Endometriosis UPDATE

This is long overdue I know, I just hadn't gotten around to writing this. 

I should also say that you might need to read my first post about endometriosis for this to make much sense :)

So what's happened since my last post? Well I had my second laparoscopy on the 3rd of December last year and I'll tell you about that later but first I need to go back to a week or so before.

Now before surgery you need to have ALOT of tests run on you to check that you're fit enough to have it done, from two rounds of blood tests too having your ankles measured for a rather sexy pair of surgical stockings. Yes it is a nuisance but something that needs to be done.

You also have a meeting with your consultant or surgeon, I was lucky enough that my consultant was my surgeon too. This meeting is to discuss exactly whats going to happen and how it will be done. 

 After my last laparoscopy I was told that I had an adhesion between a section of my bowel and my abdominal wall, something I was told wouldn't be able to be separated. However he explained to me that sometimes after the decapeptyl treatment some adhesions can start to separate themselves. This time he had asked a specialist surgeon to be present and specialist tools and equipment brought in, he explained that the chances of him being able to separate the two would be very slim but if he could he would be able to. 

So the surgery day arrived and to say that I was nervous is an enormous understatement. I don't think I slept the two nights before and as we approached the hospital at 6:30 that morning it was still dark and I couldn't stop shaking. I stepped out of the car and had to force myself to make the short walk to the main entrance. So bizarre that I've had so many surgery's over the years and this exact surgery the year before and usually other than a few butterflies I am fine but this one crippled me, I think because I'd had such an awful experience after the first surgery and during the following weeks that I was just terrified of going through it again. But I knew there was no choice, I had to do it.

I was taken to my room. Somehow I had been lucky enough to be treated at a private hospital all the way through this and still be under the NHS, I think because I need to see a specialist and he was the best near by.  

So unlike in your average NHS hospital each patient is given their own room and toilet. Something I was grateful for that morning as I sat there panicking and periodically running to the toilet for fear of being sick with the nerves. 

Eventually I was taken to the operating theatre and put under. I had a bit of trouble coming round (after the last surgery I was a bit 'fighty' coming around, I'm usually the gentlest person ever but apparently I was very aggressive and trying to pull wires off and jump out of bed, ripping my stitches in the process. Not that I remember any of it. So this time they pumped me full of sedatives so that it wouldn't happen again) and my goodness did it take me awhile to fully come around, I was still groggy that evening, but I'm grateful they did it.

When I had finally come around my mum told me that she bumped into the surgeon on the stairs and he told her it had gone better than he ever expected and that he'd be by in a bit to speak to us. 

A little while later there was a knock on the door and he came in with a big smile on his face.

I was in complete shock when he had told me what they had found, I think we all were. Nothing. The endometriosis had completely gone, He'd even double checked and pulled organs around to make sure and nothing, it had completely gone. He explained that for every 1000 women he sees 1 out of those women will respond this well to the treatment and be endo free by the end of it. And if that wasn't amazing enough that awful edision, the one he was convinced after the first surgery could never be separated had completely separated itself without him having to do anything, it was all the drugs.

So yes there is scarring and yes I will probably still continue to have tummy cramps occasionally from the scarring on my bowel. But its gone. I still can't believe it.

A year of hell with those injections and I'm still not even close to being back to normal all these months later and I don't know how long it will be before I'm healthy again. But no endo, no more pain, hopefully no more surgeries. I can't tell you how grateful I am.

So now I take the pill everyday with no breaks to regulate my hormones and hopefully keep the endometriosis from returning. And that's it, no periods until I start thinking about having children, pretty fantastic in my opinion.

So that's my story. A very short story compared to most endometiosis sufferers. Something I will be forever thankful to my gynaecologist for. If you had asked me during the treatment if I would ever recommend it or what I thought of it I would tell everyone to avoid it like the plague and that it was just pure evil. But now honestly its such a small price to pay to be free from this debilitating disease that I want to shout it from the rooftops and tell every woman suffering that its worth a try, look how well it worked for me.