About five years ago, Natalie A. Solomon paused amid her decades of traumatic health issues and asked the question so many in her situation have asked: God, what do you want from me?
The answer may lie in her own words on her website: Helping others unlock their potential and lead fulfilling lives.
That personal mission led Solomon to contact EndoFound to share her remarkable story of suffering and resilience.
“I don’t want to look like what I’ve been through, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be disheveled either,” Solomon said. “You have to find that happy medium and persevere. Find your support networks and be kind to yourself. I’m living with endo and thriving with it as well.”
Solomon’s pain began 38 years ago with her first menstrual cycle. She was 10.
“It was horrible. My cycles were always horrible,” she said. “My father would have to pick me up from school. I’d throw up and be incapacitated for a week. I had to drag myself everywhere because the pain was surreal.”
This continued every month throughout middle school, high school, and college.
“I was 19 and woke up one night in excruciating pain. My boyfriend at the time had to rush me to the emergency room,” Solomon said. “At first, they thought it was my appendix, but a transvaginal ultrasound showed I had 15 to 20 cysts, and two of them had ruptured.”
She had her first excision surgery in 1997. Doctors removed 17 cysts from her ovaries and found stage IV endometriosis throughout her body, but the operation did little to ease her pain. Solomon had a second surgery two years later.
“The endometriosis had grown back everywhere between those surgeries. It was attached to my bowel, kidney, bladder—everything was stuck together,” she said.
The mental agony Solomon went through then and for the next twenty-plus years was as taxing as the physical pain. It started with the doctor who diagnosed her with endometriosis—he told her she should have a hysterectomy because she’d likely never carry a baby to term. She ignored his advice.
“He was so callous,” Solomon said. “The way he said it was very matter-of-fact. I was only 19, and to be told that I couldn’t have children was soul-crushing.”
As the years progressed, she’d see nearly 20 OBGYNs in a search for answers. Each one diagnosed her with something new or came up with an excuse for her pain, despite Solomon telling them from the start that she had endometriosis.
“Many of them were very harsh,” Solomon said. “Some of them dismissed my pain by telling me it was in my head. Others told me I had irritable bowel syndrome. One was more interested in using me for his research and treated me like a petri dish. Another accused me of having pelvic inflammatory disease from sexually transmitted infections. I had myself checked for STIs, and when I verified and told them I didn’t have any, they said, ‘Well, that’s probably what it is.’”
She was prescribed Lupron after her first surgery, unaware of the potentially grim side effects. Solomon struggled to put into words how horrible of an experience Lupron was, which caused her to have to leave school for an extended time.
“Imagine being a sophomore in college and going through menopause while still recovering from endometriosis surgery?” she said.
Solomon said things were “okay-ish but not great” after her second surgery. The pain was still intense and led to a third surgery in 2003.
“Everything was attached to everything else—it all went right back to where it was,” she said. “I was in Pittsburgh then for a fellowship while applying to grad school. My dad, sister, and one of my best friends at the time piled into my apartment to help me recover.”
The pain diminished during recovery but was still there.
“I graduated from grad school in 2006, and my flare-ups started again. That’s when I had surgery number four,” Solomon said. “My surgeon told me I had two tiny fibroids growing, one of my fallopian tubes was blocked, and it was time to start discussing my fertility. He said if I wanted to get pregnant, I had to do it sooner rather than later.”
Solomon wasn’t dating anyone and didn’t have the money to harvest her eggs.
“This was overwhelming for me,” she said. “I was in the beginning stages of my career at this point. I thought, What am I supposed to do with all this?”
Solomon’s health would only become more complicated over the next 15 years. She began to have sinus issues, which would result in three sinus surgeries and a hormone for treatment that happened to fuel the growth of her fibroids. Her gall bladder ruptured—unbeknownst to her until she got to the hospital—which required surgery that was more complicated than usual because of the endometriosis and scar tissue from previous surgeries.
“After the gall bladder surgery, they asked me how I didn’t know from the pain that my gall bladder had ruptured. They said if I’d waited any longer to go to the hospital, I would have died. I said, ‘Because I have stage IV endometriosis. I’m always in pain.’”
In 2018, soon after one of her sinus surgeries, Solomon lost her peripheral vision on her right side. She saw a neurologist, who found a brain tumor. She chuckles today at the absurdity of one person having so many health issues at once, none of them brought on by her lifestyle or anything she’d done.
“It was like, ‘Oh by the way, you have a brain tumor, too,’” she said.
At this time, she also revisited her fertility issue since she’d married in 2014. A clinic told her she had a year to harvest her eggs.
“We had just built a house and had no money to harvest and store my eggs,” Solomon said. “Concurrently, I was dealing with endometriosis, a brain tumor, and sinus issues. That’s when I knew I wasn’t going to be able to have kids. It was horrible. Infertility sucks.”
In 2019, with her fibroids growing and now diagnosed with adenomyosis, she had a hysterectomy. It was supposed to be an outpatient surgery.
“They botched it,” Solomon said. “They were supposed to cut my fallopian tubes, but the tubes had moved up so high because of the endometriosis that they cut my ureter instead. It ended up being an eight-hour surgery to try to fix the ureter.”
The fix didn’t work as planned. It caused significant health issues for the next year and a half, including three bouts with sepsis that nearly killed Solomon. She also had to have two more unsuccessful corrective surgeries to stabilize her bladder and kidney due to the botched hysterectomy in 2020, and then her brain surgery in 2021—everything complicated by Covid restrictions.
“The brain surgery was successful,” Solomon said. “They didn’t get it all. I was in ICU for three weeks, was out of work for a year, and had to learn again how to walk and write my name. But it was successful to the extent that now I go back just once a year for a brain scan.”
Solomon has returned to her job of 16 years as a public health analyst for the federal government. In addition, she runs a women’s lifestyle company that focuses on wellness and empowerment. She’s also a lecturer and author, co-hosts a podcast, and has a TEDx competition in February. And her next appointment to figure out what to do about her endometriosis is coming up, along with her next brain scan. She admits that she doesn’t even know the source of her daily pain anymore. She just perseveres.
“It's been a journey,” Solomon said. “I want women to know that it’s okay not to be okay. Endo and the other problems it’s caused have almost killed me a few times, but don’t ever succumb to it. I’ve been there on the floor, asking God why. It’s heart-wrenching and traumatizing, but it’s okay for there to be days when you can’t do anything. It’s okay to just get through the next few seconds. Find people to support you, give yourself grace, and realize how much of a warrior you are.”
To learn more about Natalie A. Solomon, visit natalieasolomon.com.
*Patient stories submitted to EndoFound.org are the patient's views, not necessarily those of the foundation. All testimonials are from real patients, may not reflect the typical patient’s experience, and are not intended to represent or guarantee that anyone will achieve the same or similar results.
