How We Got Here — My Health History: Project Health, the Warning Signs, and the Regrets

I’m continuing to tell the story of my journey with endometrial cancer. I speak openly and honestly in these posts so if that might offend you, please feel free to check out my newsletter or my other writings instead.

I sat across from my friend at dinner not long after we had the preliminary diagnosis. I was trying to give her the news of what was going on. I started with the line that I’ve said many times in my life, “I’ve never had regular periods.” She was taken aback. And it was a good reminder to me of how much we, even as women, don’t understand about the challenges we each face. From pain, to irregular cycles, to heavy bleeding, many women face a steady barrage of health challenges. And, when you’ve experienced them your entire life or most of your life, you can — just as I did — become numb to them. Because many of these like pain and irregular cycles are invisible to doctors, these symptoms are, all too often, dismissed as just part of being female and they don’t receive the level of concern they actually warrant.

I said in my first post about my cancer journey that anemia most likely saved my life. I was anemic because I was bleeding so heavily (soaking a pad or more an hour) for multiple days. This wasn’t new. I’ve had heavy bleeding for multiple days before…