Speaker 1: On this week's episode of Cultivating Her Space.
Speaker 2: Eighty percent of Black women at some point in time
Speaker 2: we'll have a fibroid. Less than one percent of our
Speaker 2: federal research dollars goes.
Speaker 3: To understanding fibroids.
Speaker 2: So part of that right is that while this is
Speaker 2: a problem that Black women predominantly suffer from, it's not.
Speaker 2: We're not the only ones, but we are disproportionately the
Speaker 2: ones really dealing with the most severe kinds.
Speaker 3: That's not what we focus on for research.
Speaker 4: Hey, lady, have you ever felt like the world just
Speaker 4: doesn't get you? Well, we do.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Cultivating her Space, the podcast dedicated to uplifting
Speaker 1: and empowering women like you.
Speaker 4: We're your hosts, doctor Dominique Brussard and educator and psychologists.
Speaker 1: And Terry Lomax, a techy and transformational speaker.
Speaker 4: Join us every week for authentic conversations about everything from
Speaker 4: fibroids to fake friends as we create space for black
Speaker 4: women to just be.
Speaker 1: Before we dive in, make sure you hit that follow
Speaker 1: button and leave us a quick five star review.
Speaker 5: Lady, We are.
Speaker 1: Black founded and black owned, and your support will help
Speaker 1: us reach even more women like you.
Speaker 4: Now, let's get into this week's episode of Cultivating her Space.
Speaker 1: If you want more speaking engagements, collaborations, or visibility for
Speaker 1: your brand, I gotta tell you the truth. This is
Speaker 1: Terry Lomax and I've been a public speaker for over
Speaker 1: twelve years. I've lended national media, a TED Talk, and
Speaker 1: six figure collaborations without a publicist or a big social
Speaker 1: media following. And here's what most people don't hear. You
Speaker 1: don't need a publicist or a massive audience to get booked.
Speaker 1: Most people are waiting to feel established first, and that
Speaker 1: waiting is costing them visibility. How many times have you
Speaker 1: looked up and seeing people with less experience getting opportunities
Speaker 1: you were fully qualified for. Here's the truth. Opportunities don't
Speaker 1: go to the most qualified. They go to the people
Speaker 1: who can clearly communicate their value. Once I learned how
Speaker 1: to organize my story and position my expertise using a framework,
Speaker 1: everything changed. If you want my exact pitch emails, word
Speaker 1: for word, my winning subject lines, and the Saucy Solutions framework,
Speaker 1: visit get that pitch dot com for a limited time
Speaker 1: use Cold her Space for a special listener discount. If
Speaker 1: this is your year to stop hiding and start getting booked.
Speaker 1: I'll see you inside. Visit get that Pitch dot com
Speaker 1: or click the link in our show notes. Lady, Today's
Speaker 1: episode is for you. If you've ever googled your symptoms
Speaker 1: because your doctor brushed them off, if you've normalized pain
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be living with, or if you just want
Speaker 1: to know what real advocacy sounds like in the doctor's office,
Speaker 1: this is for you. Today's guest is a gynecologic oncology surgeon,
Speaker 1: research and leading expert on black women's reproductive health. Born
Speaker 1: in Nashville and raised by Nigerian immigrant parents, she has
Speaker 1: spent her career exposing the racial gap and gynecologic care
Speaker 1: and treating conditions including endometriosis, fibroids, and heavy bleeding that
Speaker 1: disproportionately harm black women. There is so much more we
Speaker 1: could say about doctor Kimmy Dahl, but we'll let you
Speaker 1: hear it from her. So, doctor Kimmy Dall, welcome to
Speaker 1: cultivating her space.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. I am happy
Speaker 2: to be here. I'm happy to be amongst the black
Speaker 2: girl magic.
Speaker 4: Let's do this, Yes, yes, okay, So we are going
Speaker 4: to dive into our quote of the day. Now, doctor Kimmy,
Speaker 4: this quote will sound really familiar to you because it
Speaker 4: is from the dedication in your book. Okay, okay, to
Speaker 4: all who cramp, bleed, and endure and those who love us,
Speaker 4: it's time for a new story. So doctor kim you,
Speaker 4: when you hear your dedication, like when you hear that
Speaker 4: read back to you, give us some context of what
Speaker 4: inspired this to be the dedication in your book.
Speaker 2: I think so so many times we can get caught
Speaker 2: up in kind of labels of things, and a lot
Speaker 2: of times, I mean, medicine is basically organized by labels diagnoses,
Speaker 2: do you have X or y? And then we also
Speaker 2: we can get caught up and confused in labels of
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Whether I'm normal or not normal or whatever. And so.
