Meet Our QENDO Ambassadors: Daisy Richardson
By Daisy Richardson
We’ve all heard the story. Girl feels immense pain, girl goes to doctor, girl gets told there is nothing wrong with her, girl goes home still in pain wondering if she is crazy – rinse and repeat. Unfortunately, as many reading right now will know, this is an all too common occurrence for Endometriosis (Endo) and chronic illness sufferers.
With not all symptoms being constant, and some being hard to prove, yes ‘prove’ to our medical professionals, many Endo sisters are misdiagnosed time and time again. I myself was misdiagnosed ten times before finally getting the answer I so desperately needed. Along the way, I was told I had everything from a gluten sensitivity, IBS, kidney issues, liver issues, thyroid problems, digestive issues, heartburn and stress, just to name a few. For some, the journey to diagnosis is longer than others. It still shocks me that it took ten years before I was correctly diagnosed. In hindsight, I had Endo symptoms from my first period when I was fourteen. There are a few pivotal moments that stand out more for me than others, moments that I now refer to as my ‘Bloodmares’.
The first of these was at age fifteen.
I was meeting up with a boy I liked in the city, a very big thing to do at that age.
We walked around the botanical gardens and sat underneath a tree. When we got up to leave, something felt wrong. I remember so vividly that I was wearing black tights with sandals. As I looked down at my feet, it all clicked. I had bled so much that the blood had reached my ankles. Embarrassed, I tried to walk behind the boy, for twenty minutes, all the way back to the bus station so that he wouldn’t notice what had happened. Tears were rolling down my face the whole walk.
Another, more recently, was walking home from work.
Less than 500 metres from home, the crippling pain came out of nowhere. Before I knew it, I was down, laying on a patch of grass. I had no pain killers on me and physically couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything but lie there for almost half an hour waiting for the pain to pass. The scariest part of this was not only that I knew no help was nearby, or that I dismissed my thoughts of calling someone to bring me pain killers as ‘ridiculous’. It was that in a mere five weeks, I was due to go back to a remote island in Fiji, possibly for up to 50 days. I was going on Survivor and was potentially going to have to deal with pain like this in front of cameras, crew, producers and 23 other people I had never met. People I was competing with and against, all of them looking for my every weakness.
There are plenty more humiliating cases where these came from, from losing cups of blood in intimate situations, to the cancelled dinners and the missed nights out. The days where you can’t leave your bed, the thought of getting down the stairs to boil the kettle for the hot water bottle is just impossible. A recent favourite has been the passers-by at work asking when I was expecting, all due to the severe bloating I was experiencing due to Endo.
As a disease, chronic illness is not just taxing physically, but mentally as well.
My biggest struggle has been my internal frustration. Why is my body doing this to me? Why am I always so tired? Why can I not perform to my fullest potential when I exercise? The guilt of indulging in foods you crave but know you shouldn’t have to avoid the risk of flares ups. The constant anxiousness when dating, knowing eventually you’ll have to explain what is going on with your body, feeling like you’re dragging that poor someone on all its ups and downs with you - feeling like an absolute freak.
I have also struggled with how unreliable I feel like I have become. This disease is unpredictable and wreaks havoc on the very structured routine I value and enjoy. The sad and frustrating truth is you can’t plan for pain, and I have had and currently am having, a period (pun not intended) of extremely taxing and exhausting flare ups. It is a domino effect in my life. Pain, energy levels, mood, productivity, sleep, sanity, activity, all collapsing on top of each other continuously. I am constantly left feeling like I have to choose between doing what’s best for my body and letting people down. No corner of my life has been left unaffected by Endo.
My best advice for my Endo sisters is that it is so important to remember that your pain is valid and it is relative to you. And though you’re no longer alone, you are going to be on your own, dare I say it, ‘journey’. One of my favourite mantras to live my life by is “Everything is either a blessing or a lesson, and sometimes both”. Through all the doom and gloom, I do consider myself one of the lucky ones. My Endometriosis has made me stronger and more resilient than I could have ever imagined, and someone I am proud to be today. While it’s crappy it took an illness to further build that in my character, I am grateful it did because my outlook got an absolute overhaul and my determination to help other women has only gotten stronger too.
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