I know this may not be cancer. I am 22 and I have been having pain on the lower left side of my abdomen for two years. I have also had rectal bleeding for two years. At the beginning, the doctors thought this was a bowel issue so I had a sigmoidoscopy and it turned out that I just had haemorrhoids.

I then had very heavy and irregular periods and my pain in that same place would get worse during my periods. I also have bleeding in between my periods. The doctors then thought I have endometriosis and I should get tested for this soon.

Recently, I had very severe pain in the same place and I stood up and fell over. I felt very sick and I had lost my appetite the week prior. I checked 111 online and I was advised to call an ambulance and they asked me to get someone to stay with me. I live with my grandma so I asked her to open the door and she did that but she freaked out and called my parents and siblings to come over. So they came aswell. My aunt who also lives there came.

I was able to talk with the pain to the paramedics but it was difficult. They took me to A&E. They referred me to the emergency gynae assessment unit. They haven’t found out what is causing the pain but the test results have been normal. They decided that I should have an ultrasound. I had this in the small hospital in my town and they were concerned about my pain and sent me back to the emergency gynae assessment unit in the big hospital in the other town.

They assessed me again and decided to give me painkillers and send me home and refer me to a pelvic pain clinic within 4 weeks. The painkillers haven’t been helping so I went back today and they assessed me again and prescribed stronger painkillers. They were concerned about my pain and gave the option to go home or stay overnight at the hospital for pain management. I chose to go home but now I wish I stayed overnight because my aunt argued with me when I came home and now I feel worse.

My aunt is sometimes like my best friend but recently I am very upset by her. She said I was stupid for calling the paramedics and she didn’t believe I was in pain and she thinks I wasted the paramedics time. She said that people in severe pain can’t talk and I said that I didn’t know that because I’m not an expert in people with pain but I found it difficult to talk but pushed myself. However, I was struggling to move and walk with the pain so I felt that is severe since I am usually able to with the pain.

She thinks I am attention seeking. She said that I don’t even have a diagnosis, yet she has stage 4 endometriosis and she is pregnant and she is able to go to work, clean etc and she thinks that I am pretending so then I don’t need to do any of that.

She said that everyone in the family thinks that I am pretending to be in pain and that she thinks some of my symptoms are real but that I also have munchausens and I am a hypochondriac. She said I must have a low pain threshold but I have been in pain for 2 years and I managed to push myself to go to uni and placement but now the pain has gotten a lot worse which is why I wasn’t able to go this week.

I am planning not to speak to anyone in my family about my health anymore as I feel like I am already going through enough and don’t need to be treated like I am faking it. I don’t usually talk about my health unless they ask so I don’t know why they would think I am attention seeking. I would love to not have any symptoms and go back to my life before I had symptoms.