Speaker 2: I for the dedication, I wanted to reach I wanted
Speaker 2: to reach people without any of those labels, to just
Speaker 2: call a thing what it is. Because we have so
Speaker 2: many euphemisms, We have so many ways of not saying
Speaker 2: what is actually going on, you know, like ooh my
Speaker 2: period something else, Oh you know, I'm going through it.
Speaker 2: We have all of these ways, and so I just
Speaker 2: wanted I wanted to like break through and give a
Speaker 2: sense of no we're going to actually talk about the thing.
Speaker 3: And I thought the most simple way to do that
Speaker 3: is to just name it. What do we do? We bleed,
Speaker 3: we cramp, and we endure.
Speaker 2: So we need a new story and everybody, and I
Speaker 2: wanted everybody who loves us to feel a collective sense
Speaker 2: of responsibility.
Speaker 1: We are going to change this. That is so beautiful
Speaker 1: and what a great way to start this conversation. So,
Speaker 1: doctor Kimmy, when you think about the black woman listening
Speaker 1: to this episode, and if that woman could only remember
Speaker 1: one thing from our conversation, what would you want.
Speaker 5: That to be?
Speaker 3: That just because just because we have lived with something
Speaker 3: doesn't mean that we have to. You know, just because
Speaker 3: we can endure does mean that we should.
Speaker 2: And it's okay to recognize that you might have been
Speaker 2: taught to endure as the tool to deal with your
Speaker 2: womb health.
Speaker 3: Instead of seeking good womb health. I think that's the
Speaker 3: biggest thing. I think.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know any black woman who actually
Speaker 2: wants to suffer. I've never met somebody who's like, I'm
Speaker 2: really into suffering. I say it all the time. Nobody
Speaker 2: ever came into mc clinic and like, I really want
Speaker 2: to be in more pain. That is my goal here,
Speaker 2: you know, or God forbid, with a cancer diagnosis, I
Speaker 2: would like to die. Nobody says that, right, But what
Speaker 2: happens is that we have an insane.
Speaker 3: Ability to adapt and to just handle it.
Speaker 2: And that is why often we don't even know that
Speaker 2: there is help out there, because this is just the
Speaker 2: way it's always been. This is what my mom taught me,
Speaker 2: my sisters taught me, my auntie's taught me. So I
Speaker 2: think that's what I would want women to walk away with.
Speaker 2: Is Well, just because you've lived with it for ten years,
Speaker 2: twenty years, doesn't mean it has to be your normal.
Speaker 4: Oh thank you for that and thinking and yes, thinking
Speaker 4: about not living with something that is your normal, and
Speaker 4: taking into account the stories of our moms, our aunties,
Speaker 4: our sisters. Let's go back and doctor Kimmy, can you
Speaker 4: tell us your origin story and how did you become
Speaker 4: what inspired you to become the doctor Kimmy that we
Speaker 4: see today?
Speaker 5: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: What's so funny is that.
Speaker 2: Up until very recently, I would have just told you
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm just at every step of the way,
Speaker 2: I'm just choosing what most trust me. You know. I
Speaker 2: went to medical school, and then I said, wow, I
Speaker 2: really want I really like women's health.
Speaker 3: I went into obgi N.
Speaker 2: Then I realized, Okay, I really like this, but I'm
Speaker 2: really called by the gynecologic cancers and also by research
Speaker 2: because I'm trying to understand what's going on with black women.
Speaker 3: I don't get it.
Speaker 2: And I would have just told you the story about
Speaker 2: how I'm just following my instinct for what is interesting
Speaker 2: to me and where I think I can make a difference.
Speaker 2: But the way I would say it now is that
Speaker 2: I feel like this was the assignment. Like when I
Speaker 2: think about my grandmother, when I think about the lineage
Speaker 2: of my family and what the women have gone through
Speaker 2: generation after generation, I would say that I think this
Speaker 2: was set in motion before me. And there's a reason
Speaker 2: why I was always drawn to women's health. There was
Speaker 2: a reason why I was drawn to womb health. There
Speaker 2: was a reason why I was drawn to research and
Speaker 2: science and statistics, and that I was born a black
Speaker 2: woman here in this society watching all all of this happened.
