‘I took out a £10k loan for a hysterectomy after my pain left me wishing I was dead'

With her endometriosis diagnosis delayed by Covid, Emma Jamieson, 29, from Middlesbrough, faced a two-year wait for a life-changing NHS op – so she decided to find the cash to go private

- LUCY CLARKE-BILLINGS

The day I walked out of my endometriosis specialist’s office will haunt me for the rest of my life. I’d finally managed to see him face-to-face after four years of crippling symptoms and five cancelled appointments due to Covid-19.

Now, because of the pandemic, I was looking at a two-year wait for a hysterectomy. The specialist suggested the best course of action was to try to get pregnant.

I was in agony, severely depressed and having to spend weeks at a time in bed, and he’d just casually suggested adding a pregnancy to the mix – one which had a high chance of ending in a miscarriage.

I knew then that I needed to take matters into my own hands.

I’d started experiencing severe stomach pains about five years earlier. My periods had been all over the place since I was a teenager but it was only in my twenties that I began to worry. I Googled my symptoms and ovarian cysts seemed to be the most likely reason, so I went to the doctor.

A year of different appointments, tests and ultrasounds followed and eventually I was diagnosed with “kissing ovaries”, which sounds cute but is when the ovaries get stuck to the uterus. I was told the condition was strongly associated with endometriosis – in which tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows in other places, such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes, and can cause scarring. The doctor sent me away with birth control pills to ease my symptoms. But month by month, the pain got worse and I was having to take a lot of time off work around my period. I started to bleed every day, through tampons and into thick pads. I couldn’t have sex with my partner without crying.