"I'll take anything for the pain," I pleaded with my older brother on the phone, curled into a ball on the pavement. I was eighteen at the time, and had never even smoked a cigarette, let alone done drugs—yet here I was, begging him to buy me narcotics from a local dealer he knew.
Only moments before, a stabbing pain had gripped me before I could reach my green Honda near the retail store I worked at. Warmth spread across my upper thighs and lower abdomen, causing me to fall to my knees and call my brother in tears. It would be two more years before doctors would diagnose me with endometriosis, a condition where tissue that normally lines the uterus grows outside of it—producing sharp, agonizing pangs in the abdomen for many, including me. Numerous hospital visits and rounds of antibiotics had done nothing to relieve the pain, yet the bills kept piling up. At the time, I was earning little over minimum wage and barely making ends meet—the thought of amassing thousands in medical debt with no hope of a cure seemed unfathomable.
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