Speaker 2: So my origin is that I've always followed where my
Speaker 2: literal intellectual interests lied and where my heart was, which
Speaker 2: is taking care of women and trying to understand the
Speaker 2: uterus and womb conditions and diseases. And I've always felt
Speaker 2: that I wanted to use whatever skills that I have
Speaker 2: for our community, for our greater good, for Black women
Speaker 2: and personally, when I realized how much I was adapting
Speaker 2: to suffering in my own life. When I was in
Speaker 2: my mid thirties and was diagnosed with endometriosis because I
Speaker 2: was on a table getting cut open for a C
Speaker 2: section to have my first child, and that's when they
Speaker 2: saw all the scarring and my pelvis and my abdomen,
Speaker 2: and they said, wow, you have endometriosis. You must have
Speaker 2: painful periods. Meanwhile, I was already a board certified OBGAA,
Speaker 2: so I knew all the criteria. Why didn't I think
Speaker 2: I had endometriosis Because I never thought my pain was
Speaker 2: bad enough. I just oh, I mean I can still function,
Speaker 2: and I'm saying I'm still going to work. I can
Speaker 2: still make it happen. So I think my origin is
Speaker 2: not just all the training right, not just all the interests,
Speaker 2: But I had these things happened to me too, And
Speaker 2: I think it's different from speaking from some outside perspective
Speaker 2: like the doctor says we should do this to me saying, listen,
Speaker 2: I did this too. I know exactly what it means
Speaker 2: to think everything's fine and you find out that you know,
Speaker 2: your blood count level is like severely below normal, and
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, you should be on the floor, but meanwhile,
Speaker 2: you just cook it. I don't even know if I
Speaker 2: answered the question, but that's how I would say. That's
Speaker 2: where the origin of all this comes from. You know,
Speaker 2: it started before me, and I've always just been true
Speaker 2: to what I'm most interested in, and that's led me
Speaker 2: to serving black women in this way.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for sharing that. And I, as
Speaker 1: you are sharing your story, I'm thinking about the fact
Speaker 1: that when I don't know the data and statistics, but
Speaker 1: I'm sure you can educate us on this. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about the fact that you just shared your story, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's more to your story regarding endometriosis and
Speaker 1: Dom and I. We have three black women right here
Speaker 1: in this conversation. I'm always sharing this because Dom and
Speaker 1: I have both been vocal about our experiences on the podcast.
Speaker 1: But Dom having had fibroids and hysterectomy, myself having cystic ovaries,
Speaker 1: being diagnosed with pea cosse having infertility issues.
Speaker 5: Thinking about the fact that with three black.
Speaker 1: Women in the space together, and this is what we've
Speaker 1: all experienced, why does that tend to be the case
Speaker 1: with black women? Like, what's happening to cause this stuff?
Speaker 3: Thank you so much?
Speaker 2: First of all, this is and this is the norm,
Speaker 2: and I think this is part of the reason why
Speaker 2: I wrote the book and why literally the subtitle is
Speaker 2: the Hidden Crisis, because it's hidden in plain sight. You
Speaker 2: cannot It's like, you can't gather more than five black
Speaker 2: women and not have the majority have womb issues. I'll
Speaker 2: lay I will stand up because every room I go
Speaker 2: into is the same all. It doesn't matter why I'm there.
Speaker 2: I could be there because i'm my son's soccer game.
Speaker 2: If there are five black women in the room, You've
Speaker 2: got endometrisis, you've got fibroids, you've got heavy bleeding. So
Speaker 2: it is the truth. It's not a coincidence here. So
Speaker 2: why is that is a big question, and I'll answer it.
Speaker 2: I'll try to answer in a few different ways. One
Speaker 2: reason that we need to understand is part of it
Speaker 2: is decades of neglect of gynecologic research and care right
Speaker 2: not just treatment, but also research to understand the conditions
Speaker 2: that disproportionately impact Black women. So we still have more
Speaker 2: questions than we have answers. Eighty percent of Black women
Speaker 2: at some point in time will have a fibroid. Less
Speaker 2: than one percent of our federal research dollars goes to
Speaker 2: understanding fibroids.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: Part of that, right is that, well, this is a
Speaker 2: problem that Black women predominantly suffer from. It's not We're
Speaker 2: not the only ones, but we are disproportionately the ones
Speaker 2: really dealing with the most severe kinds.
Speaker 3: That's not what we focus on for research.
Speaker 2: Same thing when we look at the other issues in endometriosis,
Speaker 2: the majority of the research for a long time was
Speaker 2: focused just on fertility, and endometriosis was considered a disease
Speaker 2: that predominantly affected white women. When black women had pain
Speaker 2: and signs of endometriosis, it was called pelvic inflammatory disease
Speaker 2: and you were treated like you had an STD.
