For more than 20 years, pain consumed the majority of Lindsay McCray’s days and nights.

She believes the stigma around talking about things like menstruation contributed to why she went undiagnosed with endometriosis for so long.

"I started having my period when I was about 13 and from that point it was really, really painful and all through my life I basically was told that was just normal I just kind of had it rough and that, you know, nothing was wrong," said McCray.

"It got worse and worse over the years, until the point that I was basically going to work coming home and I was in a ball, in pain. It really took over my life."

Yet when she went to different doctors, they would all dismiss her.

"It was incredibly frustrating to just be patted on the head and told, 'You just have it rough.'"

She didn’t feel like she could talk about the details with other women even, and became hopeless and depressed.

Last year, her life changed, thanks to a nurse practitioner who knew that the amount of pain McCray was feeling was anything but normal.

"She gave me a quick exam and said, ‘Have you ever heard of this disease called endometriosis?'"

Suddenly McCray’s future was brighter.

"Oh my God. To know that there was a name for what I was going through was such a huge relief. I mean it was to the point where three weeks out of every month, I was curled up in a ball and I just thought that's what my life was going to be like forever," she said.

Endometriosis is a disease in which the tissue which normally lines the inside of the uterus grows outside the uterus. It is painful and progressive.

After various referrals, McCray finally ended up at BC Women’s Hospital, where specialists run a clinic focused on pelvic pain.

After surgery by a specialist, involving a hysterectomy and removal of lesions, she immediately felt better.

"I had forgotten what it felt to be without pain, which is a really bizarre concept," she said.

McCray said she shouldn’t have had to suffer for all those years, and wants women, and doctors, to educate themselves about endometriosis.

She said she can finally play with her kids, and feels like she has missed out on their early childhood.

McCray is urging women to open up and feel comfortable talking about their period.

She is closing in on one year free of pain, but isn’t quite sure what the appropriate celebration is for something like that.

"I don’t know, maybe a ‘no uterus’ party or something,” she said, before bursting into laughter.