Loneliness and Isolation, Copyright © 2007 by Sandra Reid
Welcome to the second part of Endometriosis Awareness Month where today I am going to explain some of the challenges and difficulties of living with endometriosis. If you did not read last week's post you might like to read this first.
Society conditions us to equate ill health with physically looking unwell, incurable diseases with often fatal conditions and surgery as a long term solution to a medical problem. It is, therefore, very difficult for people to understand a disease like endometriosis which challenges all of these perceptions.
Endometriosis is often referred to as the 'silent disease' because all the problems it causes are located internally and out of sight. As a result women generally look physically well even though they may well be suffering quite significantly. There is certainly nothing worse when you are feeling plain lousy than being faced with a doubting Thomas who says, "Oh you don't look sick" or "You certainly hide it well".
Mention the words, 'incurable disease' or 'incurable chronic illness' and the first thought that probably pops into your mind is a condition like cancer. Endometriosis is not cancer and does not cause fatalities but it is an incurable disease. The underlying cause of endometriosis is currently unknown so this makes it a difficult condition to treat.
Currently doctors use a multidisciplinary approach to treat endometriosis which includes; pain relief medications, hormone treatments and surgery. If they embrace a holistic approach they may also recommend dietary changes, exercise programs and perhaps alternative therapies like hypnotherapy or acupuncture. In my case, I also tried a combination treatment of saline injections, sauna and brief spurts of exercise.
To be honest, there were very limited treatment options that could be tried for me as I was either allergic or highly intolerant to a number of pain relief drugs and hormone treatments. Of the treatments I tried one pain relief drug was ineffective and another caused an allergic reaction, the side effects of the hormone treatment were absolutely terrible and the saline injections into my nerves only temporarily stopped the spread of pain by confining it to one area in my pelvis.
Excisional surgery, where the disease is cut out completely is recognised presently as the gold standard in treating endometriosis as it decreases the chance of endometriosis recurring and, therefore, provides the best chance of longer term pain relief. It is, however, not infallible.
Unfortunately, like many endometriosis sufferers I have undergone numerous surgeries because previous surgery has not resolved chronic pain problems. There can be numerous reasons as to why those with endometriosis often require further surgery and some of these are; recurrence of endometriosis, adhesions, missed disease at a prior surgery, endometriosis in a difficult location which requires an additional specialist surgeon and complications from previous surgery, just to name a few.
Living with chronic pain and other symptoms of endometriosis is certainly not easy. Add into the picture side effects of drugs and recovery from surgery and at times you simply just exist. This is certainly not a great quality of life and the impact of this can be that your social life becomes non-existent, friends disappear, everyday household chores become a mission and you may well not be able to work. When this happens you can start to feel lonely and isolated.
This brings me to introduce the second art work in the "Through the Pain" series called "Loneliness and Isolation" which I created in 2007. This very simple duck egg blue and white spiral shape with a stark black background depicts the idea of loneliness and isolation that happens when social contact and friendships are lost as a result of endometriosis. If you know someone with endometriosis then the best thing you can do is be a friend to that person.
I certainly don't want people to feel sorry for me. I accepted the hand of cards I was handed years ago and have made every effort to re-build my life in a positive manner around the challenges I have faced with this disease.
Thanks for taking the time to take a few steps in my shoes. I hope you have a better understanding of what it is like to live with endometriosis and will join me next week when I reveal the final art work in the series. In the meantime, you might like to check out the charity auctions being run on sella.co.nz for Endometriosis New Zealand. There are some great items up for auction such as a walk on role in the TV series Shortland Street and a singing lesson with Kirsten Morrell the former lead singer of Goldenhorse to name a couple.
I have created a fractal art tour to enable you to view all of my art. At the bottom of each blog post you will see, "Take the fractal art tour" and a link which you can click on to take you to the next art work. The tour is set up so that you travel through my blog and end up back on this page. Click on the link below, "What is fractal art?" to start the tour. Enjoy!
I would love to know what your favourite fractal is so do pop back and leave a comment.
Take the fractal art tour:
Next blog update: Friday, March 12th 2010
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