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Being visually impaired.

It's easier than having in demetriosis, which is insane.

There was nothing I did, there was nothing I said.

I didn't put my hand up, I didn't volunteer for it.

But both came my way involuntarily, and I've learned to live with one of them.

Imagine breaking a world record at the Commonwealth Games should be the single greatest moment of your life, right, but instead of wearing your gold medal out and proud while celebrating with the teammates, you are instead curled up in your hotel room on your bed alone, unable to move.

That was the reality for Catcher.

Debte Kind Catchy you see, is an Australian Paralympic champion swimmer.

She's visually impaired, but for her that disability pales in comparison to the chronic condition she's been battling behind the scenes for years because Catcher, like so many other Aussie women, has endometriosis.

In fact, she's one of nearly one million Australian women and girls currently living with the condition, and to put that into some perspective, for us, roughly one in seven women in Australia will live with this disease at some point in their lives.

For Catcher, the complication started when she was just nine years old, and by twenty one she made a really radical decision regarding her fertility just to get her quality of life back.

Today, in a truly awakening episode of the Well Summer series, she's going to join us along with her very cute emotional support dog, Duke, to share a story of pain, resilience and the tough choices female athletes have to make when their health is on the line.

Catty, thank you so much for joining us today, and I think we should probably preface this conversation with the fact that Duke, your emotional support dog, is currently sitting on your lap.

But thank you so much for joining us.

I appreciate you giving us your time.

No, thank you for having me and Juke's very excited to be here.

You are talking to us because you are in a unique position that not many people find themselves in, and that is becoming an elite athlete while also dealing with endometriosis.

And we're going to talk about how you've weaved those two things together throughout your lifetime.

And what impact that's had.

But let's kick off from the very beginning.

So you are nine when you get your first period, and this is something that's becoming more and more common now.

My daughter got hers when she was nine two.

A lot of her schoolmates already have it.

But what was that experience like for you as a nine year old dealing with getting your period?

And was there already pain attached to that at that early stage.

Yeah, Unfortunately when I was nine, getting your period at nine wasn't as common yet.

I remember trying to talk to people in my grade about if they'd gotten it or not with outright outing myself because it was such a taboo thing getting your period.

It's like a big moment in every girl's life.

And I just didn't know what to do, and everyone was like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

So here's me grade nine, having pads and tampons in my pockets, trying to move properly so that they don't make noises going to the bathroom, coughing when I'm trying to open a pad so it doesn't make any noise.

Horrible, absolutely horrible, And from the get go there was pain, and I think The first day that I got my period is probably the scariest day that I ever had, because we were coming back from into school sport playing water polo, which was very fun.

But we came back on the school bus and I was at the back.

I think I was like one of the last people to get off, and someone was like, you're bleeding a little bit.

But we hadn't had the sex head talk yet, so no one knew why I was bleeding, So we all just assumed I'd gotten scraped or playing water polo, because we know that's a possibility.

And I went to the bathroom and I saw where it was coming from, and I freaked out.

And I didn't have a phone yet.

But here's me bleeding heavily from the get go, in pain, freaking out, And all I remember is somebody knew I was in the bathroom.

They heard me crying.

I have a twin brother.

They found him and they got him to come to the girl's bathroom, which he was not happy about.

She's come to me.

I've let her into the bathroom.

I could just see her face drop and I now know it's because she had problems with her period too, so she used to be a marathon runner.

So I don't know where I got my swimming jeans from, but it wasn't my parents.

And she was just like, this is crazy.

It can't be happening to you at nine, and especially so brightly read so much of it too, And so she had to get my brother's school jumper, put it around my way, she put me in the car, we went straight to get pats and tampons, and it just kept going from there.

And I can remember clearly that it was never a regular period from day dot or whatever you call a regular period.

So the twenty eight days was not your regular.

No, since age nine to twenty one, never ever had a regular cycle.

And that is how this all started.

Can you describe the pain that you were feeling?

How does nine year old you handle that pain?

What was it like?

It was nauseating and it was crippling, And all I remember is being so uncomfortable all the time because I was very tall.

I'm like six foot.

I got to probably my shoulder height now when I was in grade four, so I was like taller than everybody, if not one of the tallest people in school.

