Facing the Future

A student overcomes endometriosis

STORY BY ALISA GRAMANN

In August 2012, Western alumna Stephanie Geiger was in Las Vegas celebrating her 21st birthday with her family.

Before full celebrations could begin, however, sharp abdominal pain drew her from the pool. As she returned to her room, Geiger fell and lost feeling in her legs.

For two hours, Geiger lay curled on the bathroom floor in pain, her now-fiancé Kyile Smith recalls.

“I hadn’t seen her like that, doubled over in pain,” Geiger’s mother Linda says.

The episode was not the first, but it was the worst, she says.

Once home, an invasive ultrasound showed an 8-centimeter cyst of blood on Geiger’s left ovary. A week later, surgery removed Geiger’s cyst and she was diagnosed with stage-four endometriosis.

Endometriosis is a condition where the tissue lining a woman’s uterus grows outside the womb. While benign, scar tissue or hormone signals associated with endometriosis can cause infertility, says Dr. Chad Thomas, a PeaceHealth gynecologist. As many as five million women in the U.S. have endometriosis, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health.

Geiger’s diagnosis left her juggling pain and stressful life demands. To manage school, work, an uncertain future and her mother’s breast cancer treatment, Geiger relied on her faith and the support of people around her; to manage her pain, Geiger underwent a severe treatment plan.

Hormones can be used to manage symptoms of endometriosis, Thomas says. Specific treatments target pain and tissue growth.

Geiger’s treatment induced a state of menopause in addition to a Lupron Depot shot once a month for six months to help manage her pain and tissue growth.

Gynecologists start treatment with basic pain killers before advancing to hormone-based contraceptives. Surgery or induced menopause are last-resort options, Thomas says. Gynecologists try to find the least-extreme treatment that will work, he says.

More extreme treatments affect the way a woman’s body functions.

“The doctor told me I was going to gain 60 pounds, that my metabolism would slow down and I would be really lethargic,” Geiger says.

A self-described “go-getter,” Geiger had to learn to “take smaller bites,” she says, including a 10-credit quarter. Geiger helped lead Young Life Bible study at Western, but she had to step down and take care of herself first, she says.

Geiger lived in Bellingham with five supportive women, she says. Additionally, her dad, Richard Geiger, supported the family.

“I was the only one not going through a health care crisis,” Richard Geiger says.

Both Geiger and her mother were physically fatigued and in pain, Richard Geiger says. He was the one with the physical stamina and health.

As a psychologist, Richard Geiger was able to take in the information during consultations with doctors and repeat it later to his wife and daughter in terms easier to understand, he says.

Stephanie Geiger’s Christian faith also supported her.

“I clung to my Creator,” she says.

Her faith grew tremendously as she learned to trust more in God, Geiger says. She was not in control, but God had a greater plan for her life, she says.

Living with endometriosis requires Geiger to be careful with her diet, exercise often and take contraceptives until she is ready to try to have children, she says.

“I will always have to be in this balancing act of figuring out my hormone levels,” Geiger says.

If her estrogen levels are too high, she is prone to ovarian cancer. If they are too low, it will be hard for her to get pregnant when she is ready for children.

Her condition forced her to think about her future in ways many young adults do not have to, she says. Geiger and Smith had to talk seriously about the possibility of infertility, she says.

“That is huge, at 21, to even have to think about having babies, let alone make the decision to be with the same person,” Geiger says. “I’m so fortunate that he, no matter what, wanted to stick it out with me.”

Having children is important to both Geiger and Smith, they say.

“I was so scared that I wasn’t going to be able to create a life,” Geiger says.

But induced menopause does not necessarily mean a woman will not be able to have children, Dr. Thomas says.

“We’re effectively just turning their ovaries off by flipping a hormonal switch in their brain,” he says. “It’s like putting the ovaries into a sleep state.”

Once medications wear off, the reproductive cycle can rebound, Thomas says. A woman will not know if scar tissue or hormone signals will interfere with fertility until she tries to have a child.

“We are still uncertain what the future holds, but I do know she is the woman I am going to marry and her health comes first before ever thinking about biological children,” Geiger’s fiancé Smith says.

But even if biological children are out of the picture, parenting is not, Geiger says. Foster parenting and adoption are still options, she says.

“I realized, if I was put on this earth to be a foster parent or to adopt a child, that was equally as fulfilling as creating my own,” she says.

Although pain is still a part of Geiger’s life, fear is not. Supported by her family and loved by her fiancé, Geiger faces the future one day at a time.