Help Nathanya Fight Stage 4 Endometriosis

Hi, I'm Nathanya. I'm an artist in the Philippines in my final year of college.

On the night of April 22, 2024, while I was finishing my thesis, a white, hot seering pain struck my stomach and hasn't left since. The most unbelievable pain you can imagine extended to the entirety of my lower back and extremities. It was a mystery since all tests came out clear. I was even told perhaps it was psychosomatic as a renowned doctor questioned my mental health.

Finally, my mystery pain was diffuse adenomyosis and endometriosis, stage 4. There were implants on my rectum, my intestines, and my colon and my ovaries. A part of my rectum is adhered to my uterus. I couldn't defecate, eat, digest, sleep, and live because of the pain.

This kind of severity of endometriosis is seen typically in older women where the cure is hysterectomy which no doctor in the Philippines would allow. Due to my age, doctors refused to treat me. The ones that did only gave me pills and hormonal injections, laxatives and all the pain medicines. They told me to take opioids while waiting for the pills to work.

And so, I did. I languished and suffered in agony with Fentanyl and the hormonal pills. I could no longer study. Or get out of the house, let alone my bed. I was underperforming at work. I couldn't show up on meetings because I was so lethargic and pained all the time. The laxatives weren't working that I had to go to the hospital to poop. I changed my diet to only fish and porridge to ease my bowels. I was drinking so much pain meds aside from the Fentanyl patch.

Despite all that, I was still in pain. And now, 10 months later, I couldn't eat or drink water. They told me the pills didn't work. They gave me an injection that would cause medical menopause. I don't know what was worse— the Fentanyl withdrawal or the flare-up from the gnrh. I vomitted every food I ate. I was nauseous. I was diagnosed with gastroparesis — in which the stomach is unable to properly digest— and couldn't eat for two weeks. The hospital bills have piled up, and they still have not relieved me from my illness and pain aside from a higher dose of fentanyl and now, morphine.

I researched and consulted in forums that my condition is already so severe, it can only be treated with laparoscopy and excision surgery. This is difficult because there is no Endometriosis specialist in the Philippines. Doctors don't know how to treat Endo, especially a special case like mine. They refuse to do even a diagnostic laparoscopy on me because I am too young.

A year ago, I was a healthy college student. I had a part-time job as a graphic designer due to my course in University of the Philippines Multimedia Studies. I was Cum Laude standing. I was on my way to graduate last year and I was even supporting my family. My thesis is about a Filipino woman fighting Philippine mythological monsters, monsters who seem unsurmountable and impossible to pass. This is thesis that I chose because I'm an artist! I love to write, draw and paint. I'm a digital creator, in my twitter and instagram @anyare08. I had dreams of launching this story and perhaps going into law school.

Now, all my dreams seem so far away. I'm mourning the life I had before the pain. I was supposed to graduate. I was supposed to finish my story. I was working for our launch in the company.

I'm not doing any of those things anymore. I've quit my job. I cannot work on my thesis. I cannot draw, nor write, nor watch a movie. These past 10 months I've just been in my bed, crying, writhing in pain, waiting for the day to be over. Waiting for something that never came.

I mourn my life. I mourn my future, my once healthy body, riddled with endometriosis, opioid, laxatives and all the medications I had to take. I feel like I am fading away, painfully, excruciatingly, and these doctors just let me because they don't believe in surgery as an option for endometriosis.

I'm now the heroine in my thesis story. I'm Nathanya, a fighter, a warrior. Battling endometriosis. After seeing me suffer for a month in the hospital, doctors finally agreed to conduct my surgery, and I need your help.

Your donations will be my sword and shield that will help me beat this monster that is endometriosis.

It will cover my medicines, the hospital bills, healing and most of all, the surgery/ies that will hopefully beat this pain that has been taking and taking from me.

Please fight with me and help me beat endometriosis and get my life my back.