Life demands attention when we ignore the whispers...

Although my fibroid removal surgery was 3 months ago, I’m still not over this:


I didn’t even know they were there. 


Sean suggested I see my doctor this summer; It had been a few years since my last visit. He’s constantly tending to his own health and chronic diseases, so I'm sure I seemed crazy for not seeing my doctor at least once a year. I rationalized I didn’t have any symptoms I was concerned about — just what I chalked up to normal aging. 


I didn’t see any reason to go... but I did it anyway. [This is why I love my husband.]


Walking into the clinic, I figured I’d get tips for hormone balancing, an annoying reminder that my fertility clock is ticking, and uncomfortable prodding and probing, as is tradition. As the PA palpated my abdomen, she stopped mid-sentence --

Oh! You have fibroids.

It could have just as easily been Oh, I love your outfit.

She calmly answered my rapid-fire questions. I wracked my brain for anything I could remember from friends’ experiences with fibroids. 


I walked out of the appointment, sat in my car and cried.


The rest (which I shared in this post and this post) all happened fast and slow at the same time... and now here I sit in January 2024, fibroidless with a scar-tissued, in-tact uterus... feeling more and more like myself every day.


If I had to put my finger on it, the feeling I have — still to this day — is not guilt. It’s not shame or sadness. It’s... shock. And awe, at how growths the size of a grapefruit, two plums and quarter were all living happily, filling up my entire pelvic bowl while I went about my life. 


As my surgeon at Mayo Clinic told me on our first consultation, “Mollie, no 37-year old woman should be waking up in the middle of every night to pee.”

What a metaphor, huh?


So often, we don’t consider taking care of ourselves until we’re sick. Our body (and our doctor) demands our attention, and finally we yield. We start taking supplements and lifting weights. We go back to yoga class. We take the course. We start cooking at home again. We drink less (or give it up entirely). 


When life demands it, we listen. But what about when she whispers to us? 


There were plenty of hints my body gave along the way — including the very typical, yet not-talked-about symptom of someone with a 10cm uterine fibroid: Looking in the mirror and swearing to myself that either I’m the vessel of immaculate conception (it's impossible for Sean and I to conceive naturally), or despite my incredibly active lifestyle, I somehow got really chubby. 


None of it made sense — and looking back, none of it made me feel very good. My body was whispering for my attention, making my life harder... and I either I couldn’t hear her, wasn’t listening, or — what I suspect — is that I didn’t speak her language at the time. 
​

Call the last six months my Rosetta Stone, because I definitely speak my body’s language now!

As I consider all my most life-changing moments over the last decade, it’s been a consistent spiritual practice alongside movement that brings me back to myself. I fall away from myself, and yoga brings me back. I make a discovery like I did this summer, and yoga brought me back. I'm so grateful to have the tools and techniques I do to move through this — and every — obstacle that comes my way.


I’m determined to make 2024 (and beyond) a life of attentiveness and assertiveness when my body whispers. Better yet, I aim to anticipate her whispers before they happen, and choose routine maintenance over ignoring my one-and-only absolutely perfect skin sack.



As a stranger, hobbling with a cane said to me as she walked through a door I held for her at the post office last week, “Enjoy your youth!” 


I smiled and assured her I would. And I will!


Wherever you are, no matter the condition of your skin sack, please know that you are worth the investment your heart is begging you to make in your health and your happiness. We only get this one life. Live it, baby!


Sending love,
Mollie