With warm water spilling down her back, Indi Woollard stood hunched over in the shower, screaming and crying in agony.
Her mum stood helplessly in the bathroom knowing exactly the cause of her daughter’s excruciating pain — endometriosis.
The Melbourne schoolgirl had gone with her mother from doctor to doctor, seeking an answer to the pain caused by the condition, which impacts the uterus lining.
Catch the best deals and products hand-picked by our team at Best Picks >>
“A doctor told me to have a baby,” Indi, now 21, tells 7Life.
“He said: ‘Every woman who has a baby says the pain stops’.
Except Indi wasn’t a woman — she was only 11 years old and had just started secondary school.
Indi was 10 when her period started.
“I had pain since day one,” she recalls of her first menstrual cycle.
Every month, she would be in agony, with the pain lasting longer than an average cycle.
Watching her struggle, her mum knew the cause.
“Mum has endometriosis and just looked at me one day and goes: ‘You have everything that I have’,” Indi says, explaining their similar symptoms.
At 11, she presented to the doctor buckled over in pain — to be told her only “fix” was to have a child.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she says.
As the years went on, the pain progressed, and she continued to consult doctors in the hope one would listen.
At 12, she was prescribed Panadeine Forte, an addictive opioid based painkiller used for moderate to severe pain.
Also under the guidance of her GP, she began taking the contraceptive pill to help regulate her menstrual cycle, hoping this might reduce the severity of her pain.
But Indi continued to suffer.
She gained weight as a side effect of the pill and, as a result, her mental health began to suffer.
She was told by multiple doctors she was “lying” or “imagining” her pain — something she herself began to believe.
But at 16, she finally found a gynecologist who recommended a laparoscopy – keyhole surgery allowing specialists to identify, and potentially remove, the source of pain.
“They (surgeon) couldn’t believe what they saw,” Indi says.
“My fallopian tube had fallen and one of my ovaries had shrivelled.”
Discovering the “mess” of Indi’s reproductive system, she was also officially diagnosed with endometriosis, which was likely the root cause of her issues.
Thankfully for her, the surgery was a success and her pain began to settle.
Tonsillitis, gallbladder and appendix
For five years, Indi managed her pain.
But at the start of 2023, she had a bout of health issues.
“I had my tonsils removed and my gallbladder and my appendix,” Indi lists.
At first, she assumed it was bad luck, but then one day she was showering when a sharp stabbing pain erupted from her abdomen.
“I couldn’t move,” she says.
After she raced to Emergency, doctors scanned her stomach — and discovered she had a 3cm cyst.
They were able to get the pain under control, and the cyst wasn’t life threatening, so Indi was discharged.
But four weeks later, she was back in hospital.
The cyst had doubled in size and burst, and Indi was sent straight to surgery.
“I was riddled with endo,” she says.
“It was a spiderweb of scar tissue, my bowel had stuck to my fallopian tube, my left ovary was twisted.
“It was a hot mess in there … they couldn’t fix it all.”
Indi was also diagnosed with stage three endometriosis.
Future costs
With no cure, the debilitating condition has impacted every aspect of the 21-year-old’s life.
Perhaps most significantly for Indi, the young woman has been told she can’t have children.
“I have always wanted kids,” she says.
“I don’t care about a big house, a nice car or lots of money … I just want a baby.”
Doctors have recommended she freeze her eggs so IVF might be an option in the future.
Egg harvesting costs about $2,500 and, to keep her eggs frozen, it is a $480 annual fee — something Indi can’t afford.
“I have just graduated from nursing and I can’t work,” she says.
“I need surgery in March with a bowel surgeon and a gynecologist.”
With Indi’s family helping pay her medical bills, the out-of-pocket cost is upwards of $5,000 without the fertility expenses.
Indi is receiving the support of Endo Active, an independent, not-for-profit health promotion charity.
She hopes that sharing her story might help other women who may be going through the same thing.
“Women are not alone,” she says.
“I have seen over 30 doctors who don’t listen — you just need one on your side.”
For more engaging health and wellbeing content, visit 7Life on Facebook.
