11/10/2023 0 Comments Endometriosis bellyMost days I despair due to the pain but I’m trying to keep positive. Living with an indwelling catheter that expels every few weeks causing an extreme amount of pain, infections and bleeding. How bad will things get before they get to me? Sadly the current state of our healthcare system means everything is a long wait. I fear having two stomas on my stomach, I also fear the waiting times at our hospital. It leaves me bed bound for days and losing clots as large as my hands (not healthy I know!). This is due to the years of failed indwelling catheters and now suprapubic catheters.įor some reason my body seems to enjoy rejecting and expelling catheters which is a pain that is utterly excruciating. I’m facing my next challenge during the next couple of months which is a urostomy (where they create another stoma to divert your urine out your stomach). I’m not out of the woods yet and it’s a long journey, but I’m taking one step at a time. “It’s a long journey, but I’m taking one step at a time” It was an open surgery and it has left me with a huge scar down my stomach, but it has been a small price to pay as the way my bowel had become life threatening. This was all happening during the pandemic as well!įinally in May 2021 I had my stoma revised, my large colon removed and adhesiolysis to remove some more endometriosis. I was in and out of hospital for the first 12 months with blockages, my stoma stopping functioning, and being severely sick. So after having an operation with a huge change to my body I was faced with the extra worry of it not working. “This was all happening during the pandemic” I had my first one formed in March 2020 but this sadly was done incorrectly and my stoma started to retract (it sunk fully under the skin). That’s when I was faced with a life changing option which was to have an ileostomy.Īn ileostomy is where they divert your small bowel out through your abdomen into a stoma bag. I spent hours/days/months of my life having to take extremely aggressive laxatives, enemas, and colonic irrigation. My large colon was classed as a ‘dead bowel’ because it had zero function. “I was faced with a life changing option”įast forward 2 years later and my sacral nerve stimulator was having no impact on my body whatsoever. I remember being given the leaflet about the sacral nerve stimulator and it was full of people in their 70s/80s, I felt completely out of my depth and that I was old before my time. I was referred for a sacral nerve stimulator (this is similar to a pacemaker but it is inserted near the spinal nerves that controls the bowel muscles). After 7 surgeries to remove endometriosis, my bowel had started to lose its normal function. I was isolated and felt more alone than ever. I felt like I couldn’t relate to anyone my age.Įvery leaflet I was handed by the doctors has elderly people staring back at me. I was in my early twenties suffering from bowel incontinence, incredibly painful bowel movements, rectal bleeding, severe bloating and sickness. Little did I know that for the next 10 plus years, bowel endometriosis would rule my life. “I felt completely numb.”Īt first, I felt utter relief that I finally had the answer to the pain I had been suffering, but at the same time I was faced with a lifelong disease that had no cure. Two weeks after the diagnosis I had to undergo major surgery to have my bowel resected as the endometriosis had grown into my bowel. It had destroyed my bowel, bladder, grew all over my womb, ovaries and fallopian tubes. It was when I was 17 that I was finally diagnosed with stage 4 widespread endometriosis. I was told I needed to get used to it and that painful periods were part of being a woman (shocking I know). For years I was dismissed by medical professionals. I started my periods at the tender age of 11 and I suffered with them from the get go. I was diagnosed with endometriosis when I was 17 (two weeks before my 18th birthday). I am 29 years of age and I have undergone 15 operations so far, with my 16th in the near future. My journey with endometriosis has been an incredibly turbulent one to say the least. After 15 surgeries and her 16th planned to treat stage 4 endometriosis, Anna uses her social media platform and story to raise awareness about this destructive disease and explain why endometriosis is more than ‘just your period’. She spent her teens suffering with heavy, erratic periods and severe abdominal pain. Anna Cooper, 29 was diagnosed with endometriosis at the age of 17.
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