As I entered recovery for a long standing eating disorder, I made the decision to become vegetarian. Whilst to some this may seem counter productive, for me honestly I just wanted to rule out foods that I was particularly uncomfortable with before meal plans created by a clinician were thrusted at me.
I’ve never been big on meat, it’s just not for me, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to say hello to vegetarianism (again, I failed myself before with a drunken kebab, tragic I know).
It has been around a month and a half since I committed to being vegetarian and I can’t see the promise of a drunken kebab swaying me again!
The inevitable question I constantly get now though is, “so when are you planning on going vegan?!”. It’s a tough one, don’t get me wrong, I get the whole spiel, I’ve heard it way too many times and I am in agreement, veganism is an incredible step to take however for me right now it is not the right move! Going through eating disorder recovery means that I have to be as open as possible and restricting too much would cause an uproar that I’m not willing to deal with on top of the emotional distress of recovery itself.
I’ve been super lucky to have Max be so open to my transition to becoming vegetarian, he cooks and eats vegetarian meals with me too which has been a massive help!
Our fave meals to cook at the moment are stuffed peppers/mushrooms, vegetarian chilli and Mexican style salads with halloumi.
Can anyone point me in the direction of some different vegetarian meal options that we might not have heard of?! I want to keep things new and exciting!
A little while back, I was ever so kindly invited to guest blog over on Specifically Sara, and I wrote a list of 23 things that I wish to achieve by my 23rd birthday.
I turn 23 on the 24th September, so I don’t have long to tick off everything on my list! Head over to my post to check out what exactly my list consists of.
The idea behind this movement is to enjoy the last 6 months of being 22, an age that I was dreading turning – so I’m trying to make it as fun and memorable as possible!
I’ll be blogging as usual but when I tick something off of my list, I’m gonna document it all over here on the blog and on my Instagram; with the hashtag #23before23.
So follow me on my journey to new beginnings, making a scene and having a lil bit of fun!
Today is International Women’s Day, and what better way to spend it than learning about incredible women all over the world with endometriosis.
I have found so many women across the globe all sharing their stories about endometriosis. This blog post is dedicated to them, showing the kind of women you’d be helping if you donated to the Endometriosis UK charity!
When I first opened up about my condition, a girl I went to school with got in contact with me to say through she was going through exactly the same! I honestly could not believe that someone I went through education with for 7 years was coping with the same things I was, and it was almost a relief to hear of someone I knew personally understood what I was feeling.
A lovely lady called Dionne got in contact with me, offering support before my surgery. She is just wonderful, she worked with Fixers to create a video to raise awareness! I am so grateful of this girl for all of her words of wisdom and positive affirmations. You can see her video here!
Carla Cressy, a former model, lost her job due to endometriosis symptoms and is spreading awareness through her blog and sharing her story with various news outlets! A quick search of her name online and you will find out all about her extensive battle with endometriosis.
R&B singer Monica was diagnosed with endometriosis at the age of 36! She is the perfect example of symptoms not presenting themselves until years down the line! She shared her story on Instagram saying, “My reason for sharing is because we, as women, are built to be warriors and we will ignore something that seems so simple that can be so complex”.
Finally, the beautiful Halsey opened up to Twitter in 2016 about her diagnosis, sharing a whole lot of realness that all women with endo experience and it was super uplifting to read!
Women are incredible, and we face so many battles, and one in ten experience endometriosis.
Educate yourself, look after the women in your life, and forever uplift those around you, as you don’t know their story – but maybe ask them for it!
Endometriosis is unpredictable so it is best to be prepared!
With the amount of emergency room trips you may be unexpectedly taking, it is handy to have everything in one bag and ready to go.
There are a few essentials that I would recommend packing in your endometriosis hospital bag…
Toiletries including sanitary towels, toothbrush & toothpaste, anything to make you feel more comfortable and clean!
Comfies, I’m talking a hot water bottle, dressing gown and slippers.
Medication, waiting for long hours without pain relief being administered because you’re still in the waiting room is truly a pain! I always make sure I have ibuprofen, cocodomal and naproxen on me.
Loose fitting and soft clothing such as joggers and t-shirts so nothing is too tight around inevitable swelling and bloating!
