Lena Dunham Wrote About Undergoing A Full Hysterectomy

Lena Dunham has been fighting two very public battles in her life. She’s been fighting (and oftentimes losing) against the urge to say shit she’ll later regret, and complications from endometriosis. Endometriosis is a condition where the layer of tissue that usually covers the inside of the uterus grows outside of it. It has put her in the hospital multiple times, like during last year’s Met Gala. Endometriosis was causing a ton of problems for Lena, and so she made the decision to have a hysterectomy at 31.

Lena wrote about her hysterectomy for the March issue of Vogue. Lena’s surgery, which was her ninth in that area, removed her uterus and cervix. In April 2017, she underwent her fifth surgery, which was to move her ovaries away from her rectal wall. She announced she was “endometriosis-free,” but that obviously wasn’t the case. A month later she had to bail on her Lenny letter tour. After four months of severe pain beginning in August, Lena said she checked herself into the hospital in November expecting her uterus to be removed, since nothing was fixing the pain.

She writes she spent 12 days in the hospital, and during that time she became “surly and distant” and that she could feel herself growing farther apart from her partner (aka Jack Antonoff). She doesn’t say how that turned out, but we kind of know, considering they reportedly broke up a month later.

After she came out of the surgery, she describes her uterus situation as “the Chinatown Chanel purse of nightmares“. Things were apparently pretty bad down there. And it wasn’t just her uterus that was messed up; she says she had “retrograde bleeding,” which she explains as her period running in reverse and that her stomach had blood in it. That’s all fine now several months, but she claims she walks with a limp due to a pinched nerve in her pelvis. She’s also not sure what her egg situation is like in her ovaries are. Lena says she always really wanted to be a mom, and that she was extremely sad that her bum uterus couldn’t make a baby. In the event her ovaries aren’t cooperating and making eggs to give to a surrogate, she says “adoption is a thrilling truth I’ll pursue with all my might.”

Surgery is terrifying. Especially after you’ve been watching hours of Real Housewives, like Lena says she had been. I can only imagine the high-anxiety sedation dreams that caused. But calling her uterus the Chinatown Chanel purse of nightmares? I thought Lena was rich; what’s she doing down in Chinatown perusing the knock-offs? Anyone who has ever received a fancy handbag from Lena as a gift is definitely taking it in for authentication.

Pic: Wenn.com