My Endo Diary

Ok, so I thought I should update you all after my operation on Tuesday.  I have a lot of mixed emotions after the laparoscopy though and I promise to fill you all in soon. I'm sure many of you have felt the same way I'm feeling now so I will post in the near future about all the details. Sharing information is the best way to know we're not alone in this. But for the moment, I'm just getting my head around things and concentrating on recovery. UPDATED: Endometriosis was found in my ovaries as expected and removed. It was also found on my bowel, but it was left untreated. #MyEndoDiary ♡

It's the night before the big day. Six hours to go and I'll be checking into the hospital ready for my third operation. For the last 24 hours I have been quite calm on the outside. Inside I've been having butterflies and my heart has been beating ten to the dozen! Now that it's bed time I'm wide awake with very little chance of sleep. My overnight bag is packed just incase I have stay. I have everything ready and in place for me to come home. I'm hoping I'll be one of the first on the list to go down to theatre. Hanging about and waiting will not do me any good! I'll end up even more stressed and my mind will be up doing overtime. I will be worrying and observing every little detail going on around me. I'm dreading everything about it. I can't even begin to think about the recovery yet. But I know it's something we have to go through in order to get some relief from the devil that is endometriosis. And to be honest with you, there's no...

Christmas 2009 is when my life changed. I had always suffered extremely heavy and painful periods. But to me that was normal. I didn't realise then that was a symptom. I was able to manage it. Whether it was wearing two pads, scouring chemists or supermarkets for period pain relief, heat pads, painkillers, holisitc bracelets, taking days off school or spending days in bed. That was my normal. But Christmas 2009 is when more symptoms started coming. Nothing I could put my finger on exactly at the time. I just I knew I didn't feel right. Especially my emotional health. I was so down. With hindsight it must of been changes of my hormone levels as hormones play such a big part in Endometriosis. Looking back, I now know that was the start of the flare. February 2010, I started having stabbing pains in my stomach. I remember the 1st ever time it happened. I was doing normal things. I was actually walking across my landing to get to my bedroom. The pains shot across through my stoma...

August 25th. This will be the date of my next operation. My third. I have waited 12 months to get this date. Then, out of the blue, I receive a letter from the hospital. With only 12 days notice. In a way, that's good. Less time to stress. But for me, I'll stress no matter what. I'll just cram a year of waiting into 12 days of worry. I'm now down to 7 days. This time next week... Some people may think that knowing what will happen and how the day pans out etc, will be a benefit. A comfort perhaps. For me, it's the complete opposite. I know how emotional I will get. I know the feelings of panic, anxiousness and nervousness will build up. I know at certain points they'll peak and I'll break down. Just before I'm due to go down to theatre I'm guaranteed to start crying. The fear takes over and there's nothing I can do at that point but just trust the doctors and nurses. But that's normal I guess. Third time around, it will not be any ...

I know I won't be alone in these thoughts on this subject.. Endometriosis and a new relationship..  What do you tell them? How much do you tell them? When do you bring it up?  A million questions have been overloading my mind lately as I start a new chapter in my life. The last few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind for me. A good one! But, fast moving, exciting and terrifying all at once. The scariest part of it all is how endometriosis will impact everything. Right now, it is behaving. But we all know how quickly that changes. I don't want my life revolving around Endo. It has taken over way too much of it already! Now, I have started enjoying my life again, I'm terrified it will be snatched away to pain once again. I have shared The Spoon Theory with my new boyfriend, who was extremely understanding about it. Which actually made me feel so much at ease. I have explained a few of the symptoms. He knows I get 'bad days' and that i'll need rest ...

How do you go from feeling like for the first time (in a long time) you're actually living your life and having a great day with friends and family, enjoying life and generally having fun... to less than a week later (or even a day!) being curled back up in bed crying with the pain, praying the stronger meds will kick in? At one moment you get hope, clarity and life, with a big sense of normality. The next minute, you're faced with pain, upset and darkness, with no sense of it ever being normal again. Why does life with endometriosis have to go from one extreme to the other?  I've been thinking of how we react and cope during such low times. The lows can definitely become more prominent than the highs. Or is it because when in those situations, we focus all our attention on the rare high days? Which makes us feel more lost than usual and back at square one when they are quickly snatched away.  How do you mentally find a balance when there is no way of controlling w...