This October (yes I know that it's two days late, some things will never change) I will be walking for the Endo Help Foundation. This year the foundation as a whole has a goal of walking 45,075KM for awareness of the disease, which is absolutely necessary as overall for something that affects approximately 1 in 9 (or about 800,000) women, it is severely under-researched, misdiagnosed and undiagnosed. This is also not to say that when one does get a diagnosis too that the support that it is all over and done with. At this point in time there is no cure and treatments can range significantly (medicinal or otherwise) in effectiveness and side-effects.

Whilst I myself do not have Endo, it does affect a very special person in my life. It's very hard on the heart to see first-hand how this disease can affect someone. For someone with it particularly bad it looks like a lot of trial and error with different combinations of medications and even having the capacity to go to work or do light exercise often comes at the consequence of being absolutely romped afterwards in writhing pain.

It's not just the physical cost of it either, there is a significant mental toll that comes with it too; not feeling as if your as capable as others, worrying about whether your partner will get sick of you, missing out on social events or even if work will understand why you can't come in.

You might be thinking, well that's all well and good sucks to be those people. Well hold the phone it does affect you too. Every year it cost the Australian economy somewhere in the ballpark of $9.4 Billion AUD.

Having said all that if you wanted to get involved, you can join the team on this link: https://www.justgiving.com/team/tummyhurtycommittee?invite=true