SALT LAKE CITY — In one Utah neighborhood, the Uhl family is just like any other.
A couple of dogs are bounding about the house, dodging toddler toys and the toddler himself. The love of a family captured in the photos hung neatly on the wall.
It was in Utah where Katie Uhl met her husband, starting their life together. And then fast forward a few years, she and her husband are now raising their two-year-old son. “I didn’t know what we would be having,” Katie said. “But he came out, and it was a boy!”
But to get to this point, it wasn’t easy. “At my core, I knew something was wrong,” she said. “Since my teens, I always felt pain and I just thought it was normal.”
For years, Katie had dealt with pain in her abdomen. She said the pain is worse than her snowboarding accident. “I ruptured my spleen and broke five ribs, and this pain that I feel is worse than that,” she said.
But doctor after doctor, she found no answers, and her pain was “normal”. No one had said the word ‘endometriosis’ yet.
But in March of 2020, her first cyst ruptured. Through a series of cyst rupturing and her on-and-off use of birth control to manage the symptoms, she found herself dealing with this for years.
“They pretty much told me that cysts are pretty much normal,” she said. “They did a CT scan and sure enough my abdomen was filled with blood, you had a cyst that ruptured, that’s what’s happening.”
So for a few years, she stuck with birth control. “But we were trying to have a kid, so that wasn’t a good option,” she said.
In April of 2021, she stopped birth control, and cyst issues returned. At that point, she was encouraged to see Dr. Kevin Jensen at St. Mark’s Hospital.
“Katie was like it feels like an elephant sits on my chest,” Jensen said. “She actually had endometriosis on her diaphragm.”
Just days after she met with Jensen, she had a surgery scheduled. “You’d think post-surgery you’d be in pain, but I had felt better than I had in like 10 years,” she said.
Endometriosis is a disease that takes 4 to 12 years to diagnose, according to the Endometriosis Foundation of America. It impacts 190 million women, and yet it’s under-researched and underfunded. Diagnosis and treatment are really only possible through surgery.
At St. Mark’s Hospital, there’s a center dedicated to endometriosis called the Utah Endometriosis Center. “It’s a hard diagnosis and hard to understand how a small lesion that’s 2 or 3 mm can have a ton of pain,” Jensen said. “We’re getting better; there are some ways that ultrasound can help diagnose some things.”
Some of the symptoms include heavy periods, problems getting pregnant, cramps that worsen over time, spotting or bleeding between periods, painful bowel movements, or pain when urinating during periods.
Katie said Dr. Jensen listened to her and walked with her through this journey. As they moved through the endometriosis, Katie was able to start another journey that she had been looking forward to for a long time — having a baby.
“Oftentimes we help them through surgery and then through the delivery of a baby, so that’s a really fun journey,” Jensen said.
So, when she gave birth to her son in November of 2023, it was a full-circle moment. “Dr. Jensen saw me at my actual worst, like I was at a breaking point,” she said. “And then he delivered my son.”
She encourages people to speak up and find a doctor who will listen. “Definitely advocate for yourself,” she said. “Keep fighting to get answers.”