I've always been a wider, muscular build, so I already stuck out like a sore thumb.

I had a really bad lazy eye, which I've had cosmetic procedure on.

I had that in grade four, so I can kind of fit in.

I have a huge scar on my left knee from where I fell down some stairs because I didn't see them right, And I was at school with a huge breaks and crutches for two to three months.

I already stalk out like a sore thumb.

So here's me trying to fit in at nine, getting her period, trying not to like wobble around in pain all the time, like hunched over.

I didn't feel like I could stand up properly when I sat down.

You could hear the pad when I was sitting because I always had to wear like the overnight ones during the day.

Yeah, right, So I was so heavy.

It was so so heavy, and I hadn't been able to wear a tampon yet, and I was just so embarrassed all the time, and it was so difficult, and I remember I had a teacher who shamed me for it.

What they were like, you're just trying to get out of school.

You're just trying to go home all the time.

Because I was further in Sick Bay.

And I'm lucky because my mum worked in admin at the school that this was all happening at, so she would be the one who would look after me in Sick Bay.

But I just made it all look worse to this one person, And to this day, I wish I could reach out to them and be like, hey, so this is actually what has happened to me at this time when you were being horrible.

But I haven't done that because I'm going above you.

Being the better person.

Okay, So how much school do you reckon you missed in your time from periods?

It's funny.

I think I've now missed more school swimming than when I was having my period, a decent amount.

When I first got diagnosed with in demetriosis, I was in grade eleven and I had to take three weeks off to recover from that procedure because it ended up being more extensive than we were anticipating.

And on top of that, I had to rehab my abdominant muscles to go back to swimming.

To have him take three weeks off school and it was noticed.

Obviously I had a plan with my teachers and my principal to make sure I didn't miss the out on any school work.

But people were like, where have you been for three weeks?

And there was a select few that I was comfortable with saying I had surgery because of a horrible chronic illness that I've been diagnosed with.

But majority of the time I was just like, oh, I had a swimming trip, which wasn't uncommon for me.

It wasn't uncommon for me to go away for swimming trips during year eleven and twelve, so I was like, oh, sorry, I was away.

I was international.

I didn't have any reception to like contact anyone.

I had all my assignments before I left.

That was easily believed.

But yeah, so much school.

How do you maintain swimming training, especially when you're younger and you're not using tampons yet, Like that would have been incredibly difficult to manage.

I think I was lucky enough that this all happened when I had an amazing coach and he's still coaching to this day.

But I was too embarrassed to go up to this big, strong man who I idolized because he's just so fantastic and be like, hey, I have my period this week.

I can't swim for the week, and he was fantastic about it.

He never batted an eyelid.

My mom would go up to him and tell him this and he'd be like, cool, when she's ready to come back, sweet, we'll bring her back in nicely so she doesn't obviously injure herself.

But because my twin brother and I was swimming at the same program in the same squad, a lot of my team, like as squad mates, would make fun of me for not being in the water.

And it was really really frustrating because there was girls in that squad who were older than me and obviously having their periods and obviously being able to use tampons.

But not only did I not want to use tampons, but when I started trying to use them, it was actually excruciating to try and put it in, never mind keep it in.

So my mom and I it was a really really awesome bonding experience.

Mom and I were trying to teach me how to put them in safely and comfortably, and I think it took me like three months to eventually get comfortable with putting them in.

But I just remember it was so hard to navigate having a period, but then also trying to be an upcoming athlete.

It all came around before I joined parasport, so it was easier to get away with not swimming, But then once I got to Paralympic level, which happened also quickly, it was a lot harder to try and cope with a period and then lack of training, and then how that affects your whole training cycle and how it affects your whole prep going towards a meat.

On top of dealing with incredibly heavy menstrual flow, the pain within demetriosis, I imagine, isn't ideal when you're training to become a Paralympian, Like, how do you manage that?

It sounds like a really excuse the swearing, bullshit answer, but you don't.

I said this to somebody.

I think it was when I was doing the Buper campaign about our health stories and how it's okay to talk about them.

I'm not sure if it was during the campaign.

For it's like, how do you manage with it?

You don't.