Speaker 5: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. This has been documented since the seventies, and
Speaker 2: in fact, up until the point when I was in training,
Speaker 2: I was still taught that endometriosis was more common among
Speaker 2: white women, which is not true, but that's always taught
Speaker 2: because again, we don't investigate it to look for it
Speaker 2: among black women. So one of the reasons why all
Speaker 2: these things, like you said, are like so common is
Speaker 2: literally because of the neglect, right, Like, if you don't
Speaker 2: do something about it just continues, it just continues. People
Speaker 2: pass it down. We don't have any treatments, we don't
Speaker 2: have any interventions. There's another reason though, which is that
Speaker 2: it's a broader kind of conversation. So I would I
Speaker 2: would kind of think of it like the commonality.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of.
Speaker 2: Conditions, like kidney conditions, people have heart conditions, we have
Speaker 2: lun conditions, people have all these things. Right, when there
Speaker 2: is research in things, you start having screening protocols, you
Speaker 2: start having treatment early, we start having prevention, you know,
Speaker 2: strategies got womb health outside of pregnancy overall has been neglected.
Speaker 2: So we're just getting to the place where people are like,
Speaker 2: you know what, wouldn't it make sense to start doing
Speaker 2: research on fibroid prevention? You know what, wouldn't it make
Speaker 2: sense to start understanding what are the like antecedent risk
Speaker 2: factors for some of these things. So I do tell
Speaker 2: people like this is what misogyny leads to, right, this
Speaker 2: is what sexism leads to, because if women are only
Speaker 2: reproductive vessels, then we don't care about what's going on
Speaker 2: with women outside of the act of having a baby
Speaker 2: and reproduction outside of that.
Speaker 3: Good luck.
Speaker 2: So it is only I mean, it's very recently that
Speaker 2: there has been real concerted, significantly funded labs, multimillion dollar research,
Speaker 2: like people really focused on how do we really disentangle
Speaker 2: these conditions and improve them? And then last thing is racism.
Speaker 2: So racism makes everything worse for multiple reasons. But there
Speaker 2: are some things that we will inherit. Okay, So there
Speaker 2: are some I think cancer is a good example because
Speaker 2: people really think of kind of like cancer runs in
Speaker 2: my family.
Speaker 3: Cancer.
Speaker 2: Okay, even with all that you hear about cancer running
Speaker 2: in people's families, which is the same with fibroids, by
Speaker 2: the way, it's the same with indometriosis, et cetera. Only
Speaker 2: twenty percent one in five of all cancers are actually
Speaker 2: like identifiable by oh, this is the gene that you inherited.
Speaker 2: You inherited this gene, you inherited this thing. Most of
Speaker 2: what happens is it's a combination of susceptibility, so you're
Speaker 2: maybe you're vulnerable to developing something combined with environmental factors
Speaker 2: that we still are piling back. And when I say environment,
Speaker 2: I don't just mean like the air, you know, like
Speaker 2: the grass chemicals.
Speaker 3: I mean the whole environment.
Speaker 2: I mean the fact that children who are sexually or
Speaker 2: emotionally abused have higher rates of fibroids later in life
Speaker 2: by seventeen percent. That's what I mean by the environment.
Speaker 2: I mean the literal our lives and how they're impacted. Right,
Speaker 2: So we know this in other areas, there's something childhood adverse.
Speaker 2: Childhood experiences the aces, the aces are related to disease
Speaker 2: conditions later in life. There was a study just published
Speaker 2: last week about poverty getting ingrained into the brain early on.
Speaker 2: Yes and jamma. So this level of like how do
Speaker 2: we disentangle are very complicated environments, all the different things
Speaker 2: that could happen to people. To start to understand the
Speaker 2: A to B, to C to D of the development
Speaker 2: of these conditions is something that is newer research. But
Speaker 2: we're I mean it's active, but it's newer, and science
Speaker 2: takes time. So hopefully that gave you like a lot
Speaker 2: of different reasons. Yeah, but when we see what happens
Speaker 2: with black women disproportionately, I say, well, that's because we
Speaker 2: have disproportionate negative experiences, disproportionate negative exposures, disproportionate vulnerability.
Speaker 4: Thank you for that, that very thorough and very real explanation.
Speaker 4: And so one of the things that you mentioned was cancer,
Speaker 4: and you mentioned a number of other vocabulary words I did. Sorry,
Speaker 4: we want to that you know, some of us are
Speaker 4: familiar with, but unfortunately, so many of us aren't familiar
Speaker 4: with a lot of the terminology related to our gynecological health. Yes,
Speaker 4: and so so you men cancer, and I want to
Speaker 4: talk about I want to ask you about uterine cancer
Speaker 4: and what's the difference between uterine cancer and endometriosis and
Speaker 4: fibroids and pcos which now, as of a couple of
Speaker 4: weeks ago, has a new name yep. And so can
Speaker 4: you break down some of the more commonly used terminology.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: So it's a great point, right going back to what
Speaker 2: we do and don't teach our little girls. You know,
Speaker 2: a little girl has a period, the first thing she
Speaker 2: learns is how to keep it a secret?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Does she.
