I know I haven’t posted my experience in a while because I’ve been so busy trying to catch up with school work and starting to transition into my life again. I will try to finish up my story today, if not, soon!

If you want to see the first and second of my experience with Endo, please click on the following links: CLICK HERE TO READ PART 1; CLICK HERE TO READ PART 2 If you’ve already read part both of them, keep reading :)

Last time I ended off with me going to a more diverse hospital with doctors that specialized in Gastroenterology. With my first appointment I remember staying at a hotel the night before in order for us to be closer to CDH and that way the drive wouldn’t be as long since my appointment was about at 9 or so. Anyway, the doctor could tell I was in pain and scheduled a sigmoidoscopy since my pain was in my lower abdomen. We waited for about 2 hours to prep for this and I ended up having to drink this gross flavored sedation medicine which was supposed to work within 20 minutes. But in reality, it didn’t; I felt most of the sigmoidoscopy which was painful because they ended up taking biopsies. Halfway through I was finally out and when I had to go home people had to physically pick me up and dress me because I was so out of it.

After waiting for a few weeks for the results they scheduled a full colonoscopy due to the inflammation they found in the lower part of the intestine and bowel. By this point doctors kept telling me to wait another two weeks or another month and I was sick and tired of hearing this and waiting. I just wanted to feel better. A long time anticipating the colonoscopy, I finally went in to have it really early one morning. All the doctors were very nice and supportive seeing how much pain I was in. I was put on anesthesia and don’t remember much only being cranky when I woke up. (haha) But after a few days they said the inflammation had cleared up and I didn’t have any major disease that they could find. As much as that was a relief, I would’ve rather been diagnosed with something they could treat. It was definitely so extremely frustrating. They seriously thought it was all in my head and had “anorexia” down in my charts at the time which I know wasn’t what I had. Eventually they said to go to a pain clinic seeing as there was nothing left to do. I had had over 20 cat/CT scans, numerous ultra sounds, urinary/bowel tests, and so many more I don’t even remember telling me that my appendix and everything else inside me was “normal”. But deep down I knew that a pain clinic wouldn’t work, the pain I felt wasn’t something that hypnosis would help.

The doctors did give me a few hints to go see another surgeon to see if they would “open me up” and take a look at my insides to see if they could find anything. We did call my original surgeon that took out my gallbladder but she told me to talk to a gynecologist before she would even schedule an appointment to talk to me. We didn’t want to wait even longer because by this point I was turning the corner of my 5th month of this whole pain process.

Side note: I had surgery 2 years prior to remove a pilonidal cyst on my tailbone which is a whole story within itself.

We ended up calling the surgeon that removed my pilonidal cyst and seeing if she would talk to us and help me get rid of my pain. We called her office and she scheduled an appointment to see us within 4 days which was the quickest that had ever happened. Of course the appointment was on the worst snow storm of the year where the roads were terrible and icy but I wasn’t about to miss this appointment. She was so understanding and very hands on, she was the first doctor to talk to me directly and ask me how I felt and what I thought was needed to be done. After putting in my input we decided to schedule a surgery in two days to take out my appendix (whether it needed to be taken out or not just as a cautionary act), and to do a diagnostic exploratory surgery (fancy phrase for look around to see if anything looks suspicious. She then advised me to see a gynecologist as soon as possible and for him to be in the surgery to check things out too.

I went to the gynecologist the day before surgery and right when I got there he knew something was wrong just by looking at my health records and history. (I had ALWAYS had bad periods and thought it was totally normal (if you do suffer from bad periods please see your doctor it will help a lot, trust me), I would literally miss two-three days out of every month because of how painful and uncomfortable my period was). Anyway, he pretty much knew I had this disease called Endometriosis without even checking me. When he was feeling around I screeched in pain because of how painful it was and right then I knew something was up. He gave me a bunch of pamphlets and books about Endo and told me to “read up” before surgery. That night I stayed up late to read them and educate myself on this disease I could potentially have.

The day of the surgery was February 23, 2011 and I was a nervous wreck. I went in and got registered and remember there was two flutists and a harpist playing live in the hospital to lighten the mood. When I was called in and got dressed in the hospital gown the tension began to rise. The surgeon was about and hour and a half late because her surgery prior to mine was running longer than expected. I remember when they finally told me it was time to go I was pacing the ceiling panes as I was being rolled down into a cold hallway where nurses were dodging out of the way. When I got the to operation room they put a blood pressure cuff on me and my arm with the IV on it got velcroed to a board and my legs were tied to the bed in order for me not to move during surgery.

When I woke up I was in a lot of pain, screaming to get some help because I couldn’t move. It was unbearable the amount that I hurt. They gave me pain meds but took them about 2 hours to keep my pain under control. I was to be kept overnight to monitor my well being and ended up staying an extra day on account of I couldn’t walk at all. In surgery however, they did find Stage 1 Endometriosis and found out that my appendix was in fact infected.

Thank you so much for reading! :) This was the end of my story, I might tell what I’m going through now as a part of my recovery stage. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope my experience can help you with any problems you might have.

REMEMBER YOU ARE NOT ALONE, ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE YOU ARE FREE TO ASK ME! I WILL DO THE BEST OF MY ABILITY TO ANSWER THEM. STAY BEAUTIFUL <3