You don't figure out how to manage with it because every day is different.

Unfortunately, some days heat was fantastic on my stomach and my lower back.

Sometimes it was cold.

Sometimes I could not bear to be submerged in water, really inconvenient for being a swimmer in winter.

Sometimes it was the best thing for me adimuutrosis.

Sometimes it was the worst thing for demutrosis, so I could never win.

And sometimes lying flat was the best thing.

When you're swimming, you're flat out, you're extending.

So when it wasn't the best thing for me, my coaches would notice it because I physically couldn't straighten out all the way.

So did I ever find a way to manage it?

No.

The way that I found to manage it, unfortunately, is not an option for everybody else, and that is having a hysterectomy.

And it's one of the best things I ever did for me as a person, not even me as an athlete, But unfortunately that option is not available to everybody else, and not everybody wants to have that done.

So if somebody learns how to manage the intimutriosis in their everyday life for being an a lead athlete, congrats, because I couldn't do it.

But unfortunately I don't really have any advice on that front.

To be honest, Well, talk to me about the decision to get a hysterectomy, like, it's a big decision for your future, it's a big decision for your health.

How was that conversation in your head weighing up what that looked like for you, because obviously the quality of life after it has been so significant for you.

It was a discussion that I had with my parents, I think for two years before it was done.

It was a discussion that I had with my gynecologist six months before it was done, because he's also someone who delivers babies, so I knew speaking to him about this was going to be heartbreaking for him, and I wanted to delay that as much as possible.

The reason why I started talking to my parents is because more often than not, when I have a gut feeling it's right, it ends up playing out.

And my gut feeling was that this isn't going to get better.

And it was around the time where I started getting all these different treatments to try and manage the demetriosis.

But unfortunately I was having laparospic surgeries Tungu twister one to two times a year to get things cleaned out.

I was having marinas inserted every six months, they were like breaking inside of me.

They were tearing through my uterine wall, and because of all the hormones I'd been pushing through my body, but also because of all the training I'd been pushed through, in the dieting and all these other things, and then in demetriosis itself, the question of my fertility was obviously out and about, and at that rate I didn't really believe I was fertile.

My parents struggled with getting pregnant, so we were I think seventh round IVF babies and then we came out as twins, so I already knew there was going to be problems with that in the future.

And so the year that I got my hysterectomy, I had two benchmark meets.

Benchmark meets are what swimming considers our Australian team meets.

And because of COVID and the Olympics and Paralympics being pushed back a year, World Championships and com Games were put into the same year.

So Birmingham twenty twenty two Commgames was my first ever COMM Games.

They hadn't held visually impaired swimming events in previous games, so it was very excited to be involved in that games, and the World and the comm Games Championships were held four weeks apart, so we were in Madeira in Portugal for two weeks racing there, and that's when I had my first gold and two silver medals individually.

It was so so exciting.

I swam so well on top of that, which was just fantastic.

And then four weeks later we had Common Games where I broke the s thirteen to fifty meter freestyle would record and got a gold medal, which is just outstanding.

But the thing that many people don't know is that year was my sickest year.

I had glided my period three weeks before we left for Madeira, and by the time we left for Madeira, I was still bleeding my periods.

Up to this point, I was wearing a tampon and an overnight pad and I was still leaking through.

So even with all the hormones and the marinas and the pil and all these other things at my Guyino and I had worked together to try and slow down the bleeding, it wasn't working.

So three weeks before Worlds start my period.

I race at Worlds with my period and a lot of pain more often than not, wishing I could have a painkiller, but because of drug testing, majority of the time the painkillers at work you can't take, which I respect.

Right, I'm all here for you know, safe sport and no one doing the wrong thing.

But there was a point in time.

Right, And it's hardly a level playing field when you're in crippling pain.

Yeah, what's the frustrating thing?

Right?

You go to the Paralympics to race against people with your disability and your difficulties, with people who understand the struggle you go through.

And we may not speak the same language, but we understand the hardships that we go through.

And then you've got a chronic illness just dumped on top of your head.

And so I didn't tell the girls that I was racing against about it until twenty twenty three World Championships, our usual yearly catch up because they're all too far away to catch up with regularly, and so we'd all update in the marginaling room before we race, and we'd tell each other like all these exciting and not so exciting things.

