Pascal Oparada
A Kenyan woman, Julian Peters, 29, has narrated her ordeal at finding out as a teenager that she cannot have sex as normal people do.
Julian had gone to the doctors for an examination following swollen feet when she was given the devastating news aged just 17.
“At the age of 17, I visited the doctor for a checkup. I had aching feet. The doctor started with normal questions during the consultation. ‘When was your last period?’ My answer was, “I haven’t had my periods yet.” That marked the beginning of a long journey to living with this ghost for life.
“As a teen, it did not bother me much that I had not yet welcomed my periods. I was still young and naive and the fact that I had no pain, meant I had no alarm bells. While in class eight, my feet swelled but within a few days, I was okay. The swelling recurred while I was in form three and I visited Nazareth Hospital in Limuru for a check-up.
“After informing the doctor that I had not got periods, he advised that I needed a checkup. They did a physical checkup only to find out that I didn’t have a vagina. The doctor then recommended a scan to see if my reproductive system was formed,”
The Kenyan National newspaper, The Nation reports that diagnosis led Julian to other discoveries about her body which left her in shock.
She said the doctors also discovered that apart from not having a vagina, Julian have no uterus, no cervix and that he has just one kidney.
“My first scan showed that my reproductive system was formed but my vagina was closed from the outside. Minor surgery to open it was recommended. During the 2008 surgery, the doctor realised that there was a bigger issue; I had no vagina at all. They had to stop the surgery.
After three days, I went for another scan which revealed that I had no vaginal opening, uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes and that I had one kidney. In disbelief, the doctor ordered another scan that confirmed the results. It was too much for me to handle. How could I have all those parts missing? The doctor recommended for an MRI scan to be done and this confirmed that I had Mullerian Agenesis, also called MRKH,” she said.
Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome is a rare congenital disorder that affects the female reproductive system. Women with the condition are born without a womb or upper two-thirds of the birth canal. The condition affects one in every 5,000 women across the globe and renders the woman unable to carry children.
“After my diagnosis, the doctor said there was nothing much that could be done to rectify it. I was in shock and disbelief. I cried myself to sleep for days. But life had to continue. I went back to school and continued my education. I still hoped it was just but a dream and it would soon dawn that I was a normal girl. I kept hope alive. I did not discuss this with anyone at school. All they knew was, I was treated for my swollen feet. I kept it all to myself. It was easy to forget since I had nothing that kept reminding me I was different. I had no pain and this condition didn’t affect my way of doing things.
“In 2010, one year after my high school education, I found the MRI report in the house as I was doing the house cleaning. It hit me again that I had a condition. I had not discussed the issue with anyone for three years. We had not discussed it as a family since the doctor had assured us that nothing could be done. I still had not got my periods,” she said.
