[I have recently been reading endometriosis UK's book about endo and read how to prepare your self for an endometriosis diagnosis while being tested and/or having an investigative laparoscopy. How normally a doctor will tell you what they are looking for during tests to prepare you. But I was not being investigated because my GP wouldn't acknowledge that anything was wrong with me.]
I had not been seeing any gynae doctors when I got my diagnosis and was not prepared for it at all.
I was 21 and suddenly got very ill, my temperature went really high and I had a really bad pain in my stomach. I had barely moved off the sofa all day and by late afternoon my parents decided that something was not right and rushed me to A&E.
In A&E they did blood tests and sent me for an x-ray, they decided that they thought it was most likely appendicitis and sent me to the emergency assessment unit for monitoring while they waited for a bed on a ward. In the night they found a bed for me but it was on the man's bay as they had no room on the woman bay. For a young woman who had never stayed in a hospital to have men all around me was scary.
In the middle of the night, I got worse and the doctor came and checked on me. I didn't know at the time that they had made the decision to take my appendix out the very next day. It was quite early the next day and I got taken down to surgery.
When I awoke from the surgery in the recovery I was in a lot of pain. They put me on a Morphine drip and once I was more awake they took me back to the ward. I had a drain in my stomach and felt very unwell, I ended up needing to have a catheter as a mix of the surgery, swelling and anaesthetic had caused me to not be able to pee. I was feeling emotionally all over the place.
It was the next day when the doctors came around to talk to me. They said they had removed my appendix and had found some Endometriosis on my womb, and removed it, given me a drain as I had a lot of fluid in my stomach cavity. In my morphine bubble, I couldn't quite understand what they were saying but asked what it was. They explained it where the lining of the womb grows outside of the womb. I remember the doctor saying the only way to cure it is to have kids but I wouldn't wait too long as it can make having kids difficult.
Now suddenly I was left with a medical condition I had never heard of and the only cure was having kids and I shouldn't wait or I might never have one. This was a lot to take in and felt it wasn't fully explained to me and I didn't feel ready to deal with this. No one had talked about treatment to help I was left with my family with very little explanations or support.
Now I know that what the doctors had told me that day was wrong. Having babies won't cure it. there is no known cure, all they can do is try and ease your symptoms with pain meds, hormone treatment and surgery.
please see links for endometriosis UK website and Amazon where you can purchase their book (just where I purchased I'm sure its probably available in other places.
https://www.endometriosis-uk.org/ Endometriosis uk book
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