Dry shampoo and brush, always a winner.
Magazines or books, something to pass the time!
Make-up wipes and moisturiser to keep feeling fresh!
Phone chargers, because your phone will die at the most inconvenient time without it!
When waiting years for a diagnosis, it can be quite the mix of emotions when you finally receive it and it so common to feel like you have lost all control.
For me personally, I was so happy to finally have an answer! But I was also frustrated with how long I had to wait for help.
I personally feel like there is only so long that you can wallow, before you need to pick yourself up and take back control!
There are so many ways that you can take back as much control as possible with endometriosis, but these are just a few of the things that I found have helped me:
Being open and honest about my condition! I never apologise for my condition if I am having a bad day. I have instead learned to embrace it and use it as an excuse to educate! My friends now know all of my symptoms from the most common to some of the strangest, and probably know my endometriosis just as well as I do as I share so much information about it! I refuse to be embarrassed about it and I feel like my confidence towards breaking the taboo and stigma around periods and endometriosis means that I have educated so many people who would usually shy away from talking about periods!
Carry medication, everywhere! Long gone are the days that I would go out without my ibuprofen thinking I was a hero for baring the pain hahaha. The only way I can carry on with my day, if I am having a flare up, is using the medication recommended and hot water bottles galore!
Talking of hot water bottles, they have been a life saver for me through my teenage years and 20’s. Using heat, alongside medication, has been by far the number one immediate help. I find that for me the heat helps take the edge off the pain and settles me down.
Stretching. Every morning and night I stretch, and if I’m due to be sat around for long periods of time, I will get up and stretch or walk around a little. This doesn’t necessarily help with physical pain, and I use it more for a sense of routine, because I know that even during a bad flare up I can walk about (even if it is just a few steps to the bathroom) or do small stretches.
Allowing myself to have bad days is really important to me. Not every day can go to plan, especially with an unpredictable chronic, invisible illness! Over time I have learned to look after my body and read the signs! If I feel like I am physically unable to do something in that moment, then I won’t do it! But equally, if I am able to do it, then I will. I have come to learn what pains I can still do my day-to-day life things with, and what pain will leave me in bed all day!
Saying bye-bye to the dreaded trigger products. I cannot begin tell you how long it took me to take my coffee without milk, or get used to the almond milk substitute. Cheese, chocolate and soya are limited in my diet, and I am working on ruling them out altogether, along with alcohol and caffeinated coffee (my two weaknesses)! Milk and butter, however, are long gone out of my diet for good!
Thinking happy thoughts! Like I say, not every day can be a good one, but you can always start it in a positive way. I personally would recommend the book “Calm”, which was gifted to me by my wonderful best friend Erin. It has helped me to deal with the mental side of poor physical health! Other things I do to boost my mental health are as follows: bullet journaling, blogging, walking, thinking of between one to three reasons why today was a good day, chatting with friends and family, seeing Max, cuddling my dog, and anything that generally makes me feel productive!
How have you taken back control since your diagnosis?
Remember, you can donate to Endometriosis UK via my JustGiving link here:
I talked a little a while ago about my endometriosis, looking back after a year from my informal diagnosis, but for those who don’t know a lot about my personal story, here is a recap!
When I started getting pains, I thought that they were normal. I had seen my mom and my sister in similar situations to me, so thought nothing of it.
Monthly pains were turning into a vicious cycle: wake up, realised I was heavily bleeding, cramps would begin, mad dash for some pain relief and a hot water bottle, if I was lucky, I could get into bed and sleep it off, but 9 times out of 10 it ended up with my head over the toilet being sick due to the debilitating pain, shouting, screaming and punching my stomach out of desperation, hoping that it would help with the pain, with my mom scrunching my hair trying to calm me down until I passed out from exhaustion.
Countless trips to the doctors saw me on the combined contraceptive pill to help me with pain management, strong pain killers and eventually the mini pill, to stop my periods altogether. The mini pill was great for just over a year, and it really worked for curbing my pain, however one day I woke up and felt like I was back to square one, I ended up in hospital because the bleeding was that heavy and the pains were the most intense I had felt in years.
Fast forward a month or so and I saw an endometriosis surgeon and specialist who asked me a lot of questions and informed me that I needed surgery.
