Because I have big news.
I'm going to be going in for surgery on the 21st of August. For those who aren't Twitter followers and happened to stumble upon my blog by accident, allow me to enlighten you on the reason why I will be having an operation.
Like thousands of other women, I suffer from a chronic, painful, incurable disease called Endometriosis. Endometriosis is, in short, a disease of the female reproductive system. For unknown reasons it causes the lining of the uterus, called the endometrium, to grow on other internal organs. The disease is graded on a scale from 1 to 4. Surprisingly, the grade (or "amount") of endometriosis does not usually indicate how painful the disease may be to an individual. For example, a woman diagnosed with Stage 1 endometriosis may experience debilitating pain while a woman with stage 4 may feel very little pain.
I'm personally suffering from Stage 3 endometriosis, and I'm in a lot of pain.
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| a lovely peek at our insides! |
Endometriosis has a range of symptoms, from pelvic pain to fatigue. Since there is no known cure for endometriosis, doctors try a number of different treatment options to alleviate the pain in patients. Hormonal treatment is common practice in fighting endometriosis.
In my personal case, two years of hormonal treatments didn't help alleviate my symptoms, and after appointment after appointment with my specialist, it was finally agreed that laparascopic surgery would be the next step.
So here I am, in bed typing away... nervous. I'm relieved that my doctor will be taking a peek inside and hopefully excising the endometriomas. But at the same time I'm scared stupid. Surgery is scary... it's not particularly pleasant to be laying naked on a narrow metal table while strangers in gloves and masks hover around you. Of course you're asleep for that bit, but all the same, it's really quite a scary situation.
Sweet Dreams, Readers.
