that comes with endo(metriosis) are there are other things that can happen to a woman's body that have me scared out of my mind.  Scarring around a womans reproductive organs from the endo lesions can cause infertility.  Yes I already have two amazing children but that doesn't mean I don't want more.  And if the news the STBE dropped on me yesterday is any indication, I may very well have a much harder time getting pregnant next time.  Something I either don't remember because I was still groggy from the anesthesia, or the doc just forgot to tell me, but after I had to have a D&C for a miscarriage he asked my husband if I'd had endo because there was some visible scarring.  That surgery was five years ago, three years after my endo surgery at which time there was no evidence of scarring.  As endo can grow and spread without pain (in some cases) it can cause a lot of damage without anybody knowing it and it sounds like between the time of my endo surgery and my D&C my endo had come back and had been 'nice' to me by not hurting me this time.

I only found out about the scarring from the STBE yesterday because while he was here to do his laundry he saw me as the pain hit during a particularly stabby episode.  He asked the normal, "is your period supposed to start soon" question to which I answered "no" which is when he jumped to the endo possibility.  Endo is supposed to go into remission (and often goes away completely) when a woman is pregnant or not otherwise having a cycle.  Between being pregnant and breastfeeding with both C & R, my body was on a no cycle rest for almost four straight years.  I would have thought that would be more than enough time for the endo to be completely gone.  It seems that it may not have been and I am not okay with that at all.

I had an early miscarriage the beginning of March, after the right amount of time for the baby to have been concieved the night that the STBE hurt me.  I can't help but wonder now if I lost that baby because of the known hormonal issues I have during pregnancy or if it was because of the endo.  Was that the last baby I will ever have?  I'm scared of dealing with the pain again, but I'm terrified of the possibility that I will never again have the joy of feeling new life growing inside me.