6 incredibly frustrating months and 3 a&e visits later, I was finally due to have my surgery to remove my endometriosis and fit me with the Mirena coil. Unfortunately my surgery got cancelled on the day, but I was booked in for a few days later.
The day of the surgery is all a bit of a blur! I had the most amazing team of NHS staff looking after and operating on me and I am so grateful of their time, patience and hard work.
I was discharged later that evening and was on bed rest for around a week and took a few more weeks to feel like I had fully recovered.
I had my stitches removed and a post-op appointment that informed me of the extent of my endometriosis, finally a formal diagnosis of stage 2 endometriosis. During the surgery they removed endometriosis from both of my ovaries, uterus and small intestines and showed me all the cool (and kinda gross) photos from the surgery haha!
I am now six months post-op. It honestly feels like a life time ago! Up until December I was symptom free, but at the end of December I began getting my symptoms again, thankfully a lot more dull and less intense than the first time around, so hopefully I can wait another couple of years before needing surgery again!
Everyone has different experiences with endometriosis, there is no one fits all rule with it and this is just my personal story!
If you want to donate to Endometriosis UK, you can do so by following my JustGiving link:
Endometriosis by dictionary definition is “a condition resulting from the appearance of endometrial tissue outside the uterus and causing pelvic pain, especially associated with menstruation”.
It is actually quite a common condition, affecting 1 in 10 women worldwide, so why is it so rarely heard of?!
Endometriosis is difficult to diagnose, with it being dismissed by medical professionals as “normal” period pain and something that will get better with the pill and some pain relief. The average time for a diagnosis to be formally given is 10 years! This is due to the lack of understanding and research into the condition. Diagnosis’s are few and far between, a lot of people have ultrasound scans that show up totally normal, but there is no way of formally diagnosing without laparoscopic surgery. Laparoscopic surgery for endometriosis consists of a camera and light being inserted through keyhole incisions to find any endometriosis, then inserting surgical equipment to burn the endometriosis, in order to attempt to relieve symptoms.
Many women don’t know that they have endometriosis because they believe that their pain is normal and to be expected, in fact a lot of women with mild symptoms don’t discover that they have it until they try to conceive.
Symptoms vary from uterus to uterus. Some women with the condition have minimal pain and are able to go about their day to day life with little disruption, some are unable to conceive, and others are bed or even hospital bound with debilitating pains. Although symptoms vary, they are generally as followed:
painful periods, or dysmenorrhea.
pelvic, lower back and abdominal cramps and pains
painful bowel movements during a period
infertility
pain during or after sexual intercourse, or dyspareunia
heavy menstrual bleeding
specifically during the time of a period: constipation, bloating, sickness/nausea, fatigue and dizziness
pain that stops you from doing your normal activities
leg pain
depression
Why is endometriosis even a thing?!
A question that I would love to be able to provide a solid answer to! There is no known “main” cause of endometriosis although it is thought to be, with supporting research, hereditary.
And a cure…?
You guessed it – there isn’t one! There are many ways to treat the symptoms of endometriosis, the contraceptive pill, the coil, laparoscopic surgery, strong pain killers, hot water bottles, hormone therapy, having treatment to put the body in a forced state of early menopause, and in some cases, a full hysterectomy.
Through funding, hopefully over time, there will be easily accessible, well researched treatment. Endometriosis UK, a charity based around the condition, are working so hard to provide help and support to those in need, whilst also raising money to make the future of endometriosis sufferers a whole lot brighter!
This Endometriosis Awareness Week, I will be asking for donations to the charity, in order to fund vital support services, so that they can continue to support the endometriosis community!
You can donate to the charity through my link here:
I tend to blog about general day to day life things and share photos I’ve taken (this platform is literally just a brain dump for me haha).
But this week is going to be a little different, as of today it is officially Endometriosis Awareness Week (I think it is so cool that it gets a whole week dedicated to educating people), and as an endometriosis sufferer with a space to write and share, I thought I would take on the challenge of spreading awareness!
I’m going to talk all about what it is, bust some myths and share my story too!
Check back tomorrow for my post explaining what endometriosis is.
I am daily blogging this week to raise awareness and funds for Endometriosis UK! If you want to find out more, please follow the link to my JustGiving page!
