It was very important to me that I produce a portable book, so my ambition was not to provide a comprehensive history or review of the literature pertaining to women, illness, and pain.

Despite my determination, much to my dismay, I could never know all that there was to know, and as a reader I hope you will view all that I have written with a keen and critical eye. This book could never be fully comprehensive, and the research I’ve chosen to include represents only a fraction of what I encountered as a young patient parsing through it. Though a work becoming outdated may be embarrassing to some authors, as someone who is ill, I would be overjoyed if, in the time it took for this book to be published, science and society will have found answers to some of the questions I grapple with in these pages.

I T IS MY SINCEREST HOPE that some of what is in this book will no longer be applicable by the time it’s in your hands.

It’s time to refute the belief that being a woman is a preexisting condition. Putting her own trials into a broader historical, sociocultural, and political context, Norman shows that women’s bodies have long been the battleground of a never-ending war for power, control, medical knowledge, and truth. In Ask Me About My Uterus, Norman describes what it was like to have her pain dismissed, to be told it was all in her head, only to be taken seriously when she was accompanied by a boyfriend who confirmed that her sexual performance was, indeed, compromised. It wasn’t until she took matters into her own hands - securing a job in a hospital and educating herself over lunchtime reading in the medical library - that she found an accurate diagnosis of endometriosis. Unable to get out of bed, much less attend class, Norman dropped out of college and embarked on what would become a years-long journey to discover what was wrong with her.

She was repeatedly hospitalized in excruciating pain, but the doctors insisted it was a urinary tract infection and sent her home with antibiotics. In the fall of 2010, Abby Norman’s strong dancer’s body dropped forty pounds and gray hairs began to sprout from her temples. For any woman who has experienced illness, chronic pain, or endometriosis comes an inspiring memoir advocating for recognition of women’s health issues

Ask Me About My Uterus by Abby Norman