Life Is Possible Again After Endometriosis
“My excitement for life has returned; I’m 100% pain-free. I got my life back,” says Jen Pav.
She suffered with severe endometriosis symptoms for 14 years before she finally found healing through the work of Dr. Patrick Yeung.
Jen’s symptoms began when she was a teenager. Severe abdominal pain, lightheadedness, and eventually brain fog, migraines, insomnia and crippling fatigue became daily occurrences.
“At times, I couldn’t even function because the pain was so bad,” she says. “I struggled to stay engaged with anything throughout the day, just wanting to lie down. I lost any energy I once had, and even simple tasks became massively difficult.”
Especially for someone who thrives on exercise, Jen found her symptoms barely tolerable. “My body wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to stay in shape; I was always limited by the pain, lightheadedness and nausea that would inevitably come,” she says.
Doctors repeatedly told her that nothing was wrong; no one offered endometriosis as a possible diagnosis. Instead, Jen’s doctors prescribed birth control, antianxiety and antidepressant medications. “I saw over a dozen doctors, and no one could help,” she recalls. “I had every test run that you could think of. My bloodwork always came back normal.”
With seemingly no solutions to her pain, Jen became severely depressed. “I concluded that everybody must deal with this, too, and that I needed to just push past it,” she says. “Eventually, life didn’t seem worth it. But every day, God gave me the strength to choose to breathe, to live a little longer.”
When she met Dr. Yeung, things began to look up. He validated Jen’s years of suffering and worked with her to put together a treatment plan, which included an endometriosis excision and bowel resection to completely remove what turned out to be stage IV endometriosis. Physical therapy and diet and lifestyle changes also contributed to her healing.
Jen’s life is no longer defined by her pain. She and her husband are working on fulfilling her dreams of serving as a tribal missionary. But perhaps the most amazing part of her journey, she says, was welcoming a little boy to the family, almost two years to the day after her surgery. “My body healed so much that I was able to create a new life,” she says.
Jen has an important message to share with other women suffering with endometriosis: “My wish as I share my story is that you can find hope for the healing that is available, hope that there truly are answers for what you’re going through. Make sure you go to a gynecologist who specializes in endometriosis treatment via excision surgery. Most importantly, don’t give up.”
