A man is running from London to Liverpool with no overnight stay to raise awareness for an incurable condition that forced his wife to choose between building a family or having surgery to stop her pain.
Sophie Harris, 33 and from Caldy, has always had "difficult periods", but she was hit with "crucifying abdominal pain" she thought was appendicitis in her early 20s. Despite scans coming back clear, the pain in her lower back and when she went to the toilet kept getting worse. It became "unbearable" when she came off the contraceptive pill in her late 20s as her and husband John, 32, started trying for kids.
He'd carry her to the bathroom or kitchen because the pain left her bedbound for a few days every month during her period. Sophie was ultimately diagnosed with endometriosis, an incurable condition affecting roughly one in ten women and some trans men and non-binary people. John, originally from Teesside in the North East said: "It sounds a little clichéd, but the only thing you want to do is try and stop that pain, but that's the one thing you can't do."
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Endometriosis involves tissue similar to the lining of the womb growing elsewhere in the body, causing chronic pain and heavy bleeding. Despite being as common as asthma and diabetes, people often struggle to get it diagnosed, taking an average of eight years from the start of symptoms.
Marketing manager Sophie said: "I had that very common thing you hear from people who suffer with endometriosis, that you speak to the GP and they go, 'Oh yes, well, periods are painful', and this is so much more than period pain. We were very lucky in that, on one of the later GP visits, we had a female GP and she definitely thought there was something amiss."
The tissue had grown to her ovaries, fallopian tubes and bladder, even attaching her bowel to her cervix. This caused bowel problems that meant she had to plot out the location of public toilets before venturing outside. The obstructions made it hard for Sophie to get pregnant, sending her on a four-year "emotional rollercoaster" of IVF and miscarriages.
Surgery to remove the tissue carried a high risk of complications, possibly ending any chance of getting pregnant. Faced with a hard choice, at first started trying for a baby, but feeling like she had no quality of life due to the pain, she felt she had no other choice than to have the surgery.
The more than seven-hour operation at Wirral Women and Children's Hospital in June 2021 left her needing a stoma, but she said it's "amazing" to have her life back and be able to walk her dog or exercise whenever she wants. Sophie, who is undergoing a fourth round of IVF, told the ECHO: "No one wants that complication to happen, but at the end of the day, my quality of life has dramatically improved since having it. I've gained my independence back, I feel like me again."
John and Sophie grew closer the more he learnt about endometriosis, and he advised any partner of someone with the condition to "just be there and be present". After seeing his wife suffer, the ultramarathon runner set himself an "extreme" physical challenge to raise awareness for the condition, and, he hopes, £10,000 for Endometriosis UK, a charity campaigning for better education and faster diagnosis and treatment.
On July 28, John will set off on a 350km run from London where the charity is based, to Liverpool where the couple have been undergoing IVF treatment. He'll have a support crew during the estimated 70 to 80 hours, and, although he'll have no overnight sleeps, he can stop at checkpoints for an hour or two of rest. John's progress can be tracked live here when he starts.
Sophie said: "It's incredible really. I'm obviously so, so proud of him and all of the work he's put into it because it is an exceptional amount of work. Even if it helps one single person go to their GP and push to get a diagnosis, the whole thing will be worth it."
