Help Me Fight for the Chance to Live Again…

At 22 years old, I never imagined I would be asking strangers to help fund the surgery that could give me my life back.

My name is Danielle, and for as long as I can remember, I have lived in pain.

My earliest symptoms began when I was just five years old. By the age of nine, I was already missing parts of my childhood because of agonising pain and periods that were dismissed as “normal.” While my friends were making memories, I was learning how to survive.

For years I was told to keep waiting. Keep trying another pill. Keep believing things would get better.

Instead, they got worse.

Just a few months ago, I was living the life every 22 year old dreams of. I had just graduated from university with a First Class Honours degree. I was working long shifts, cheerleading, planning my future with my partner and building the career I had worked so hard for.

Today, my world looks completely different.

I spend most of my life in bed. I rely on a wheelchair whenever I have leave the house. I need help to wash, get dressed and even move myself in bed. My family have become my carers, watching helplessly as the person they love slowly disappears infront of them, behind relentless pain. The hardest part isn’t just the pain… It’s grieving the life I’m still here to live.

I watch my friends start careers, travel, get engaged and enjoy their twenties while I celebrate getting through another day. Every plan I had has been put on hold because my body simply won’t let me keep up.

After years of fighting to be believed, I have severe, complex endometriosis. My condition requires urgent, specialist laparoscopic surgery carried out by an experienced multidisciplinary team.

This isn’t experimental treatment or an optional procedure. It is the recognised specialist care my condition requires. Unfortunately, that level of specialist multidisciplinary endometriosis care is not currently available to me in Northern Ireland.

I have been told the NHS waiting list for surgery is around two years, but based on current waiting times and my own experience, I fear the reality could be much longer. My health is already deteriorating rapidly, and I cannot afford to lose another two years, let alone five waiting while my condition continues to progress and worsen.

Because of this, my only realistic option is to travel outside Northern Ireland for surgery with a specialist multidisciplinary team that has the expertise needed to treat my complex case.

Without surgery, my condition is expected to continue progressing, causing further pain, further damage and further loss of my independence.

The surgery, specialist team, hospital fees, travel and accommodation are expected to cost around £20,000.

As someone who has recently graduated but is now too unwell to work, this is simply impossible for me and my family to fund this figure alone!

Asking for help is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

Every donation, no matter how small, brings me one step closer to the surgery that could give me my independence, my future and my quality of life back.

If you are unable to donate, sharing my story could make all the difference.

I don’t want sympathy.

I want a chance.

A chance to walk without unbearable pain.

A chance to work.

A chance to build the future I have dreamed of for so many years.

A chance to live my twenties instead of watching them pass me by.

A chance to simply be Danielle again.

Thank you for reading my story and for helping me fight for the future I refuse to give up.

With all our gratitude,

Danielle & Family ️