Suffering with Endometriosis is a long and painful journey. I have always had Endometriosis although I didn't know that was what it was at first. As a teenager aged fourteen I would faint when my period came and throw up. Every month I would spend day 1 of my cycle rolling about in agony in bed, my legs and tummy cramped and bloated. Most women suffer from cramps and bloating but what Endometreosis brings is hellish. Once when I was about 15 i was staying at a friends house I sat at the top of her stairs holding my stomach praying for the pain to stop when the next thing I knew her Dad was standing over me. Her whole family was there all looking horrified. I was spralled out across the hall carpet, I could have broken my neck. I'd fallen face first down the stairs, a huge friction burn all across my face.
My family got used to it, a local shop called my Dad one morning I'd fainted in the street on the way to school. Casually he swung by in his car, put me on the back seat and took me home for another days agony. I never really thought that anyone else believed the amount of pain I was in every month or understood the mental effects. Always knowing every month suddenly on a unknown day I would be hit by a crippling pain for about twelve hours. While I was in the grips of the pain every month I would think my life was awful, that I'd rather be dead than go through this every month for the rest of my life...I thought about asking for a hysterectomy so I could just get on with my life pain free. Of course as I got older I got used to it. I was less dramatic in my mind but the pains never ceased.
I started taking the pill, I would back to back take them for months to avoid the problem but it always made it worse when it did come. I planned holidays, nights out everything around my cycle. When I got to stage I wanted children i saw my gyno and he said it would happen. He just couldn't say when or if I'd need help. Years past, I had a laporoscopy where they removed as much as they could see. No change, I had IUI fertility treatment three times in the end and still nothing.
I gave up, I began a new life where I had settled with the notion I wouldn't have children. I was newly single and I was resigned about the future not including motherhood. Still I had the pain every month and I was seriously thinking about getting a hysterectomy rather than pointlessly suffer every month. Then two years into a new relationship I found myself moaning to a friend that I had an important meeting in Birmingham that week and was expecting my period 'knowing my luck ' it would be that day and I'd be too ill to go. She asked if I might be pregnant and I laughed it off.
Two days later I was sat on the bathroom floor in tears, a pregnancy test in my hand.
Ever since Tabitha was born I have had no pain with my periods.
She has fixed me.
If you have an experience of Endometriosis you would like to share please send it in to my email link top right hand corner and I'll be happy to publish it.
