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 and have had single day events of heavy bleeding many times during my life. The irregularity and unpredictability of when I’d bleed and how heavy I’d bleed have had me both wearing and carrying pads for the last 30+ years. I’ve ruined clothes, underwear, sheets, and even a couple of pieces of furniture with the drama coming from my uterus.
All of this is to say that one of the emotions that I’ve had to deal with is regret over not staying more on top of my endometrial and uterine health. Since I don’t have children, a gynecological specialist was never part of my regular care team. I saw my doctor for regular physical exams like clockwork every year as a part of my Annual Project Health, but I only saw the GYN when my primary care physician recommended it. While visits with a GYN are generally unpleasant, I do wish I’d prioritized this as a part of my project health efforts every year.
What is Project Health?
I started Project Health, I believe, in 2009. In one of his publications, David Allen of Getting Things Done/GTD fame, mentioned he did something like this. I had struggled to make sure I got appointments all done in a timely manner and so I thought it was a good thing to add to my annual routines and checklists.
Each year, I set aside a few hours in a single day to make all of the expected health appointments and plans for the year. In years past this has been:
- Annual preventative exam with my GP
- Schedule and get blood work and any other labs a couple of weeks before this
- Schedule and get mammogram a few weeks before this
- Dental Exam
- Second Dental Cleaning
- Eye Exam
In addition to blocking a few hours on one day to schedule all of these appointments, I also tried to cluster the appointments on to one or two days in the course of a month or two in order to minimize my time off work. There were often follow-ups, like picking up glasses or getting cavities filled, but at least these major tasks were done and then I could manage the follow ups without too much difficulty.
Where to from here?
I had to add a colonoscopy this year since I hit that magic age where those become a thing and some irregular although not terribly troubling findings mean I get to now repeat those every three years.
With the cancer diagnosis and treatment, I still don’t know what exactly will happen after surgery, but the best case scenario will be a follow up with my gynecologist and my oncologist twice a year at least for a couple of years and then annually after that. The gynecologist will probably stick with me for good and then the oncologist - while I really like him - I truly hope I get to say goodbye to him in a few years when we can call me cured of this.
I’m learning a lot about managing a somewhat complex medical situation during this whole ordeal and I love to teach what I learn. If you’d like to learn more, please join my community where I’ll be sharing more resources in the coming months and promoting my free and completely redesigned Project Health Kit once I have a chance to finish that. You can join for free here or join with full access to the community and get access to all of the course and resource I publish.
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