And I told them all about it, and they were all heartbroken, but we still all had fun racing at the end of the day.

But I would go to that world.

In twenty twenty two, still bleeding, wishing I could have painkillers, couldn't have painkillers.

I came home for two weeks, still bleeding.

I met with my guynecologists to get another script for one of the hormones that I was taking to try and fix this all.

And he's like, we might need to have a conversation when you get home.

And I said to him, is this the conversation that I'm hoping we'll have And he said, unfortunately, yes, that conversation was, ah, We're going to do it has directom me.

I went to com games I went all that way, which is very far away from Australia.

Might I add very uncomfortable plane seats with back pain and stomach pain and very small cubicle and you've got like a pad and a tampon in your pocket trying to go through all these things.

And there's nothing worse than trying to change that out in a plane toilet.

Which aren't the cleanest.

No, so you're like sanitizing everything, then you're doing it, then you're santitizing everything again.

Yeah, but I erased the Colm games I swam one of the best times I'd swum ever because obviously to word records, so it has to be one of the best times ever.

And I remember the night and the day after my ward record swim.

I was in bed in pain, and the doctor had come and given me europin and panadol does nothing.

It does nothing for me, but that's all she could do.

And I should have been out celebrating with my teammates and my coach and my country.

I should have been going to interviews like other athletes who have won gold medals for Theseustralian team at Calm.

Games, telling the world about it.

All I could do was lie in bed and feel sorry for myself because I was in so much pain.

And the worst thing is, more often than not, when I would race, my bleeding would become heavier and then I would leak.

And thank God, my race suit that year was black because you couldn't see it, and it was horrible because all I wanted to do was celebrate and I was just in bed.

The next day, I was on FaceTime with my mom and I was like, hey, bled through my race suit while I was racing that swim, but hey, no one saw it.

And it was so bad.

And so when I came home from commgames.

I think it was like two weeks after I came home to give myself some downtime and to process everything that happened, I met with my gynecologists and he's like, it's progressing very quickly, and I was like, sweet, I was going to do what I'd been asking to do for the last six months because I know it's going to do me a world of good.

He's like, I can't promise you that this will improve your quality of life.

The only thing I can promise you is that's going to stop the bleeding.

And I was like, that's a good enough answer for me.

But I had this feeling in my chest that I was like, this is going to be the best decision I'd make for myself.

And so it was a month after my twenty first birthday, fourteenth of September twenty twenty two, I had my hystory ectomy, and I've got a photo of me and my mom both like flipping up my fingers to the camera being like, screw you into metriosis with me all the way in until they knocked me out.

And I know once they knocked me out, she left crying because the nurses had to escort her out, and they put it in my room that I was going to be staying in for the next three to five days, because you've got to learn how to go to the toilet again, you've got to learn to walk again.

And I remember waking up from that procedure and going to the toilet for the first time and not having any pain, and then I start bawling.

Moms like crouched beside me on the toilet, crying because I'm crying because I'm happy I'm no longer in pain.

She is crying because I feel good.

And then you've got these two nurses outside making sure I don't pass out on the toilet crying because the twenty one year old's happy that she's lost an organ so she compete without pain.

Yeah, and every week after that, I just improved.

I just improved.

I had no more pain, I could stand up again, I could stand up for longer periods of time, I could train again.

I didn't have to worry about all these pads and hampons if I was going to have enough when I was traveling internationally, because half my suitcase when I traveled internationally was pats and hampons, and it was prescriptions, and it was letters of why I'm bringing this medication into the country, and it's medical exemptions for when I get drug tested.

This is why I'm taking this.

I didn't have to worry about that anymore.

And it was bliss.

It was pure bliss.

But I know my parents, particularly my mother, went through a grieving process and it wasn't until my now relationship that I've gone through grieving process of the same thing.

So I don't regret it, but it was an extremely daunting and difficult decision to make it twenty one when there's no promise of the outcome that I had.

How do you feel now when you see And I mean, we're still not quite taking endometriosis into consideration where it comes to elite athletes, but there is more discussion at least around menstrual cycles of elite athletes.

