Confession #1: The Worst-Case Scenario

My body is in a state of decay. Yes. I said it. You heard it here. This was this big year for me…a birthday with a zero at the end. Okay. I’ll go ahead and tell you. I turned 40.

As I approached this birthday, I had great plans.

1. I would lose the weight I’ve gained in the last 10 years through 2 pregnancies, the death of my father, and a cross-country move.
2. I would regain my health which has really deteriorated because all my energy seems to go to my family with myself being the last priority.
3. I would work on my “look.” It’s been many years since I really put a huge amount of effort into the way I look. And I really just wanted to enter my 40s feeling good about what I saw in the mirror.

So in September of 2007, a good eight months prior to the big birthday, I scheduled the fabulous and always-looked-forward-to ANNUAL VISIT.

You know the one. The pap smear. Ah, yes. You gotta love the stirrups. It’s the most fabulous moment in a girl’s life, isn’t it? So I made an appointment with a new doctor in our new town (refer to the above-mentioned cross-country move) as a first step on my quest for a better life in my 40s.

The annual visit was pretty uneventful until Dr. Goodyear said, “So what are your goals for yourself this year?”

He knew I was turning 40. I started with my list. “Lose weight and get healthy. And I think something might be wrong with my hormones… Something just isn’t right, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I’ve been tested previously and told that my thyroid was just fine. But I don’t think it is.”

Dr. Goodyear has probably heard this as many times as he has seen patients. But for me, this felt like a scary confession. I’ve felt so alone with my struggles: weight, energy level, and turning 40.

So the good doctor said that we needed to start with my hormones. The testing was different than anything I had done before. In addition to drawing my blood, they made me spit in a cup.

I know. It sounds archaic.

Actually, I had to spit into 4 different vials at different points during the day on the 20th day following the first day of my last period. Did you follow that? It’s much easier than it sounds. But I recommend drinking a lot of water when you do saliva testing. It is hard to get that much spit!

So what happened next, you ask? Test results came back a few weeks later, and I was right. My hormones were all wrong. In fact, after I realized how out-of-whack I really was, I looked Dr. Goodyear straight in the eyes and said, “Am I the worst case you’ve ever had?”

He looked at me and said in the nicest possible way, “Yes.”

So here I am, the worst-case scenario. I am truly the hormonal woman. And I am on a personal mission to make sure that other women like me know that they aren’t alone and that there is help. Every week, I will update my blog and continue to share with you the journey I have been on since September of 2007. I have been using bioidentical hormones for 13 months now, and I am a completely different person than I was when I first stepped into Dr. Goodyear’s office. This journey continues. I’m not there yet. But every day I make another step towards the good health that I want so much.

Please join me on my journey, even if you aren’t a hormonal woman. You probably know someone who is!

–Elizabeth