February has been a whirlwind of a month. It has been deadline after deadline, but finally I get a break!
I had a couple of crappy drs appointments at the beginning of this month but as always the pros outweigh the cons so I won’t dwell on this one here and move right on to some of the fun stuff!
The first weekend in Feb was spent at local venue Jimmy’s watching The Bright Black supporting YungBlud which ended up in a night out at HoldFast which is my fave bar in the Norther Quarter of Manchester!
The day after that I was rocking a hangover with Amy at the Principle Hotel, at their venue Copperface Jack’s, decorating for the third year uni ball. We spent all day there blowing up balloons and making the venue look pretty and meeting a spec, which was pretty fun and another thing to add to my events CV. From what I remember we spent our evening eating leftover lasagne, playing sims and cuddled up in many, many blankets in our freezing cold flat haha.
Max surprised me with a mid-week visit on his day off, so we went camera and record shopping (I got a De La Soul record and a Clean Cut Kid single for £8 altogether – bargain!), grabbed lunch at the infamous pizza hut lunch buffet and then had a nice quiet night in.
By some miracle, I got a first! Like an actual real life first at university. My first one at that too! It has defo been a confidence boost and a motivator for the rest of my assignments. I passed first year but my goal for second year is a 2:1, so watch this space!
A friend’s birthday resulted in last minute drinks at a local bar, which was a nice mid-week break from uni work.
To celebrate my first, Max was due to be taking me to the cinema to see The Greatest Showman, however he fell ill in the night, so we spent the whole day in Manchester Royal Infirmary (fun!), but thankfully he is okay and back on his feet!
I had to do a presentation, I hate doing presentations. But I think it went pretty well, and I am just so glad that it is over!
Max got the walking bug, so we went for a trek along Marsden Moors, which I think would’ve been more pleasant with sunshine and rainbows but we had rain, wind and freezing cold climates up until the last half an hour hahaha. But it was a lovely walk and an excuse to get out in the countryside, and by some miracle we felt fine the next day and ended up taking a day trip to Leeds (where I treated myself to some flash Zara trousers). A weekend full of dates which is rare for us but we really did just have the best time!
Jon waiting for us when we got back to Max’sHumPit
My wonderful best friend and flatmate Amy put on her first gig as Girl Boss, which was bloody ace and I really am so proud of how far she has come and everything she is achieving, and how she’s following her dreams, it is such an inspiration. (sop over, soz). My other beautiful best friend and flatmate (fellow blogger too – Specifically Sara) performed at the gig and she was absolutely amazing too! I feel so lucky to be surrounded by so much talent. We may or may not have ended up in Holdfast and then a karaoke bar afterwards too (and absolutely murdered S Club 7’s Never Had A Dream Come True – but it was all a good laugh)!
I got a call off my parents saying they were going to visit my sister for the weekend with my dog, so I jumped on a train to go see them for the day and it was so lovely. I really wish I could see them more but it just makes it even more special when I do! We went for coffee, some retail therapy, had lots of doggie cuddles and a good catch up.
How beautiful is my dog?!
My wonderful Max set up a company last year and this month I have been helping him pull everything together ready for the first release! Last month we recorded the insanely talented Toby Burton and the videos are coming out very soon so if you’re keen then you should definitely check out the In Session FaceBook page!
Album / Playlist: The 50 Shades Freed soundtrack ahhhhh !!
Song: My besties, The Cosmics, have released their song “Waste of Time” on Spotify so it has been on repeat!
TV / Movie: I had about a month’s worth of Hollyoaks to catch up on so February has been taken over by that haha
Place: Lancaster – so pretty!
Memory: Not a great memory but they can’t all be fabulous, I had to take Max into hospital, this is my memory of February purely because Max never ever has to go to the hospital, I’m usually the poorly one so it makes a change and needed to be documented hahaha.
So, I just realised that amongst the craziness that was blogmas, I didn’t get around to sharing the photos from my trip to Seville!
Max took so many film photos and I shot my first roll of film, so it’s been difficult to whittle it down to my favourites, but I finally got around to it, and here they are:
I got serious holiday blues looking through these, get me to somewhere sunny asap!
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