Image courtesy of Keren Maclennan
Keren Maclennan’s story is one that echoes those of women across the country: “I kept going in and out of hospital, seeing consultants who said they couldn’t do anything and told me to just keep a pain diary.”
During her first year of studying for her PHD in Psychology, Keren was battling with abdominal pain that left her hospitalised.
Over a nine month period ovarian cysts had developed due to a common illness called pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). PID develops in the upper part of the female reproductive system and affects a woman’s fallopian tubes, ovaries, uterus and pelvis.
Keren was left fighting for her life after one the cysts burst and caused an infection that saw her bowel wrap around her ovaries to act as a barrier between the infection and the rest of her organs.
Now she has been left with ‘complex ovaries’ and the inability to conceive naturally without it being life-threatening.
Like the other women I've interviewed, Keren had been poked and prodded by doctor after doctor, all giving her different advice.
Keren said despairingly: “It’s hard because you can’t ever be told categorically that you can’t have kids. So then I feel stupid for saying that I can’t, even though I know that it would be dangerous for me to have children.
“Each doctor gives me something conflicting to the other and won’t say categorically.”
Having been left feeling “angry at the way it was dealt with and angry at the information” she received, Keren started an online platform for women called Feminology.
The new platform has been created for discussion and education about infertility and female health issues as well as acting as a platform for campaigning to improve funding and awareness of women’s health.
“It’s important to have a space that marries together medical guidelines and information with real women’s stories so that other women don’t have to feel like they are struggling alone” said Keren.
Grassroots movements are emerging online from women across the UK who, like Kat, Emily and Keren are becoming determined advocates for change.
Nic.
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