EMMA BARNETT: Fighting endometriosis (BBC 1, 1 June) is critical viewing, particularly for those of us concerned about the parlous state of women’s healthcare. Someone with more than a vested interest is the broadcast journalist, writer, and Today presenter Emma Barnett, who has suffered with the disease since her early teens.
She speaks vulnerably about her own awful experiences, describing the pain of endometriosis as “like having a drill inside my stomach that’s going down into my organs”. She speaks to other women with the condition, as well as gynaecologists and the former Health Secretary Wes Streeting, asking pointed questions about what can be done to help alleviate the suffering caused by this disease.
Endometriosis is a debilitating condition in which rogue, endometrial cells grow outside the womb, causing raw sores, scarring, and intense pain. It is as common in women as asthma or diabetes; but research receives only a fraction of the funding. Ms Barnett, ironically, while suffering a crippling endometriosis flare-up, does an excellent job of raising the profile of the disease and its impact on women.
That is described as a cyclone of pain which makes it difficult to breathe, and a tsunami of agony that grinds you down and causes despair. As Ms Barnett says, it is not for the faint-hearted, and neither is this documentary, which contains scenes of graphic surgery, as well as unflinching descriptions of exactly what it is like to live with this disease. The fact that it takes, on average, nine years and four months to receive a diagnosis, after which there is no treatment pathway or cure, ought to make this a justice issue to concern us all.
Rafa (Netflix, available now) is the perfect series for tennis fans to indulge while filling the void between the end of Roland Garros and the start of Wimbledon. It is the story of the greatest ever clay-court player, Rafael Nadal, who won 22 Grand Slam titles, including 14 French Opens. The Mallorcan, who played left-handed but was right-handed off court, was trained, his uncle and coach say, with a “clay-court mentality. You have to be willing to get your socks dirty.”
His intensely physical and forceful style of play meant that his career was plagued by injuries right from the start. A break to his foot in 2005 led to a diagnosis of Müller Weiss Syndrome, which meant that it never healed properly. As Nadal himself says, “The pain never went away.” Playing through the pain became part of his game, a psychological battle against time to see how long he could last. Rafa is the moving story of a career that spanned 23 years: an inspiring, tender depiction of a sporting great who found it nigh on impossible to quit.