Speaker 3: Learn the names of her organs?
Speaker 2: Does she learn what health looks like. Does anybody even
Speaker 2: ever sit her down and say, hey, by the way,
Speaker 2: this is what a normal period is in case you
Speaker 2: ever bleed for more than seven days anyway, So I
Speaker 2: get why people don't know. I'm just sharing that because
Speaker 2: it's like, we have to. I want to normalize that.
Speaker 2: Like I have been across from highly educated, multiple doctoral
Speaker 2: women in the room with me with conditions, and they
Speaker 2: don't know these things either. Part of Ryer wrote the book, Okay,
Speaker 2: so we have to start with some anatomy. So our
Speaker 2: reproductive system is made of different organs that are all
Speaker 2: close together. So we have our uterus, or the womb,
Speaker 2: which is where a baby would grow if you're pregnant.
Speaker 2: The womb that's also where all of the stuff in
Speaker 2: terms of your period happens, in terms of the bleeding
Speaker 2: and the shedding. The outside of the womb, the doorway
Speaker 2: to the womb, is called the cervix that actually sits
Speaker 2: in your vagina. So when somebody's looking at your vagina,
Speaker 2: they can see your cervix. Your womb is on the
Speaker 2: inside of your body, we can't see it. Then there
Speaker 2: are your tubes, and then there are the ovaries. So
Speaker 2: these things are all connected, but they're not the same thing.
Speaker 2: And the analogy I like to make is like your eyes,
Speaker 2: your nose, your mouth, your ears are all on your face,
Speaker 2: all on your head. They are not the same organ.
Speaker 2: So here's your first warning flag for whenever you hear
Speaker 2: somebody some of our friends on the internet talking about
Speaker 2: womb health and they're acting life all these things are
Speaker 2: all the same, that should be a red flag because
Speaker 2: that is not the case. You would not give put
Speaker 2: something that's supposed to treat your nose into your eyeballs
Speaker 2: and vice versa. So let's be a little bit more
Speaker 2: up on the language. So when you ask me what
Speaker 2: are the differences, here are the differences in some of
Speaker 2: the things that you said. Endometriosis is when the lining
Speaker 2: on the inside of the uterus, so that there's a
Speaker 2: lining called the endometrium. It's when those kind of cells
Speaker 2: they start growing outside of the womb or outside of
Speaker 2: the uterus, and then they do exactly what they would
Speaker 2: normally do, which is that when you are on your
Speaker 2: period and they get hormonal signals, they grow, they and
Speaker 2: then they bleed, except they're not bleeding out of the vagina.
Speaker 2: They're just bleeding in the body wherever they are causes
Speaker 2: a lot of pain, It causes a lot of scarring.
Speaker 2: It changes your sensory nerve endings, which is why endometriosis
Speaker 2: is really like a neurosensory pain condition that's chronic over time. PCO,
Speaker 2: which is now PMS poly metabolic ovarian syndrome, starts with
Speaker 2: an issue. It starts with an issue of your metabolic
Speaker 2: system not interacting ideally with your hormonal system. So all
Speaker 2: your systems are usually like constantly imbalanced, and PMOS they
Speaker 2: like just they don't talk to each other, right, So
Speaker 2: what happens is that your hormonal system is kind of
Speaker 2: out of balance, your metabolic system is kind of out
Speaker 2: of balance. To try to put it as simply as possible,
Speaker 2: When these things work together, it's kind of like your
Speaker 2: body has just enough hormones that it needs and no
Speaker 2: more than it needs, and also your sensitivity to those
Speaker 2: hormones is correct. With PMOS, your sensitivity starts to change,
Speaker 2: so that at other you'll have the same hormonal levels
Speaker 2: as other people, but the impact on your body will
Speaker 2: be totally different, which is why instead of making one
Speaker 2: follicle every month, you make fifteen it's like, girl, what
Speaker 2: is happening?
Speaker 3: That's PMS.
Speaker 2: And then we have fibroids. Fibroids are actually really interesting.
Speaker 2: I'm trying not to be like too sciencey here, so
Speaker 2: y'all just stop me, but they're very interesting because what
Speaker 2: a fibroid actually is is that the uterus has three layers.
Speaker 2: The middle layer we already talk about the enemytram, the
Speaker 2: inner layer. The middle layer is muscle. This makes sense, right.
