Over her lifetime Lynda Rae Campbell made numerous trips to doctors in an effort to find the cause of her chronic abdominal pain. Years of trying to solve the mystery led to misdiagnoses, medications, even several dismissals of her symptoms, and three surgeries. In October of 2021, at the age of 70, Lynda passed away from liver cancer, connected to her decades-long battle with endometriosis and abdominal pain.
Lynda Campbell, photo submitted
“Many women coming into this clinic have had long journeys of invalidation by health care, family members, and colleagues,” says Linda MacEachern, social worker in the IWK Endometriosis and Chronic Pelvic Pain (E&CPP) Program. “Since pain is invisible, many have felt judged or that they are burdens to their families, workplaces, partners, the health care system, and society in general.”
Hoping to improve global research and understanding of these health issues, Campbell’s husband, Dr. Michael Herrick, established the Endometriosis and Chronic Pelvic Pain Clinic Research Fund at Dalhousie University. The investment will both improve clinical care for women in pain today and establish the rich data set required for future research and discovery.
“I would like to give a voice to women like my wife,” says Herrick. “Excruciating pain is not normal, although many women are told it is.”
Herrick not only wants to improve the quality of life of patients with endometriosis but to emphasize family, partners, and support persons’ roles in managing the condition. He feels that not understanding this condition makes a woman feel more alone in her suffering.
“Dr. Herrick’s donation has allowed us to establish our Data Registry for Endometriosis and Pelvic Pain (DREPP),” says Dr. Elizabeth Randle, Medical Co-Director of the E&CPP Program. “This is a prospective registry that will track all patients seen through the clinic and allow us to assess patient characteristics and outcomes to ensure we are meeting the needs of our patient population. It will also allow us to perform quality improvement initiatives, ensuring the care we are providing is valuable to patients and identifying areas of ongoing improvement.”
“Patients are encouraged to bring any support people with them to their E&CPP appointments they feel would be beneficial,” says Randle. “Support people often provide valuable collateral history and context to the patient’s story that allows the team to fully understand our patients’ pain journeys.”
“Moving forward, we hope to develop more educational material and resources for support people who are essential in caring for our patients outside of the health centre,” Randle says.
Endometriosis is a medical condition in which cells similar to the lining of the uterus grow outside the uterus, most commonly on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and surrounding tissues. Approximately 15 per cent of women of reproductive age suffer from chronic pelvic pain, causing a tremendous impact on quality of life.
The IWK E&CPP Program was established in 2021 and is the first interdisciplinary clinic dedicated to the treatment and management of endometriosis and CPP in the Atlantic Provinces.