My story is similar to a lot of women: Years of being medically gaslit and dismissed. I have unknowingly been battling Endometriosis since I was 11 years old. I had incredibly painful and heavy periods when I was younger and suffered from chronic fatigue. Like most young girls, I was eventually put on birth control and told it was normal.

After college, and several years in the food industry, I finally had a "big girl job" working a 9-5 and living on my own. My health began to decline, and I found myself going from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was wrong. The medications piled up, and then so did the procedures. An angiogram in December 2015 and a spinal epidural in January 2016 had me $10k in debt instantly. Naturally, neither of these procedures provided any relief or any answers. I flew to Florida to a Spinal Institute where I got no answers. I went to the NJ Headache Institute, still no answers.

In 2020, I made the decision to stop taking birth control and was unpleasantly surprised by how horrific my periods became. I had several instances of pain so horrific, I was on the floor of a concert venue in the fetal position, blacking out from pain almost certain I would be leaving in an ambulance. This happened several other times, leaving me hesitant and concerned to attend events alone.

In October 2024, I suffered a ruptured ovarian cyst that required bouncing from hospital to hospital to get relief and answers yet again. I was forced to wait and monitor it. In January, it was determined that the cyst had not resolved itself after imaging and that it had doubled in size, and I would need surgery. At this point, every doctor had told me it wasn't Endometriosis.

In March 2025, I had laparoscopic surgery to remove the cyst, which turned out to be an Endometrioma. There were also adhesions found all throughout my abdomen. My gyno claimed to have removed "many" of them and hoped to have bought me several years of relief. Unfortunately, not being an Endometriosis excision specialist, I am not facing a second surgery only 5 months later. I have still not financially recovered from the first surgery and fear the costs of an Excision specialist, along with the cost of another surgery.

I currently work full-time and have a part-time job, but the bills are astronomical, along with the suggested therapies and functional health doctors who seem to be the only ones looking at the whole picture. Any help would greatly alleviate some of the financial burden and allow me to go into this second surgery with less anxiety about the aftermath.