Built for Battle

Chloe was diagnosed with endometriosis 4 years ago and many of her friends also suffer with the disease. She is fighting to raise money to support Endometriosis New Zealand and bring about awareness of this silent disease.

Here is her motivation for battle;

I’m amongst the lucky ones where I “only” have to deal with the pain, the bleeding and the occasional inflammation. But my friends that are affected by it range from same as me through to a full hysterectomy before they turned 40. The only way to get a diagnosis is to get an explorative surgery. Which means going under and all the risks it represents, and obviously the very painful and long recovery after that. Sometimes for nothing, since there is no other way to diagnose it.

The thing that horrifies me the most about this disease is that it’s so common YET it’s so under the radar. When I started seeing a specialist before my diagnosis, I was the one who suggested endometriosis to her as a potential diagnosis! Not once did she put it on the table!

Between all the complications around contraception (it took me 2 years post-surgery to figure out a contraception that would help me manage the endo and not cry myself to sleep in pain every night), complications around conceiving (all my endo friends had to go through an unbelievable amount of hurdles before being able to get pregnant), and the absolute lack of management of the illness (you have it, deal with it) it has been a real uphill battle. I'm aiming through this fundraising, to raise awareness of endometriosis, educate people on how to look for signs, get help and support families on how to deal with endo.

It's been a steep learning curve for my husband and myself and he’s educated himself at the same time I did to support me through it. Let’s face it, most of the time it’s not pretty.

So since my body is on the line every day because of this disease, I thought I’d push myself extra hard one more time and get in the ring again to raise awareness for this cause.