The turning point in Elena’s story usually arrives with a symptom that is hard to ignore: bleeding from the navel.

For years, Elena, like many women, suffered from painful periods. She was used to the cramping and the fatigue, having been told by doctors that heavy periods were simply "her normal." However, a year ago, she noticed something strange about her belly button.

The search results were a ghost town of old forum posts and abandoned questions. But one link, a PDF from the Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology , caught her eye. The title was dense and impenetrable, but one word glowed on the screen: