Susie broadcasts through the pain
Susie Ferguson wants everyone to know she had a hysterectomy. She tells Jack van Beynen why.
Six weeks after her hysterectomy, Susie Ferguson is ready to get back on air. The Morning Report host says she’s ‘‘feeling really good’’ and will be back on the show from today.
‘‘It’s been a lot less bad than I anticipated it could be in terms of recovery. So I was kind of up and out of bed quite quickly,’’ Ferguson says. ‘‘I get tired, that’s the only thing. I get tired more quickly than I would otherwise. I suppose that’s one of the reasons they say take six weeks off.’’
Ferguson, 40, was forced to have the hysterectomy – an operation removing her uterus – after 25 years of abdominal pains that resulted in a diagnosis of endometriosis.
Endometriosis is a disorder where the layer of tissue that normally covers the inside of the uterus grows outside it. It can cause fertility issues, but while Ferguson has two children she was not spared the severe pain that can come with the condition.
‘‘It’s only since I had kids that I’ve been able to look back on my earlier years of where I probably had endometriosis, or when it was beginning to grow, and now I can say the pain then was as bad as when I was five or six centimetres dilated in childbirth. But I didn’t know that when I was 15,’’ she says.
Ferguson’s mornings on the radio were frequented by bouts of severe pain that were usually three or four days apart, but she had to soldier through. Morning Report, she says, is not a job where you can call in sick at 4am.
In October, however, she did have to take a day off during a 10-day stretch of what she describes as ‘‘significant, constant pain’’. It was the longest constant bout she’s ever experienced.
Ferguson developed methods of coping with the pain, including a standing desk, a heated wheat bag and a ‘‘little code’’ with producer Martin Gibson so she could let him know when the pain was ramping up.
Despite the fact that one in 10 New Zealand women have it to varying degrees, endometriosis is not often talked about.
‘‘It’s one of those conditions where very little seems to be known about it. I had a conversation with one of the surgeons who operated on me and he was sort of saying, ‘When it comes to [endometriosis], we really don’t know very much about the female reproductive system.’ And I suppose giving it a bit of a side-eye, I kind of think, ‘Oh yeah? Is that because it’s women?’’’ Ferguson says.
‘‘I think a lot of people think, ‘Maybe I’m being a wuss, maybe I just need to harden up a bit about this.’ But my situation is, if you feel you’re in an unreasonable amount of pain, whether it coincides with your periods or not, my sense would be see if you can get it checked out by somebody.’’
That reluctance to talk about endometriosis was why Ferguson decided to be so open about her experience with the condition. She knew that if she disappeared from the air for six weeks listeners were bound to ask questions, and she wanted to be honest with them.
‘‘I thought about it for quite a long time and there were two aspects that were really important to me. One was, at RNZ, as a journalist, I pride myself on the truth and finding the truth and being transparent and honest .... And I kind of thought, ‘On that basis, we should just tell the audience what’s happening.’ That’s the story, that’s the truth, that’s why I’m going away. Why not just tell people?
‘‘But there was another part of me that felt that there is this kind of silent underground number of women who have had hysterectomies. I’ve discovered colleagues who I’ve known for years who had hysterectomies. Some of them have had hysterectomies while I’ve known them, and I haven’t known they’ve had the operation done.
‘‘And I just thought, half the population’s female, and all of us have experienced a uterus because we all grew in one – so why is there an ick factor? What is it that we’re scared of? Why are we uncomfortable when talking about this?
‘‘That’s why it was important to me as a woman and as a feminist to say: ‘I’m having a hysterectomy because I have this terrible condition.’ And maybe it will highlight the fact that this condition exists, and that this is kind a really normal thing for me to be doing,’’ she says.
‘‘It can be a very frightening experience to be in that much pain and not be able to explain it, and not be able to be heard. So I think the more that people can be heard by their doctors, by their teachers, by their employers, and not in a kind of, ‘Uh, it’s women’s troubles’ kind of way, that’s all to the good.’’ ❚ Susie Ferguson is becoming an ambassador for Endometriosis New Zealand. To find out more about endometriosis, visit their website.
"Half the population's female, and all of us have experienced a uterus because we all grew in one - so why is there an ick factor? What is it that we're scared of?"
Susie Ferguson