DYSMENORRHEA: UNMASKING THE ABNORMALITY BEHIND THE BEAUTY OF A WOMAN

by Henry Osinimu Tawose(Nov. 2017)

She dragged herself left to take a gaze at the clock atop the shelf, opening her eyes slowly like a child stealing on time. It's 2 'O' Clock in the morning. The longest hand has finally slouched to hit the hour. The time now has refused to travel fast. It was the slowest experience of time she has ever had. It was just fifteen minutes ago when she last stole that faint gaze, before she succumbed gently to sleep. Now she's awake not by chance but by the pinching pain of her abdomen - a raw and rough pain mowing her tummy with no small spikes. She has been stooling and vomiting all night, writhing in excruciating pains which threatens not to abate at least for the night. Iya Dudu grudgingly placed her hand which has been beaten by life itself to wrinkles to support her cheek in pittance of what her granddaughter has been experiencing all night. ‘When will this stop?’ she asked, looking up as if the answer to her question belongs there. She muttered some incoherent words which were only clear to herself before she made an instant walk towards the black bottle beside the small bed. She picked it up, shook it and immediately made a hand to rummage through her waist purse where she found her spoon lying shiningly clean inside a transparent cellophane nylon. She fetched a spoon full of the liquid, tasted it with the tip of her tongue before giving it to her again but this time, Labake is stone-calm, irresponsive. ‘Has the pains subsided?’ She asked doubtingly, shaking her hand for a response but she was still. Iya Dudu rubbed uncertainty off her face, shook her head resolutely in what will never be, before grooping her way towards the door despite the flicking candle light providing illumination for the small room. She ran straight to small Doctor's room to call for help, the third time the night. Before she could get her to check Labake again, she wasn't seen on her bed, she was seen beside Baba's toilet sitting and leaning on the door, as if the door would relieve her of her pains. Aunty Gunji had told me that fainting and passing out for some minutes is not new to Labake during her monthly ritual. She said she is not normal and that she belongs to Egbé. I grew up knowing Labake enduring this pain every month and each month, she is abandoned and stigmatized for being an Elegbé. At times she vomits, in another time, faints, most times she stools and doesn't eat until she's relieved. She had missed countless exams owing to this. Baami had paid for her last WAEC only to be absent during the day slated for mathematics, a subject she needed so much and prepared industriously. That night, I worried for her, thinking without an answer on how one would inflict those terrible pains on oneself just to be a ranking member of witchcraft. The following day wasn't the same, I approached her after she was said to be well and asked what has been wrong with her, looking at my eyes, to measure for prejudice, she simply said ‘menstrual pain’. Since then, though I do not know what exactly she meant as I was never bright upon growing up, but I became knowledgeable about it years later when I dated Oluwafeyisademi , my first Girl-friend. Feyi was just like Aunty Labake. At times, I regret ever having to befriend such a lady, who masks her harrowing abnormalty with ravishing and seraphic beauty.

The first time I met Feyi, for a moment, my heart stopped, dumbfolded by her physical delicateness and curves which were all molded with perfection. Her whitish teeth were not made for any other task than to peek out of her luscious lips whenever she smiles. She had strode pass my Uncle’s shop donning a fitting maroon satin which left no curvy parts of her body unpronounced. Who could have predicted my affection for such an enchanting beauty would fade into a breakup? Our relationship tailed when our love for each other peaked. It was at the turn of her twenty-fourth birthday when I could no longer continue with the heart-breaks her monthly pain causes me – a condition that torments not only the victim but all who care to share a burden of affection for the young lady. She was the most beautiful and nicest person I have ever met. Each time I remember her, I remember grace on two legs, a beauty perfectly woven beyond non-human. An imagination and expression of an artist on a sheet of paper. A fiction. A woman God molded the day he ‘rested.’ And to think she fell in love with me broke my heart when I left her. She could only dream that I left because I couldn't bear to watch her suffer pain, I left in grave silence.

