Let’s Chat with Peta
by Peta Bobbine |@peta.xoxo
Hello my name is peta.
My whole life all I’ve known is pain in my tummy. For years I was dismissed by doctors and specialists.
It wasn’t until a work colleague told me she had been diagnosed with Endometriosis and her symptoms with bleeding after sex and painful sex, that a light clicked.
I’d had so many previous scans done and doctors had said “we can’t see anything” or “you just have IBS”. I then decided to fight for answers.
Back then I didn’t know anything about the importance of an excision specialist so I went to a gynaecologist my GP at the time suggested.
She said she didn’t think I had endometriosis but I fought for laparoscopic investigation surgery.
Sure enough I woke up and had been diagnosed with stage 4 endometriosis. She had done ablation surgery. Within months my pain was worse than before. I then joined endometriosis pages and found out excision surgery is the gold standard.
So I found a surgeon who did excision and went to him. $12,500 later, he performed excision surgery and removed my ovary that my previous surgeon had left badly attached to my bowel. He had tried to fix what he said was irreparable damage that the previous surgeon had done to my pelvic wall. I later found out my first doctor was just out of medical school.
Again within months my pain was no better.
I was devastated.
So I went for more scans and it was then that I was diagnosed with Adenomyosis.
My pain was debilitating. It was taking over my life. My partner and I made embryos in hope for surrogacy and I made the decision to have a hysterectomy at the age of 30, before children.
This was my hope to get my life back but again, within months pain continued to take over my days.
My surgeon did not want to take both ovaries, so left my right ovary. This ovary has reattached to my bowel and now continues to grow painful cysts which burst and I need to go to emergency. There are also signs that the Endometriosis is already back. So I’m still trying to fight for my quality of life.
I have an appointment with two different excision surgeons, which the earliest I can see them is August, to chat about where to from here. Some days I feel like I’ve failed, these diseases have taken my ability to carry our baby, robbed me of my physical health and mental health- not to mention the massive effect it has financially.
Some days I feel like giving up but then I remember how much I have fought already and I refuse to give up anytime soon. If I could go back knowing what I know how I would of starting seeing a GP that specialises in women’s health a long time ago and only seen excision specialists, that are well known in the community.
Join Facebook support groups and following all of the Endometriosis or Adenomyosis pages you can to read everything there is to know before you decide where you want to go and what you want to do.
Never allow a specialist to encourage you to do anything you don’t feel comfortable to do and remember you have every right to say no and say what you want to do. To anyone going through this, I encourage you to fight. Fight to be heard, fight for answers and fight for your quality of life. We deserve to be pain free and we deserve proper care.
Peta x
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