Yesterday, I felt well enough to try a short walk outdoors. I asked my husband, Shaun, to come with me in case I needed any help, and bored him rigid for a full five minutes after we had set off from the house, extolling the joy of being outdoors in the beautiful countryside and smelling the fresh air again. By the time Shaun could get a word in edgeways, we were picking our way slowly and oh-so-carefully down one of the icy slopes surrounding our house. Shaun was keeping (glacial) pace with me, chattily protective, like some kind of burly, broad-shouldered nanny. I had wanted to get as far as the llamas, some of my favourite local residents, who live in a couple of fields about 500 yards along the next road; but, before we even reached the junction, my back started nagging loudly and fireworks of pain were detonating in my pelvis. We agreed that the llamas would have to wait until next time and began gingerly ascending the slope, like elderly, ailing goats.
Today, the llamas again in our sights, we set out down the (even icier) slope, with me apologising periodically for walking so slowly. The last thing I wanted was to slip and tear my stitches. It’s alright, Shaun told me, you’ve just had folk poking inside you with the equivalent of razor blades, it’s going to take time before you can do things normally again. True, I conceded; whilst privately thinking, next time I have to go through this, I’m going to raid your bank account so that we can take ourselves, all the NHS staff, and their equipment on a Caribbean James Villa holiday to get the procedure done somewhere warmer, with more cocktails.
To take my mind off cocktails and razor blades, I wondered randomly if llamas can get endometriosis. It turns out they can. In 1927, a gynaecologist called Sampson theorised that endometriosis is caused by a phenomenon called retrograde menstruation. In other words, he thought that it was caused by women’s periods flowing backwards and leaving menstrual deposits in their bodies. (To be fair, this does actually happen. Unpleasant, but true.) This theory, which held from 1927 (1927!!) until the end of the twentieth century, is now widely discredited, one of the many reasons being that endometriosis has been found in other mammals, including non-menstruating animals such as men, horses, pigs and dogs. Similarly, a form of endometriosis can result from brucellosis, a bacterial infection that commonly causes infertility in ruminants, and camelid animals such as alpacas and llamas*. No wonder they can be so grumpy.
So much for retrograde menstruation. Now, almost 100 years later, in 2020, research into numerous possible causes (including immune dysfunction and genetic predisposition**) is ongoing. Endometriosis is more in the public eye than ever, which is great news, of course. It’s just a pity that the past 100 years have yielded more scientific data to support current research into animals than into humans. I guess folk still just aren’t falling over themselves to talk about periods.
Shaun and I finally made it, all the way to the llamas. Unlike my many previous visits there, when my battery had consistently died at the exact moment I was about to take the perfect llama shot, I had set out from home with my phone fully charged. I was ready for action. Those damn llamas must have known. The selfish little sods had elected not to bother posing for me, and were sheltering from the sub-zero wind and sleet under the edges of the woodland at the opposite end of the field. There was nothing else for it – I had to content myself with the fact that I had made it down there at all. On the way back up through the ice, I took a picture of some snowdrops instead. At least they can’t walk away from me.
* Aparicio, E., 2013 (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8962/ed668100e27939bc7edbf94c90763b5f3e10.pdf )
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