Thread by @EmaCartoon

It’s been a few years, but every now and then I get gut punched with little things of would-be reminders. This started with a “My body does its best to survive because it loves me” post on FB.

[thread] About 5-ish years ago, I was sick and puking up random things where I normally was fine. It was RenFaire season and I put on my corset only to have a subsequent breakdown about how it no longer was comfortable, I’m getting fat, etc, etc.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I’m now working 4 10s plus my full weekend gig and my “rest day” of vacation off to rest up lands me in the ER bleeding profusely from my crotch where I nearly pass out a few times because my blood pressure tanked (53/48 suuuucks).

I knew 2 things: 1, I had a pregnancy test (pee test) 2 weeks prior that was negative, and 2, I was on super special birth control to manage my #endometriosis. The ER docs couldn’t figure it out, nor could they stop the bleeding.

At some point, maybe after the 3rd IV bag where we were discussing if I was going to need a blood transfusion or not, I finally squeaked out a “Can you run a *blood* pregnancy test? The clincian I saw prior refused to do one when I did the piss test.”

10 minutes later, the nurse is running up to my bed going “Why didn’t you tell us??? I’m so sorry!!!”

And that’s how I found out I was pregnant.
As they left me and nearly took my life with them.

I’m always wary of telling this story. There’s always those who roll their eyes and are all like “Really? Again? We get it. You nearly died.” (I honestly have no idea why they stick around my friends list.) But then I realize there are friends who honestly don’t know.

They don’t know that’s the beginning of my major health overhaul. They don’t know that’s how I found all my major food allergies. They don’t know that all I wanted was to figure out what went wrong so I could fix it and then try again.

I desperately wanted to be a mom.

My #endometriosis and #adenomyosis basically told me that was never going to happen.

2 years ago I had my #hysterectomy. Which was 3 years after the ordeal.

I couldn’t have made it through without the #HysterSisters community group.

I never did find out if it was a girl or a boy. My surgeon, whom I kept, knew that I would drive myself crazy going down the path of what could have been. (We became good friends. He was not wrong.)

But they’d be starting kindergarten next week.

Through the food allergies, we also discovered I had hypopituitarism, hypothyroidism, and a pituitary micro tumour (Ooooooo).

I once had someone ask me how I “let it get so bad.” The truth is, I’d been complaining of fatigue, difficulty managing my weight, & mood for 3 years.

Around 23, I started asking my PCP if something could be wrong. I was semi-annually told “You’re young. Just lose some weight, and you’ll be fine.”

I was 28 when I had my miscarriage. Symptoms persisted. She looked me in the face and said “You’re not as young as you used to be.”

I fired her and got another doc that week. Who ran the tests and found everything. I couldn’t carry because that hypopituitarism led to an Estradiol blood count of 0.
0.
My PT said I might as well have been taking T shots (slight exaggeration).

I immediately got in to an endocrinologist and we fixed all that with pills for life, but I’ve never stopped wondering “What if my doc had just.. humoured me?” What if she had bothered to do a blood serum work up? Would my kid still be alive? Would I be signing up for the PTA?

So, basically, this is a long winded story of how I nearly died because my doctor couldn’t see past my weight, and how my body broke because of it, and how there’s hope of fixing it.

I can’t stress enough that it’s okay to find another doc who will listen. They are out there.

Even through everything, I trust my current team of specialists. They listen. I advocate for myself when I can.

My body and I are in this together. I’m rooting for each of those little cells doing their jobs trying to keep the larger machine going.

And that’s why I’m a fat chick not trying to lose weight.

My weight will always fluctuate. It comes with the hypothyroidism territory. I’m allergic to breakfast foods (incl bacon, but not plain eggs) and everything they go in. Trying to find food I *can* eat is hard enough.

The weight loss industry makes billions off making is feel bad about our bodies. BILLIONS. It’s all fabricated. You know what you want/need. If you just eat good food and hit the appropriate micros and macros, then you won’t need to spend your time and money on these things..

Nor the therapy to get over the conditioned self loathing designed to take your money.

Work out because you want to. Press those weights to see just how much you can. Dance your stripey socks off. But do it for you. And that wonderful body you live in. In the end, it’s just you.