Endometriosis from a man’s perspective

BACK in 2009 when illness struck Shauna Fuller, her then boyfriend Ricardo Clarke, now her husband, was devastated.

Clarke told All Woman that he was then living in Atlanta and had planned to come home, but when he got the call that Fuller was seriously ill, his life went into a tailspin.

“She got really sick when she was my girlfriend. I got the call, left my job earlier, and flew down. Her lung collapsed and she had to be hospitalised, so we went to Florida for treatment, then she went through surgery. The day she had the surgery I cried; probably the most I’ve ever cried in my life. After I saw her in the ICU and walked out and saw her mother, we just cried and cried. Hearing her lung was collapsed for over a year, and was the size of a tennis ball, it was traumatic. I couldn’t do anything to help her. I didn’t know what was happening or what was going on. Seeing her with a tube down her throat was shocking. You can imagine — a week before we had been living our lives, and now it was frustration, sadness, trying to figure out if she would be OK or would need to walk with a machine to breathe properly,” he said.

But it wasn’t until 2010 that the diagnosis was confirmed — his fiancée was suffering from endometriosis. Clarke said that he was hearing that word for the first time. Right away he began researching it to see what they were dealing with — the symptoms, the distress, and the treatment available. Though relieved to some extent, he admitted that he was totally confused while still trying to come to terms with this mysterious affliction.

That same year, the couple tied the knot. Eventually, as more information became available to them through the Internet and networking with other survivors, they decided to start the BASE Foundation in 2013 — a local support group for women with endometriosis.

“It was really because there was no information locally. She had to go online, find other women with it, and see what was happening. So doing this was helping to promote awareness and offer support locally. When we started we had an overflow. There were so many women who came forward to say they had the disease. We set up the website, a Facebook page, and a physical support group,” Clarke said.

Now approaching their seventh wedding anniversary, Clarke said the journey has been good and he’s in it for the long haul.

“Shauna is a strong woman, so she made it as easy as it could be for me; she didn’t complain. People have asked how come I stayed with her, and that was really never a thought, even though we hadn’t been married at the time. [Leaving her] was never a thought; rather, it was like this is the situation [and] we need to fix it. My family values and lessons from siblings played a big part. My brother Damian once ran for Jamaica, and seeing him train and strive for everything he wanted in life, not shying away from tough situations — subconsciously that was embedded in me. Also, my mom and dad never took the easy route, so I knew I had to deal [with it]. I never knew how, but this was the road I had to take, and I spoke to my family as well as Shauna’s and was as open as I could be,” Clarke said.

He added: “Within the last two to three years we found that what works for her is acupuncture, diet, exercise, in addition to the regular medical treatments. By eating better and exercising more, she’s been relatively pain-free for the past two years. It’s tough, I worry about her, and she comes first. It’s difficult for me, because when it really hits there’s nothing I can do.”

Clarke also shared that this year’s Endo march was scheduled to take place in Montego Bay on March 25, and asked members of the public to continue educating themselves about the disease.

“It’s more than just ‘I don’t feel good and my stomach hurts’. [Some] people have taken their lives because of endometriosis, relationships have been broken. Every year we hold a march to bring more awareness to this disease. The first year we did it, Jamaica was in the top five participating countries. Get educated. Begin to have the conversation, and stop being afraid to talk about periods. There’s no cure, but once you’re aware, you know how to treat it to your specific case.”