Endo awareness video

This is the lovely video made by Alyssa Pinto, which I posted about last week featuring the faces of endo (myself included).

Please share it, re-tweet, and pass on.

And, most importantly, if you live in pain - don't feel alone.

DD
x

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngTHgzQQGO8

Pain, acceptance and winning

 

So, today I am in a lot of pain.

A slightly ill-fated trip to Cambridge:  trying to find shoes for my bridesmaid dress + busy shops + humid Autumn + pain + tired Mini Divas = me stumbling around shops trying to not cry/hit people/cry/faint/cry.

Endometriosis: 10 reasons to go running

Endometriosis is crippling. Pain management is important, and  I know ladies, exercise can be THE LAST thing on your mind when the pain strikes.

But, as an endo warrior who is on a journey with my running and training for a half marathon, here is why I think you should give it a go:

1. Exercise gives you back control; one day you may be in bed on painkillers but the next you are out there doing 9 miles and winning.

My interview on Sherryl's World on Bang FM

For anyone who missed it, here is the link to my interview last week on Bang FM with the wonderful Sherryl Blu talking about endometriosis.

Thanks to Sherryl for the airtime and for fabulous Team Bangs on the Run crew member Cass for the opportunity.

 

Jo Gifford drops into Sherryl's World to discuss Endometriosis - Mon 25th July 2011 by Sherrylsworld on Mixcloud

Pain is lonely

 

 

Pain is lonely.

It happens so often, no-one has anything left to say.

It's normality, being trapped in a body that doesn't work how it should. It doesnt make it any easier.

Pain is isolation, the world goes by outside the window.

Pain is silent. No one hears a scream.

 

 

Endo pain

Options for the Optionless

Yesterday I went to visit the lovely people at the endo clinic in Addenbrookes. It has been 7 months since my laparoscopy and Mirena insertion, and, as you all know, although I have had a certain amount of relief initially, the pain is very much still prevalent.

The thing about endo is that although 1 in 10 women have it there is pretty much bugger all they can do. It’s about management, rather than cure.

50 is the new 20. And 30. And 40...

So lovely people, readers of the Dexterous Diva will know of my journey with endometriosis. I don't want to use the word "struggle" as it evokes a negative image of something overcoming me, when I am doing my best to maintain a sense of equilibrium with it - facing the beast square in the eyes if you will.

Not a lot of people know this...

....but sometimes, when my endo causes my stomach to be bloated I literally cannot walk.

The F word

One would have thought, dear readers of my blog, that I would be wise to it by now.

One would imagine that I would re-read my posts, check through my diary, and say "ah, last month at this part of my cycle I was in bed for 2 days, so I shall therefore be prepared".

No. The f word comes to bite every month, without fail, and I am always annoyed by it.

Fatigue.

Immense, all-consuming exhaustion. Bone aching, head to toe, marrow-draining tiredness. The kind that rest and sleep don't quench; this is a body in pain, an inner dis-ease of dis-order, the kind that reminds me that ease and order are, for the moment, a million miles away.

This kind of fatigue is non-negotiable, calendar gate crashing and whole-heartedly shit. I have a life to live, children to play with, work to do, runs to train for, but no - endometriosis says I must be in bed, dreaming with the familiar hallucinations of white-hot pain.

Nudge me in a month's time. I always forget.

 

Roooooooar - rest, rework and the raw update

So, dear readers. Its day 5 of the raw kickstart programme and how am I doing?