I guess I could have called this blog post, "What I Did on my Summer Vacation," but truth be told, "vacation" is totally the wrong word to use when describing my July and August. Consider this my PSA to all you women out there, no matter what your age.
For all of my adult life, I’ve been pretty health conscious, paying attention to my body and trying to do my best by it.
I hike it, feed it good food, ensure it gets enough sleep, and try to keep it strong.
Most of the time, I listen to it. After all, no one knows our bodies like we do, right? This is why it is so strange that I ignored what, deep down, I knew was a problem.
The Beginning
Let me give you a bit of a pre-amble (short, I promise). I am a 64-year-old woman who went through menopause at age 52. I breezed through it with a few irritating hot flashes, but nothing major. But, shortly afterward, I noticed I was starting to pack on a little belly weight. It didn’t really impact my day-to-day life, but it did piss me off because, as I said before, I am a pretty disciplined person. I chalked it up to “Life as a Post-Menopausal Woman” and just got on with things.
In Denial
But my little Buddha belly just kept getting bigger — a little round hard ball of fat.
I had cared for my mother for the last few years of her life before she succumbed to dementia, and I figured this “hard belly fat” was “cortisol fat.”
All the online influencer wellness coaches talk about it 24/7, don’t they? Stress fat. And caring for a loved one with dementia is VERY stressful. It made sense. So, on I went, embracing baggy sweatshirts and sleeping with a foam body pillow to cushion my belly.
I continued to ignore it. I continued to ignore increasing bouts of indigestion, constipation, and cramping.
I continued to ignore the need to pee all the time. I just figured I was getting old.
On the last day of June, soon after dinner, I suddenly began to feel really awful. The intense indigestion turned into crippling pain. I was nauseous. My legs were numb down to my knees. I could barely move.
(If you want to hear the story, instead of reading about it, I made a TikTok video about the whole sordid ordeal. You can watch it here.) (Note *Tiktok profile is currently deactivated... I'll be back in January.)
A Very Scary Night
Freaked out, my husband drove me straight to the ER, trying desperately to avoid every bump and pothole in the road.
Luckily, I got in pretty quickly, and when the attending doctor performed an examination and ultrasound, I saw the look of shock on his face.
“Um,” he said. “You have a huge mass in your abdomen.”
Now, that isn’t something anyone wants to hear. Ever. But off I went for a CT scan, which confirmed I had a tumour 18 cm in length.
My husband and I were terrified, and I was scheduled for emergency surgery first thing in the morning. As my uterus looked “a little dodgy,” they told me they thought it would be best if they gave me a radical hysterectomy as well as a bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy.
“Take it all,” I said. “I’ve had my kids. Free up some space down there.”
Two days later, I was back home, having learned that my tumour was called a mature cystic teratoma or a dermoid cyst.
Everything they removed was okay; all I had to do was heal up and grow a brain. (More on that in a minute.)
A Giant Ovarian Dermoid Teratoma
Dermoid cysts are strange monsters. Benign 99% of the time, they comprise a bunch of different tissues, including oil, skin cells, nerve tissue, hair, and — oh my God — teeth!
Mine did not have teeth, but it did have hair. So gnarly, right?
Mine (also called a mature teratoma) also weighed almost seven pounds and had torsioned (twisted) in THREE places, cutting off blood flow, hence the numbness and excruciating pain.
Here it is, all 7 lbs of it. I called it “Ripley,” a nod to the movie ALIEN.
While all this was a little traumatic, to say the least, it could have been so much worse. It could have happened while I was out hiking. The dang thing could have burst, I could have become septic … yada yada yada.
A Wake-up Call
Here’s the thing, though. If I am honest with myself, I think I knew all along, that something wasn’t right.
But I continued to sweep it all under the proverbial rug, hoping that some magical manifesting miracle would simply resolve my issues.
They did not. I feel now as though I betrayed my body. It had been talking to me for years, and I had refused to listen. Why? Because I am a giant chicken shit when it comes to doctors and hospitals and things. I like alternative medicine. I like to be my own health advocate. I don’t even like taking a Tylenol unless I really have to.
The dangerous thing is that I was listening to TikTok health “pros” and Instagram “Wellness Gurus,” and while a lot of their content is great, a lot of it can be highly misleading — so much so that you can really harm yourself.
Yes, eating enough protein is essential. Yes, exercise is good. Yes, strength training as we age is critical, and yes, magnesium is an excellent supplement for older women to take.
BUT… no, you do NOT need to take 674 supplements daily to improve your health.
No, red light therapy will NOT cure your cancer. No, a castor oil pack will NOT dissolve a 7 lb dermoid cyst.
So, be discerning. Check your sources for credibility, and please visit your doctor for routine tests on a regular basis.
Don’t be like me, and put your head in the sand until something catastrophic happens.
Listen to your body, sisters, and treat it with the love and respect it deserves.
A Promise for the Future
I feel as though I’ve been given a new lease on life. In fact, I haven’t felt this great since I was in my 40s.
Thank you, body, for carrying me around all these years and for your patience. I’m sorry I ignored you; I promise that things will be different from now on.
Comments