Speaker 2: You think about a uterus that's pushing a baby out,
Speaker 2: a cramping that you feel, right, it's literally a muscle
Speaker 2: that's contracting. You know what a fibroid is. It's one
Speaker 2: of those muscle cells went left. One of those muscle
Speaker 2: cells was like, you know what, I don't like this,
Speaker 2: and instead of being a growing in orderly sheets like
Speaker 2: it's supposed to, it just grows in this like convoluted
Speaker 2: ball and it creates this hard ball of muscle and
Speaker 2: like calcified tissue.
Speaker 3: That's what a fibroid is.
Speaker 5: I'm looking at down some reaction like aha, I know
Speaker 5: that life, Like.
Speaker 1: God, this sounds so uncomfortable and so painful, and wow,
Speaker 1: I'm just taking to everything that you shared.
Speaker 3: No, I know it is uncomfortable. You get you.
Speaker 2: I think, y'all correct me if i'rerom I actually think
Speaker 2: when you can visualize, like when you can listen and
Speaker 2: visualize this is what these things are, it helps you
Speaker 2: understand yourself better and it helps you not gaslight yourself
Speaker 2: because you're like, no, it's not just like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: a little bit more crampy.
Speaker 3: It's like this ball.
Speaker 2: It's sitting in the muscle layer and it's hurting, like
Speaker 2: have you ever had a knot like in your in
Speaker 2: your shoulder and.
Speaker 3: You're just like, oh, and it's it's achy.
Speaker 2: Think that's what's happening in the womb with the fibroids
Speaker 2: and the muscle layer.
Speaker 4: Okay, and imagine heaven at least ten of them. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and some of them they can range in size from
Speaker 4: like a kidney.
Speaker 2: Bean to a grapefruit yep, bowling ball, yep, a baby. Yes,
Speaker 2: they can be That is so right, Okay. And then finally,
Speaker 2: just because I want to make sure we finish with
Speaker 2: the cancer. The cancer is when uterine cancer and this
Speaker 2: is the difference between you uterine cervical cancer. Cervical cancer
Speaker 2: is a cancer of that doorway to the womb that
Speaker 2: sits in the vagina that we can all see. That's
Speaker 2: why you can do a PAP because you look in
Speaker 2: the vagina and the cervix is right there, and you
Speaker 2: take the cells and you see if they have cancer
Speaker 2: or not. Uterine cancer, womb cancer is a cancer inside
Speaker 2: the womb. You can't see it on a path. It's
Speaker 2: all the way inside. That's why it's different. And that's
Speaker 2: why I try to emphasize this is because people think
Speaker 2: if their PAP is normal, they don't have any worries
Speaker 2: about any cancers down there. But meanwhile, uterine cancer is
Speaker 2: actually much more common than cervical cancer, and is it
Speaker 2: disproportionately impacts Black women like to an extreme degree, and
Speaker 2: is rising. So we can talk more about that. But
Speaker 2: it's why it's important for us to just start vocalizing
Speaker 2: this since we still don't have a public health education
Speaker 2: campaign around uterine cancer, which is far overdue.
Speaker 3: Anyway, y'all ask me another question. I'm talking too much.
Speaker 5: No, No, you aren't doing great. This is amazing.
Speaker 1: I've just taking it all in and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: I have so any questions, but I wanted to just
Speaker 1: say thank you for the way that you're breaking this down.
Speaker 5: The visuals are really helpful.
Speaker 1: Thank you for also calling out the environmental factors because
Speaker 1: I did have a hunch. No one ever told me this,
Speaker 1: but I had a hunch that childhood trauma, sexual abuse
Speaker 1: was tied to some of those things.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: And the fact that you gave like you gave that
Speaker 1: a voice. It's so important. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the earliest warning signs of uterine cancer. But really, I
Speaker 1: know this is a lot, but like all of these things,
Speaker 1: because I'm living my life, I'm getting my papsme mirries, right,
Speaker 1: the doctors say at this point, like you get it
Speaker 1: once or twice, it pays and change it. Right.
Speaker 3: It changes in your age, it changes with your age.
Speaker 1: You get your paps and you're like, okay, cool, I'm
Speaker 1: going up. But like, what are some of the earliest
Speaker 1: signs of having any of these conditions?
Speaker 2: I like to just start with, like, can we just
Speaker 2: start to define some norms, right, because we because the
Speaker 2: thing is, we learn normal in gynecology, So this is
Speaker 2: where I critique my field. Right, So we learned this
Speaker 2: is this is basically what a normal cycle should be.
