Donation from the Heart: Fighting for Women's Health

So... if you're not into the TMI? Here’s the nice little summary so you’re in the know: a portion of proceeds from my Original and Fine Art Print sales go to the Women’s College Hospital Foundation.

Why?

Because they’re a life-altering, women-advocating place that fights for women’s health like no one else.

Buuuuut — if you’re like me and love when people spill the tea, keep on reading, my friends.

The Women’s College Hospital describes itself as a world leader in women’s health and equity, a major teaching hospital, and the only fully ambulatory academic hospital in Canada focused on women’s health.

I call them the reason I can run, laugh, carry my daughter, and actually live my life again.

Because there was a point where I had to choose: carry my daughter the way she needed, or protect my body from pain that had become unbearable.

And the truth?

I couldn’t do both.

Women are intuitive creatures. We know when something isn’t right.

But we’re also often dismissed — brushed off until we start second-guessing ourselves, too tired to keep fighting for answers.

That was me.

After a rough pregnancy (picture vomiting 13 times a day) and a complicated birth, I knew something wasn’t healing right around the six-week recovery mark.

My OB told me I was just a “slow healer.”

So a week later, I grabbed a mirror, saw for myself, then quickly called my family doctor. It was confirmed, I had a prolapse — all three organs — but what they couldn’t explain was the escalating pelvic pain.

What followed were years of physio, referrals, doctors shrugging, and undiagnosed pain.

One told me it was “just a groin strain”... a three-year groin strain.

Another said this was simply my life now.

Every day became a negotiation: carry my daughter or protect my body, exercise or do daily cleaning, have sex or be able to sleep that night without wincing.

Some days, I ended up lying on the floor, in tears, due to exhaustion from battling the pain, taking stronger and stronger pain meds, and losing hope that relief would come.

And then I met Dr. Lemos at Women’s College Hospital.

I told him about the prolapse - the pessary, and physiotherapy to help relieve it - and the chronic pelvic pain that was undiagnosed and caused all other doctors to refuse to repair the prolapse.

He looked me in the eye — after, yes, checking down below — and said: “You have endometriosis.”

Then, when the test results came back negative, he didn’t flinch. “They’re wrong. I’m right. Are you still in pain? Then we will fix it.”

Fast-forward to April 2024: six hours of surgery. Removing my appendix, cervix, uterus, and fallopian tubes, along with the extensive endometriosis.

And for the first time in years? I could pick up my daughter without thinking twice. I could mow the lawn. Use the leaf blower. Fix things around the house (I’m the resident handyman, by the way). I could laugh, jump, run — and yes, finally enjoy intimacy again without pain dictating my choices.

It was life-changing.

A month into recovery, I hired a cleaner because my house was… let’s just say, not Instagram-worthy. As we chatted, I shared my story — and she shared hers. She had suffered seven years of chronic pain before a doctor finally discovered the problem: her appendix.

Seven years of pain - trips to the ER, no answers, and no relief.

Until one doctor changed everything.

They removed it. She’s been pain-free ever since.

That’s the thing: far too often, women’s pain is dismissed. We’re told it’s in our heads. We’re told this is just “normal now.” We’re told to endure, to meditate and relax.

And I believed that was going to be my life — until Women’s College Hospital proved otherwise.

Which is why a portion of every Original and Fine Art Print sale is going to the Women’s College Hospital Foundation.

Because no woman should ever have to fight this hard to be heard.

No woman should be told her pain is “just life now.”

We deserve better. We deserve care that listens, advocates, and heals.

That’s what they did for me. And if sharing this helps even one more woman fight harder for her health, then it’s worth every vulnerable word.