'I woke up from surgery and found out part of my womb had been removed'

As a teenager, Zoe Bailey would often vomit or black out at school when she was on her period. For years, doctors told her the excruciating pain was normal for women.

She'd never heard of endometriosis when doctors finally diagnosed her nearly 10 years later, at the age of 23. The debilitating long-term condition is now thought to affect one in 10 women.

It occurs when tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows in other places such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes, and currently there is no cure.

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Zoe, from Levenshulme, underwent her first surgery at St Mary's Hospital to remove the endometriosis back in 2015, and claims she was told that the pain would go away following the procedure.

But, six weeks later, all of her symptoms returned and she was booked in for more surgery. This time she had to have an injection to temporarily stop her ovaries from functioning, and was told she'd need IVF to have a child in the future.

It was a hard blow, but a decision Zoe knew she needed to make to put a stop to the agonising pain. Tragically, in 2019, her symptoms returned again - this time worse than before.

Zoe claims she was booked into theatre, with surgeons planning to check if the endometriosis had returned and remove it if so. She says she did not expect to have any part of her body removed.

But, she claims that when she woke up, she noticed a stoma bag attached to her - and was told by medical professionals that the endometriosis was so severe that they'd had to remove part of her bowel, as well as part of her cervix and part of her uterus, meaning she'd never be able to carry her own child.

"My world was absolutely shattered," she said,