Living with Embarrassing Moments of Hidradenitis Suppurativa

If you have Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS), I'm sure you've had an embarrassing moment or two in public. I will tell you about the day I had to face every girl's worst nightmare…

Chasing goals with HS

My dream has always been to become a police officer—to work for the FBI, to be exact. My fear wasn’t the hard work or criminals; it was being in debilitating pain and not being able to perform my job. However, I wouldn't let HS stop me from reaching my goals. Although, on days with flare-ups, I don't know if I could do hand-to-hand combat for any reason.

Before reaching the point of hand-to-hand combat, I was in the police Academy practicing my tactical moves. I was in the middle of sparing with another cadet, who proceeded to pick me up, flip me over his body, and throw me to the ground. Which is all fine and dandy, except I had a flare-up! As he threw me to the ground and my butt hit the floor, there was an explosion. The flare-up POPPED!

There was blood everywhere. As I was getting up slowly, I heard whispers and laughter. I saw people pointing, unsure of what was going on because, despite the pain of a flare, it was masked by the shock of my whole body hitting the floor.

The embarrassment of a flareup

If you think high school is bad, imagine a bunch of adults, mostly “men,” and there's blood on the floor and the back of your pants. Everyone thought I had my period. Man logic (the pressure from me hitting the floor is what caused the explosion of blood from my uterus to be on my butt).

At this point, I didn't know if I was more embarrassed about the period or the HS, which was the culprit. So, I'm going through how to explain this away with the least embarrassment. The instructor told me I needed to come to the office to write an incident report to ensure I was OK with continuing with training. I wanted to die; he proceeded to ask me if I was injured. I said no, “I'm fine.”

He wanted to know where the blood came from... I’m embarrassed that I didn’t use this as a teaching moment to spread awareness. I thought it was better. They think it’s my period, which is normal versus a skin disease. (As if HS isn’t normal) I thought no one would want to work with me or come near me. I advised that I had a cut that must have been reopened from sparing. I’m unsure if he believed it, but he accepted the answer.

Being prepared

That day, I learned two HS life lessons: I should wrap my flareups before doing anything that could cause them to pop. Hint (that’s everything), I was sent home because my clothes were ruined. Life lesson number two: Have a bag or an emergency kit ready for those who don't already have this in place.

What would you put in your emergency kit? Mine includes a change of clothes, gauze, bandages, disinfected wash in my homemade potato juice, which helps bring my flare-ups to my head, and lots and lots of napkins or wet wipes. The moral of the story is to be prepared for the unexpected and never be embarrassed by your truth.