In the world over, women, old and young have continued to suffer painful menstruation. While menstruation and it's attendant mild discomfitures is not abnormal, dysmenorrhea or painful menstruation and what it stands for, is antithetical to normalcy. Its an abnormality that has ravaged the women world to a state of resignment. Some of the women battling this condition have been confined to the belief that their condition defies all known medical solutions or a condition they have to keep enduring. It lays the mind bare to think if the female folks are especially made to bear pains their entire life given the kind of pains they inadvertently and knowingly undergo. Childbirth has been measured to be the second most painful moment a human can ever experience – the first is being burn alive. A human body is said to be enabled to bear only 45 del unit of pain but a mother, at the point of child-birth can manage 57 del unit of pain which is similar to 20 bones getting fractured at a time and still be strong enough to examine the newborn . This is aside the psychological trauma left to be managed to a permanent healing after childbirth or the emotional trauma which leaves a painful and enduring scar at the loss of a child. Its not suprising, that a woman fated with a painful life can endure all these pains and still end up being burnt alive ( apologies to readers’ emotional sense).

Its on this ground that medical solutions be improved upon to reducing this painful condition on the woman without having to worry about under-laying side effects lying patiently for the time to strike. pain-killers are known to kill the pain and also kill the brain cells in the long run! It does a huge damage to the body too, at the passage of time. Therefore, what manner of damage would be wrecked on the body and brain cells that have consistently taken commands from pain-killers for ten years without fail?

Dysmenorrhea, though improves following the birth of a child, its germane to know that countless women have been ignorantly driven into unhealthy marriages so as to be relieved of monthly pains only to be encountered by a more prevailing pain which unhealthy marriage births. This disorder keeps dwindling the academic performances of young women yearly as some are being pushed out of school holding on to the myth that having sex will rememdy the abnormality. Edema, stomach ache, fatigue, diarrhea, headache, nausea, mood changes and stress are just few of the varying symptoms of dysmenorrhea.

Shockingly, our society doesn't accommodate the complaints of women under the sufferance of this pain, tapping the mouth of the woman to either endure the pains in silence or speak up and end up being disdained and yet not getting the due attention. Most times, this condition is being glossed over as normal, and women whose threshold for pain is flexible are made to dance a dance of shame after a seeming respite. Parents, who are supposed to be understanding, make their wards go through some rigorous tasks even when the burden of the disorder is too heavy for them to bear and parents who are deemed ‘considerate’ leave their children to face the pain under the web of parental silence which gives no other meaning than neglect. They are either criticized as not forbearing or lazy. Some even make a narration of how victorious they emerged after being submerged by the disorder in the past. Surreptitiously, painfully and pitifully, the vicious circle continues! The vicious circle of neglect and uncaring attitude, Creeping from one generation to another non-stop, leaving the woman to breast it all alone and yet no hope insight except the one pain-killer offers. It is worst off that the male folks are non-challant about this, ignoring the woman and in adverse cases, seeing the woman as one who has just returned from where the doctor has just forked her uterus where an unwanted foetus laid. Its abnormal that our society is unknowingly masking itself in denial and meting an unfair treatment to itself by not treating this abnormality humanely.

In an ironic wave of thought, it's laughable that condoms are distributed freely while sanitary pads are exorbitantly sold!

These women are supposed to be cared for as its known that love and care are salubrious, hence, viable propellers and good stimulants for healing than drugs - healing starts from the mind. These, are aside the preferential treatments that should be handed down the line whenever the need arises.

Endometriosis. Childbirth. Dysmenorrhea are medical conditions most women are likely to encounter in their life time. While women experiencing dysmenorrhea might not be having endometriosis, women experiencing endometriosis apparently must experience painful menstruation until a medical attention is saught to either perform a surgical procedure or managed by other means. Therefore, primary dysmenorrhea, that is, painful menstruation not caused by endometriosis or other factors should be beaten to a mild and affordable solution by medical studies. This is 21st century, a condition like this shouldn't have defied all centuries to continue to Mar academic performances or even affect productivity at work.

Non Governmental Organizations should sensitize parents and employers on this while awaiting a permanent medical improvement. Instead of hankering for Gender Equality that might not be realizable now, this could be incorporated into Gender Mainstreaming which might achieve the much desired Equality in the long run.

Meanwhile, on my desk, I had just flipped open the 150th page of Chinanza's manuscript before a roaming wind fell the trophy atop the cabinet to distract me in a windy Saturday evening full of intense ruminations and thorough editing. The whole afternoon had been exhausted for other tasks except for lunch and idle thoughts. Its 7pm! The longest hand of the clock has just announced itself to my hearing. The day is no longer bright, it's cloudy, Home is calling, I worked late again. Am jaded and hungry, I must rise the rise of man from my work table, staggering to my abode, and on my way, visit Chinanza whose monthly ritual has made her lie on hospital bed for two days now before it rains.