"Endometriosis"

I have always been a happy and healthy individual and was grateful to have such a blessed childhood. When I turned 16 and got my first period, things started to go wrong, I was in excruciating pain during that time of the month and was missing out on social events and school because of feeling so unwell. I remember starting my first job and my lovely boss having to drive me home from work a lot because she would find me slumped over counters or in the back room trying to do my job but in horrific pain. 

My parent has always been my greater advocate and continuously took me to GPs trying to find an answer and I recall I was always met with “it’s just part of being a woman” and even “ periods are meant to hurt, you mustn’t have a good pain tolerance!” Their only solution was to put me on the contraceptive pill. This apparent medical gaslighting even made me doubt myself, and my parent continued to pick me up from uni when I would have fainting episodes from the pain. 

Fast forward to 2020 when I started to have even more symptoms, bleeding from my bowel, breakthrough bleeding on the pill, continual spotting, pain during sexual intercourse and I was so bloated I looked 6 months pregnant. Back to the same GP who had dismissed me for years for my first Pap smear and they couldn’t even get a child’s size speculum inside me. I believe this was a wake up call for the GP who finally agreed to give me a referral to a gynaecologist. 

During this time I also broke my hand in several places during an accident and as I was joking and laughing with the doctors and nurses as they surveyed my horrible injury I had a moment of clarity - why was the pain of a broken hand nowhere near the pain I felt each month with my period? 

Finally I went to the gynaecologist who only diagnosed me with vaginismus and tried to say they didn’t think I had endometriosis. My wonderful parent was by my side again and we insisted for them to do a laparoscopy. I had my first laparoscopy in 2021 and my surgeon found endometriosis everywhere, not just confined to the uterus, everywhere. In my experience, it really is a whole body disease. 

It was a relief to finally be diagnosed with this condition after more than a decade of suffering. However I am getting similar symptoms again as of 2023 and I think I will have to book in for another surgery soon. 

Please don’t underestimate the pain people can put up with, please support people with endometriosis, the effects are so widespread, my mental health and finances have suffered so much because of this disease.