Meet Our Management Team: Ash Webb
By Ash Webb
Ash’s passion for starting the conversation around menstrual and women’s health makes her a champion for the QENDO community. She serves as treasurer on our management team, facilitates education and support events in the Darling Downs, and is the vision behind our Women’s Health Expo - a must attend event in the region for the second year in a row and is now supported by the state government. Ash remains a hardworking support worker on the front lines of our support team, empowering others to seek help and find management strategies for their chronic conditions. She is a proud Mum to the beautiful Fletcher, and is passionate about sharing the struggles of infertility and IVF to help break down stigma and discomfort around the subject.
Hi, I’m Ash. I am one of the three ladies on the Management Committee and try to hide mostly behind the scenes - until there’s money involved. Then my face is all you’ll see! I became the Treasurer in 2019, every day that goes by I think, wow - look how far this Organisation has come. I am very proud to be a part of the management team in my role of Treasurer. In order to extend my level of passion for Women’s Health, I am the key organiser for the yearly Darling Downs Women’s Health Expo (which started in 2019 and our 2020 WHE, was proudly supported by the Queensland Government - which shows just how incredible the QENDO Team are!.) I am, and always will be a team player and a firm believer in the old saying “there’s no I in team.” Being the oldest member on the team has its challenges. I’m not young and savvy like the other pair, but I feel like I make up for it in other ways. The three of us absolutely love working with each other to help end the silence and stigma around any gynecological issues.
Throughout my years with QENDO, I’ve had the honour and privilege of sharing some of my journey and the obstacles we as Endo warriors have to overcome, but I haven’t shared my full journey - so here it is.
I remember it like it was yesterday, that moment I was told I have endometriosis.
The moment that all of my pain, all of my insecurities were no longer something I was imagining.
I didn’t yet understand what that diagnosis meant, or what was going to be in store for the rest of my life.
During high school, I recall laying in the corridors, having stomach cramps. I would have days where I would leak through my pad and have to hide the fact this happened. It wasn’t until I graduated high school and gained a full time business administration traineeship that I learnt that there was something wrong with my body. I would watch the women I worked with, not suffer with belly pains, cramps or anything that remotely looked like period pain. I can remember so many trips up to the emergency room with my Dad in the early hours of the morning, all due to vomiting so much that I couldn’t even keep water down, I would get a rash all over my face that looked like measles, we didn’t know what to do. Eventually I booked in to have a camera put down my throat to see what was happening. These results came back with nothing unusual. About a year later, my GP referred me to see a gynaecologist - with the intention to see if something there was linking up with my symptoms.
Sure enough, after doing an internal ultrasound, with a mass on my ovaries, I was booked in a week later to have a laparoscopy. From that surgery in 2009 I was diagnosed with endometriosis and ovarian cysts.
A year later I was in pain again, so I was booked in for another surgery. Again, more endo and cysts.
Thankfully after that surgery, I had a reprieve for a few years, but in early 2015 I found myself back in excruciating pain. Thankfully, I found myself a new OBGYN who decided it would be best to do another laparoscopy to see what was going on.
When I had this operation, she found more endo, adhesions and a benign tumor that had wrapped itself around my fallopian tube. It was at this point that she was concerned about my future fertility.
I realised I needed to find some support. Early 2016 I found QENDO (or as it was more commonly known then, Endometriosis Association Qld Inc), and watched from afar.
With my OBGYN’s guidance, support and knowledge, in November 2016 my husband and I fell pregnant with our first child. In August 2017, our little man Fletcher Eric Webb was born, and our lives changed. We didn’t realise we could love so much.
It was then that I started to volunteer with QENDO to bring EndoMeets to Toowoomba and the Darling Downs. I became a support worker, and have since heard 100’s of women speak up and ask for information about Endometriosis.
Sadly, early 2019 saw me back in pain. Except this time, I knew it had to be endo and scar tissue. But what made being in pain even harder to deal with, is that I had to be a mother as well.
16th April 2019 (Our 3rd Wedding Anniversary) saw me booked in for another laparoscopy. How romantic. As predicted, endo, adhesions and now a PCOS diagnosis. The PCOS diagnosis gave us a few more answers in relation to my fertility as my husband and I had discussed we would start to try for Baby Webb #2.
But now, as I sit here, writing this - over a year later since that op and still not pregnant. November 2019 saw us signing paperwork to begin IVF, and now with three failed cycles under our belt and a fourth about to begin, it’s brought a whole lot of other emotions and side effects to come to terms with, but I’ll have to touch on that another time.
I guess one thing I would like to leave you with is, if you feel like there’s something wrong with your body - don’t just sit around and wait for it to get better because it won’t.. Seek help, ask you GP for referrals, ask for the tests. Don’t back down. You know your body better than anyone else. Please, trust that gut instinct.
Until then, endo warriors.
Be safe, smile, and know the team at QENDO are always there for you. Always.
Ash x
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