Speaker 2: This is the range, this is how much blood all this,
Speaker 2: But then we wait until you complain before we do
Speaker 2: any kind of investigation to see if there's any issue,
Speaker 2: which is why I'm so vocal about us having to say, wait,
Speaker 2: I don't need to suffer. So what would happen with
Speaker 2: me is they would say, do you have any problems
Speaker 2: with your periods? And my answer would be no, what
Speaker 2: I don't have problems. I'm managing right. I am swallowing.
Speaker 3: Thirty ibuprofen pills over the course of three days. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I am strapping a heating pad to my pelvis just
Speaker 2: to be able to move around on the worst days
Speaker 2: of cramping. You know, I'm wearing double extra pads because
Speaker 2: I'm having such heavy bleeding. It's out of control. All
Speaker 2: this stuff. But do I have a problem. I mean no,
Speaker 2: I'm functioning. I'm not dead. And also, as a black woman,
Speaker 2: the threshold for me having a problem is basically being
Speaker 2: on the floor, like, what do you mean? Like, I
Speaker 2: can't have a problem. I don't get to have a problem.
Speaker 2: That's why it's called a terrible strength. We have to
Speaker 2: be strong. So what where I want to start people
Speaker 2: is recognizing that you might have this is why you
Speaker 2: might have been abnormal for so long and you don't
Speaker 2: know it because nobody has really sat down and been like,
Speaker 2: this is what's normal. So here are a few things
Speaker 2: that are normal for a period. One should never last
Speaker 2: more than seven days.
Speaker 3: Number two.
Speaker 2: Most periods are between every like the frequency is between
Speaker 2: twenty one to thirty four days apart. So I'll have
Speaker 2: women have women have come up to me at the
Speaker 2: book tour stop so they're like, you know, I only
Speaker 2: get my period like three times a year. I'm like, pause,
Speaker 2: what do you mean. They're like, yeah, I mean it
Speaker 2: just doesn't come that often. So I don't really have
Speaker 2: issues with it. No, because unless you're on a medication,
Speaker 2: which is different. Unless you're on a medication, that is
Speaker 2: that is it. That is the cadence of periods that
Speaker 2: you're supposed to have between you and your doctor because
Speaker 2: you are on a medication. If you and your naturalness
Speaker 2: of your body are only having three to four periods
Speaker 2: of year, that is very abnormal. And the reason why
Speaker 2: I care even more about it Terry and doctor dom
Speaker 2: is because it's a risk factor for uter in cancer
Speaker 2: later in life. Oh yes, So so anyway, so between
Speaker 2: twenty one to thirty four days. So that's a parameter
Speaker 2: right there, No more than seven days. Number three, you
Speaker 2: should not be passing blood clots bigger than the size
Speaker 2: of a quarter. Mm hm exactly. Most black women give
Speaker 2: me that look when I say that, So you can
Speaker 2: pass clots, they shouldn't be larger than the size of
Speaker 2: a quarter. So if your routine is like, girl, a quarter,
Speaker 2: try my palm, I'm concerned, right too.
Speaker 3: Big. Number four. When they looked, they looked at a
Speaker 3: lot of women.
Speaker 2: They were like, they're like thousands of women because we're
Speaker 2: trying to get what the norms are. By the way,
Speaker 2: nobody made up these norms. I probably should have said
Speaker 2: that this isn't some This isn't like a group of
Speaker 2: white women, I mean white men in a room saying
Speaker 2: this is what's normal, because sometimes I get why that
Speaker 2: would be not be great. This is actually looking at
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of women, getting what their cycles are,
Speaker 2: and then measuring their blood levels for the normalcy of
Speaker 2: their hormone levels in addition to their blood count, like
Speaker 2: who is anemic, who is not?
Speaker 3: So these were the parameters where they.
Speaker 2: Were like, all these people have normal hormonal cycles, they
Speaker 2: have normal blood flow, They don't.
Speaker 3: They're not losing too much blood. Like this is where
Speaker 3: it came from.
Speaker 2: It really came from that, as opposed to like somebody
Speaker 2: just decided this is what it is. So having said that,
Speaker 2: women who are in the normal range didn't use more,
Speaker 2: they use it up to twenty one total tampons or
Speaker 2: pads during their entire cycle, twenty one total, and they
Speaker 2: rarely had any bleeding outside of like an overnight pad overnight. Lastly,
Speaker 2: they did not have to change their pad more often
Speaker 2: than every three hours. If you have to change it
Speaker 2: every hour, that should not last more than three hours.
Speaker 2: So like you get one time during your whole cycle
Speaker 2: where you're like, okay, it's a little like everybody's got
Speaker 2: everything's coming out right now. But it's like if it's
Speaker 2: all coming out, it's just stop. So I wanted to
Speaker 2: share that to answer your question because just that alone
Speaker 2: can have women be like how many of these markers
Speaker 2: of normal do you hit versus not? How many of
Speaker 2: you're listening to me? How many are you're like, okay,
Speaker 2: not me not? I mean that's all ready to say, okay,
Speaker 2: so things could be better because there's something off here.
