I’ve hesitated writing about endo for Endometriosis Awareness Month because I feel like I’ve said so much already.
But it’s important to talk about, and I want to talk about how lucky I am.
I still have endometriosis, I’m in some kind of pain most of the time and pursuing this diagnosis has not been easy, and comprehending living with chronic pain is an uphill battle.
Read moreIn my previous post I started to speak about menstrual education, an area of schooling I think we can all agree that we’ve seen lacking.
I think that any dedicated session talking about menstruation and focusing on destigmatisation is fantastic, highlighting that this is normal and not shameful and is clearly going to have a huge impact on what is taken away from it.
The thing that is tricky after living with a period for so many years is that you sort of forget just how little you knew, things that sound glaringly obvious to us now were not always a given.
I turned 21 in November, and spent the following two days in bed.
I wasn’t hungover or recovering from some wild night, but so completely exhausted by my small dinner celebration in which I cooked for four of my friends and then sat at a kitchen table for a few hours.
It was absolutely lovely and I loved every part of it, but just the cooking and baking (which was not monumental by any means) had me in pain before the dishes were clean.
What would maybe be tiring for the average able bodied person, my disability makes beyond draining.
Yes, disability.
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In February this year I published a post about my goals for the coming year, and while there were a few specific goals it all really boiled down to being kinder to myself.
I talked about not beating myself up so much and giving myself time to rest, which became part of my need for a diagnosis around my chronic pain.
Validating what I was feeling enough to go through the process of finding an OBGYN and putting myself out there at risk of not being believed or having my pain trivialised was a huge and necessary step.
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Just over three months ago I had surgery.
I feel like a broken record at this point but, in summary, I had a laparoscopy to investigate and excise endometriosis and had a mirena inserted while I was under (for more on that you can check out my surgery and recovery post here).
Since I put up that post, I’ve had my post-op appointment and started in a physiotherapy clinical trial at my hospital.
In my follow up appointment I got to see photos of inside my pelvis from the surgery and where the tissue they removed was, and had it confirmed that it was in fact endometriosis. Read more