And I've seen a swimmer who talked in an interview after a race and said, I got my period and it threw me off.

And there are football teams now who train differently depending on their players menstrual cycles because they know that they can get injured more easily during certain parts of the cycle, Like, how does that feel when you see that kind of progress in women's sport where we do at least start taking menstrual cycles into consideration.

It makes me very happy that there was this kind of consideration when I was going through my struggles, purely because it would have been good research, which sounds really funny.

I don't wish this was happening when I was going through my struggles to benefit me.

I wish that it was going on because it would have been fantastic research.

I was one of the few who could multitask chronic illness and elite sport.

And there's more people coming through and doing the exact same thing, which makes me so so happy to see.

But there's not enough research being done about it.

There's not enough research being done into women's health.

There's not enough research being done into women's sport, and there's not enough research being done into women's health in sport.

It's crazy how when a female elite athlete goes through these things of periods motherhood, they think it just ends there.

When people get their peerage and they think okay, cool, I can keep going.

A lot of the time people are like okay, now, it's just the timeline until they have a family.

It's not really the case.

There's people coming back from motherhood to be elite athletes, and it's fantastic to see.

And I think we just need to start investing more time and effort and thought more importantly into how that all works, because we can definitely support the next generation of female athletes, young mothers, mothers who want to come back to elite sport better if we do the time and effort into these things.

And I wish science and research in that capacity was my kind of interest.

Unfortunately it's not.

I can't read God for uphs to save my life, probably because I can't see very well, but that's the point.

So I wish I could put my interest towards that and help in some way, and unfortunately I can't.

So this is how I feel like I'm giving my two cents is speaking out about my story and letting people know that they're not alone.

And I've had so many young girls DM me and be like you made me want to get myself checked out and it turns out I have intometriosis.

Thank you for sharing your story.

And I think the first few messages they got about that I started crying, and I get a little bittery out about it now because I don't want them to have that outcome.

I don't want them to be diagnosed with it.

But I mean, it sounds bad.

But the good thing about me talking about it is there's more awareness coming about the chronic illnesses that we have in women's health, and more speaking out about it, more having research done, more research is being conducted, and then we can better support people being diagnosed with it at all ages.

I think the thing that stands out with your story in particular is that that comparison that you've made in previous interviews where you say being visually impaired is actually barely registers compared to the pain and the suffering you've gone through with endometriosis.

I've been visually impaired my whole life.

My ride high is being blind my whole life.

I was born this way.

I've grown up with a visually abled twin brother.

My parents said, follow him, do what he does.

So I did.

I tried soccer, go hit in the face, stop playing soccer.

He kept playing soccer, played cricket, got hit in the face with the cricket bat, stopped playing.

Cricket, probably good choice.

Yeah, yeah, I stop when I hurt myself, right, But being visually impaired with one eye that is slowly going blind and we don't know much about it, it's easier than having indometriosis, which is insane because you'd think navigating your life with fully abled family who know nothing about being visually impaired.

And when I was younger, we knew nothing about the supports that I could have had and did eventually have.

Apparently that's easier than being chronically ill.

It makes no sense, but it's so true.

I forget that I'm visually impaired halftime.

I forget all the time, and then I can't see something, and I'm like, why can't I see what I'm looking at?

Yeah?

I could never justify why I was feeling the way I was feeling, because to me, saying, oh, I feel this way because I have in demetriosis was not enough.

There was nothing that I did to warrant either my visually impaired disease or my chronic illness.

There was nothing I did.

There was nothing I said.

I didn't put my hand up it didn't volunteer for it.

But both came my way involuntarily, and I've learned to live with one of them.

The other one I got rid of and correcting myself on that, I didn't actually get rid of it.

It can still grow, It's still in.

There, but I got rid of it in check for the moment.

Right Well.

See, I don't know if it's actually stop growing.

I've been having a lot of problems since January of this year.

So if it has started to go again, hey, I've got like two and a half years of pain relief.

That's good enough in my books.

And you don't sometimes bleed for six months straight.

Oh you know how nice it is not to have a period anymore.

I can imagine from your perspective, pretty good people who have regular cycles, I think would be wishing to not ever have a period again.

