‘I’m determined not to be defeated by my condition’
Coach Emma Hayes battles frequent symptoms as a result of illness but says women should not suffer in silence
Behind every great sporting triumph there is often an untold story of struggle. Take Emma Hayes: the day before the Chelsea manager watched her side win the Women’s Super League title in 2015, she had to go to hospital to have a procedure to remove a contraceptive coil, which she had inserted to help relieve symptoms of endometriosis.
This is not an easy subject to discuss, even for someone such as Hayes, whose glittering CV – which includes three league titles, two FA Cups and two League Cups – and brilliant coaching brain give her an aura of invincibility.
She knows she is not superhuman, which is why, in her first major newspaper interview on living with endometriosis, she wants to talk so openly and in often disarming detail about the reality of life with the condition. That 2014-15 season, in which Chelsea completed the league and cup double, was the first time she had received treatment for endometriosis, a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows in other areas of the body, including the ovaries and Fallopian tubes.
Before then, the horrendous pains which would strike her down with crippling regularity were put down to periods; that only changed when Hayes underwent a laparoscopy, a surgical procedure which examines the organs inside the abdomen and is the only way to get a certain diagnosis.
“I was in the middle of a doublewinning year, but I was really struggling,” she says.
“It was still a summer season. I remember seeing my gynaecologist, and he said I would need a laparoscopy. I had that in April.
“He said they could manage that better with the Mirena coil, but I was one of the unfortunate ones to have the Mirena coil perforate my cervix wall.
“I had to have it removed the day before we won the league in 2015 because it caused so many problems. Having never had a laparoscopy before, I didn’t realise how painful that process would be.”
The 44-year-old’s story is a common one – around 10 per cent of women in the UK are believed to suffer from endometriosis – but it is still often untold.
Hayes describes endometriosis as a largely “silent” disease as there are no external symptoms. Sufferers can often appear on the outside to be completely normal, while in fact they are fighting a daily battle with terrible pain, which is physically and psychologically damaging.
“When you say ‘the menopause’, people understand; when you say ‘periods’ to someone, even if they don’t understand the mechanisms of it, they will understand. But if you say to someone, ‘I have endometriosis’, they haven’t got a clue what it is,” Hayes says. “There is such a lack of tying it together with what is normal versus what is not normal with a period. “I can see why women go out of their minds before diagnosis, I can totally relate to that. “I completely appreciate the suffering, but I refuse to let it get on top of me. I feel the pain, but I refuse to let it take over.” There is no cure for endometriosis, but Hayes has survived by
‘I think it is critical to normalise it because so much around women’s hormonal health is so neglected’
‘Raising awareness has to start with my players. School education has failed in teaching us’
“self-educating” herself on the illness. She follows an anti-inflammatory diet, which includes removing processed food, eating vegan meals and introducing a host of coping mechanisms. “It is about introducing stress-reducing strategies,” she says. “Meditation is important – yoga, walking. I will try and get a release from an osteopath, too, if I am in a lot of pain.”
Hayes has always been strikingly honest in interviews on the challenges facing women’s football, but in a profession as competitive as football management with her side top of the league, does she not feel she is compromising her position – and future – by sharing such intimate details around her body?
Quite the opposite, Hayes argues. It is the fact she has had such success, and her profile, which has encouraged her to be so open.
“I don’t care what people know about that [having endometriosis] because if it raises awareness for a sufferer or for women to know more about their hormonal health, that is a good thing,” she says.
“School education has failed miserably in teaching us to understand how that works.
“I raise it for lots of reasons – fertility, hormonal well-being and for all the women who are suffering in silence, I know what you are going through.”
Hayes also admits she can still struggle: “There is no point in me sitting here saying I do all these amazing things and I am pain free. I am not. It is a coping mechanism and it helps to reduce symptoms. I sometimes feel like I am going out of my mind with it, and then I will be like, ‘Oh f------ hell, it is my period!’
“At 44, I know exactly what is going on and I know the process. It is not the diagnosis that has made it easier; it is knowing the process of how the menstrual cycle works for someone with endo, for sure, that helps me.”
It is for this reason that Hayes has been one of the leading lights in advocating increased attention to hormonal health in women’s sport.
Last year The Daily Telegraph revealed how Chelsea were working with sports science company Orreco and using the Fitrwoman app to help players tailor aspects of their lifestyle, such as nutrition, around their menstrual cycles to optimise performance.
For all her trophies, one of Hayes’s proudest achievements has been putting women’s health first. “I am certain Chelsea are world leaders at a team level at what we do. For us it is part of our fabric. It is one of the many tenants that we factor into what helps towards our players becoming successful athletes and a successful team.
“For us, it is part of our fabric. It is one of the many things that we factor into what helps towards our players becoming successful athletes, and a successful team.
“I empathise with players. In our culture it is all about strategies and interventions to help the individual based on their individual needs.
“It is not just about supplements or putting painkillers in your mouth. You have to educate yourself about that. That raising awareness has to start with my players and I have to say they have all become incredibly knowledgeable about the different phases [of the menstrual cycle] and the different interventions they have to make.”
Hayes hopes that her intervention can be the start of a broader conversation. “I think it is critical to normalise it because so much around women’s hormonal health is so neglected,” she says.
“Everything is bunched up into ‘it is just period pain’ and that is because people don’t understand it.
“I have lived with it a long time, but I know I am always determined not to be defeated. And I want to feel better; I don’t want to feel c--p.
“I go month to month in a really, really high place for the first 15 days and then it gets bad after ovulation, and I am now at the point where I know what is coming, and I cross my fingers a little bit and hope it is not too much of a bad one.
“Ultimately, only those of us who suffer with this really know what it’s like.”