A woman was diagnosed with an incurable condition after being rushed to hospital with a suspected ruptured appendix. Chrissie May Smith, 42, started experiencing "severe lower abdominal pain", back pain and irregular periods when she was 17.
The Echo reports that doctors dismissed it as "bad periods", but after collapsing at home "feeling like a knife had cut across her stomach", the woman from Netherley in Liverpool was taken to hospital with a suspected ruptured appendix. As doctors went to remove it, they found the culprit - a ruptured cyst caused by endometriosis .
That was eight years after the transport worker's symptoms first started, the average time it takes for people to be diagnosed with endometriosis. Affecting one in 10 women and some trans and non-binary people, endometriosis can damage internal organs and the lives of people with the condition.
