When the pain started, Tara Langdale-Schmidt didn’t think much of it. It was a soreness that came and went while going to the toilet, or after she and her husband had sex.

She had undergone a string of surgical procedures through the years because of her battle with endometriosis – a disorder in which the tissue that normally lines the uterus grows outside of it – so she figured the pain was due to her medical history and hoped it would soon pass.

Instead the pain worsened, becoming overwhelming as the weeks went by.

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“After a while it felt like someone was cutting me in half at the 6 o’clock mark and burning me with a cigarette inside my vagina at the same time,” says Langdale-Schmidt. “Here I was trying to have sex with my husband, and all I’m doing is trying not to cry and ruin the moment. It was agony.”