Month: July 2010 | Melanie Bates

I would not call myself a sports enthusiast. My limited participation involves cold Sunday afternoons when I turn on a football game so that I can take a nap. It’s a comfort thing. There’s usually roast beast simmering in a fruity Pinot Noir in the oven, flakes of snow tumbling down outside the window, and me curled up on the couch. I turn the volume down low and doze to the sounds of whistles and that same cadence of the commentator’s voice that I’ve been hearing for the past thirty-some years (with the exception of Howard Cosell, of course).

“The Decision”

However, Thursday night I consciously tuned into ESPN (with the volume up) to watch (and hear) LeBron James make “The Decision.” You see, I’m from Cleveland, which is a city that has been on more Forbes.com “Worst Cities” lists than you can fathom: America’s Fastest-Dying City, America’s Most Miserable City, America’s Worst Winter Weather City… While I may not watch LeBron break records or win games each time he plays, I do have a vested interest in what he means to our city. Well, apparently… what he meant to our city. Read more

Before you go running for the antibacterial wipes I just want to let you know that I’m not contagious. What I have is not catching. What I’m about to relay will not travel through your computer’s innards as a deadly Trojan virus or spread through the air like an uncovered sneeze. It’s called stage IV endometriosis and according to the information traffic jam, over 70 million women around the world live with it every day and, I’m guessing another 50 million or so women don’t even know they have it. Those women are probably lying on the bathroom floor right now, gritting their teeth, clutching their wombs while saying, “What the Fuck!?” and praying for the strength to live through the next couple of days.

So what is endometriosis?

I usually tell people, strictly out of exhaustion, that it’s a “girlie” disease. This comes from being raised in a household where you don’t talk about stuff like this. If by some circumstance of extreme horror a particularly cute boy asks, I worry that he thinks I have funky bacteria of the hoo-ha and imagine him running home to Google. A medical professional might say something resembling a foreign language like, “endometriosis is a disease in which the lining of the uterus grows outside of the uterus so that when one menstruates this displaced tissue bleeds as well, but has nowhere to go, thereby causing pain, infertility and various other problems.” Read more