I think anybody with a period would be wishing not to have a period right now.

But obviously we need them for certain reasons.

Yeah, hey, is what it is.

I'm now somewhat pain free.

It's been a very interesting journey, to be honest, especially at twenty four looking back at everything.

There's a concern you that it'll grow back.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely, If it grows back.

I can't do anything about it in my head.

I had my hysterectomy for many, many reasons, many reasons, and I stand by all of them.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, and not everybody agrees with all my reasons, and that's perfectly fine.

But I did it for a reason, and for many reasons, and one of those reasons was that my injur metroses won't keep growing.

If it starts growing, I'm screwed.

I don't want to keep having bowl preps to go have a camera and put into my belly button and then look around and burn things away just for it to grow back in two to three years time.

And unfortunately, I'm getting to that point now where I'm going to have to go and have an ultrasound to see if they can pick up anything, because it's been so long.

But unfortunately, ultrasounds don't pick up everything.

My first ultrasound didn't pick up anything, and then we went in and it was everywhere.

So it's a little bit alarming.

It's a little bit stressful, but I'm aware that stress isn't going to help me, so I try and meditate and be happy about everything.

But it's still a huge concern, and it's something that I hope I don't have to go through with my partner because I met him when I was healthier, and I don't want this to be something that stresses him out.

If he's a good partner, he'll be there to support you regardless.

I hundred just sad.

He's been there to support me through everything else I've been going through in the last one He's fantastic.

He's all for learning about women's health, and I think that's one of the most important things that I've been seeing in my life is who's willing to learn.

My twin brother was willing to learn, so when he gets a girlfriend, he's going to be the best boyfriend ever because I've trained him.

Well.

There's just some people who aren't willing to learn what it means for somebody and how to help them through it, because you can't solve their problem for them, but you can help them through it sometimes.

And my brother, my mum learned how to help me through it, and then you when I was being a little little asshole, it wasn't my fault, it wasn't something I could control.

And that's the exact same thing with my partner.

Now, he's just been so open to learning everything that I went through.

He's been so open to learning how to help me.

Now he's been doing your own research on how to help me through things that I'm going through at the moment.

So having that network around you, I think is really really important to come to terms with what you're going through and then to be more confident to talk to other people about it, because you will feel about a number one, but number two, you'll bring awareness to other people and they can number one, help you through it.

Number two get themselves checked out for whatever you're going through, not just in demetriosis.

Katia, thank you so much for sharing some insights into your journey and to your story today.

I really appreciate it.

And hopefully there's some more good men out there who are willing to listen to this and also have a good learn and so women who might be able to take some questions to their own doctors if they have them.

But thank you so much for sharing with us.

Appreciate it, Thank you for having me.

I just hope that people feel more confident to speak about it and to ask for help and if they can't find help where they're looking to maybe look within the community those already going through these things, because we can help each other so much more than people realize, and they just need to let isn't ask the question.

A huge thank you to Ketcher for being so vulnerable with us today.

This conversation is a really stark reminder of the gender pain gap that still exists in medicine and sport.

Research shows that on average, it takes about six and a half years for a woman to be diagnosed with endometriosis.

In Australia, it's nearly seven years of suffering, sometimes in silence, missing school or in Catcher's case, missing training, before getting some kind of answers.

Catch's decision to have a hysterectomy at twenty one is not the solution for everyone, but her message is universal.

Trust your instincts when something does feel right.

So if something doesn't feel good, or if your pain is stopping you from living your life, please go and see your GP.

We've also linked some resources for endometriosis Australia in the show notes.

If you want to go learn some more.

Catch us on Tuesday for another episode of our summer series where Me and the Good Doctor Mariam We'll be going to med school to find out why we sometimes experience this thing called poo euphoria, and in a quick consult, Dr Marian will be answering a listener's question about holiday seasonally related heartburn.

You don't want to miss It Well is produced by me Claire Murphy and our senior producer, Sally Best, with audio production by Scott Stronik, video production by Julian Rosario, and social production by Ellie Moore.

Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land.

We've recorded this podcast on the Gatigill people of the Euronation and the Wannerooer people.

We pay our respects to their elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestrad Islander cultures.