I guess I should go straight to the elephant in the room, and explain what my 'illness' is. I am a sufferer of Endometriosis. And I have been for a while now, apparently since I was around 14.. but I was only diagnosed 2 years ago. (yay for misdiagnosis...) I have read many, many blogs and forums on how other women have coped with this, and I feel like I'm just like everybody else.
My initial reaction to being diagnosed was : 'oh s*it, I can't have children' but after a lovely chat with my doctors, I've been given hope, and I have an extremely high chance of still being fertile, because of the location of my Endo. So my first bit of advice would be, not to panic. It's a crappy enough illness without stressing out about things which may not even be relevant to you.
I hate to say it, but my Endo is controlling my life again at the moment. After being treated for 3 months (a lovely brief run in with the menopause...) the doctors are now planning surgery and have taken me off the treatment. It's as if I was given a glimpse of what life could be like, and then they've snatched it back away, and here I am, back at square one. Back in ridiculous amounts of pain, back to being doped up on stupid painkillers, and back to not being able to work.
I don't know how other women' bodies react to the pain, but mine tends to just shut down. So if I'm having a really bad day, I tend to just collapse, and throw up. It's really joyous... I swear..
People tell me to cheer up, and to try and stay positive about it all... I hear how it'll all be sorted soon enough, and how it could be a hell of a lot worst... But it seems really hard to stay positive. I mean, I know there are people out there who have problems, which make mine seem minuscule and ridiculous, but right now - I can't really cope with it.
I guess it doesn't really help, with the fact we've just moved to a new area - so I don't know my doctors and they don't know me...
I'm not going to lie, my support network is pretty incredible... I'm so lucky to have somebody in my life, who will help me with stupid tasks like putting on some socks, when the pain is too bad to even bend down. I'm ridiculously lucky, to have found somebody who can put up with my moaning, and grumbling about being constantly in pain... And somebody who will go and get me a hot water bottle and pain killers - just when he notices that look on my face. So here's my little Thank you to my other half - Adam, I actually couldn't do this without you. Thank you for everything.
Will it get better? I hope so, these new pain killers seem to be doing a better job than the last ones.. and the last thing I want is to go straight back onto Morphine, so I'm giving it a serious chance.
My appointment with the hospital is pretty soon, so I'm hoping my pre-op will shortly follow, and then hopefully I'll be as right as rain.
I've read many horror stories about the operation, but also read some pretty incredible ones as well. Hopefully mine will be the latter.
I know this I've rambled on a bit, but maybe there is someone out there, who is suffering too? If you are, I'm more than happy to talk to you..
Anyway, Ciao For Now! xXx