Speaker 2: That's how I would start the conversation of like, how
Speaker 2: do I know something might be off? As I would
Speaker 2: start with, this is what a normal cycle is. How
Speaker 2: close are you to this versus not? And then of course,
Speaker 2: like you could have a very very very normal bleeding
Speaker 2: and everything, but just be like an insane amounts of
Speaker 2: pain that is not routine, that is not normal. That's
Speaker 2: a really strong sign of endometriosis.
Speaker 3: Actually.
Speaker 2: And then when it comes to uterine cancer, which is different,
Speaker 2: it impacts us in our fifties, sixties, and seventies primarily,
Speaker 2: so it's primarily the perimenopausal and postmenopausal time periods. Now
Speaker 2: you should ask yourself how come I never hear about
Speaker 2: uterine cancer with all this menopause conversation.
Speaker 5: That's a good point.
Speaker 2: Second, rising cancer in the United States right now currently
Speaker 2: more common than colon cancer among women, more common than
Speaker 2: colon cancer, rising every year. It affects one in thirty
Speaker 2: two women right now, one in thirty two one will
Speaker 2: we diagnosed. We're moving towards one in seventeen by twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: And black women when diagnosed, Black women have double the
Speaker 2: mortality rate double compared to white women double, So that
Speaker 2: is large, that is a worse disparity than breast colon
Speaker 2: cervix way worse. Up until very recently, there was very
Speaker 2: very little focus on uterine cancer. I started focusing on
Speaker 2: uterine cancer in twenty sixteen because when I was in
Speaker 2: training and all these black women kept dying and I said,
Speaker 2: what is going on with this? I was told black
Speaker 2: women don't do well with this. We don't really know why.
Speaker 2: So that was really like you asked me, like where
Speaker 2: did all this come from? That was like the final
Speaker 2: spark of like, I have to learn the scientific method.
Speaker 2: I need to learn research. I need to go get
Speaker 2: a graduate degree. I need to be able to do
Speaker 2: studies to understand what is going on here. And that
Speaker 2: is what I have been doing for a while now,
Speaker 2: running a research center, trying to understand black women and
Speaker 2: urine cancer and womb health and how all of these
Speaker 2: things interact to have too many of us losing our
Speaker 2: lives too early.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like we just need to sit with
Speaker 4: that for a moment. That was that is a lot
Speaker 4: of information, and I'm just astounded at the amount of
Speaker 4: the lack of care that continues to persist for black women.
Speaker 4: And so I do want to say thank you, thank
Speaker 4: you so much for doing this research. And as you
Speaker 4: think about so, you said you started doing this research
Speaker 4: in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Well, I started actually in twenty two. I published my
Speaker 2: first paper in twenty twelve. I started in twenty ten.
Speaker 2: I started faculty at the University of Washington and started
Speaker 2: my research center in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 4: So, well, over ten years of research. What are what
Speaker 4: are some of your biggest findings that we need to
Speaker 4: know right now?
Speaker 3: Great? Number one, thank you for asking me.
Speaker 2: Number one, black women were not aware of the number
Speaker 2: one sign of uterine cancer, which is something called postman
Speaker 2: apausal bleeding. That means that after you're going through the
Speaker 2: menopause transition, at some point your period stopped, twelve months
Speaker 2: go by, you start having spotting again. That's not normal.
Speaker 2: That's not Oh girl, I'm not done. I thought I
Speaker 2: was done. That's called postman apausal bleeding, and it's the
Speaker 2: number one sign of uterine cancer. Ninety percent of people
Speaker 2: with uter in cancer have postmopousal bleeding.
Speaker 3: What we found is.
Speaker 2: That when that happened with black women, they would be like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: this is pretty light.
Speaker 3: It's nothing like my period was.
Speaker 2: So I'll just see how long it takes to go
Speaker 2: away or.
Speaker 3: It doesn't hurt.
Speaker 2: I'll talk to my doctor about it when I see
Speaker 2: them in six months for my annual or for my
Speaker 2: PCP visitor. I don't even have a gain of coologist anymore,
Speaker 2: so maybe I'll tell my cardiologist who doesn't know what
Speaker 2: to do about this. Black women were also assured inappropriately, hey,
Speaker 2: I've had some spotting sixty two year old Black women.
Speaker 2: Sixty seven year old black women now actually getting to
Speaker 2: the point of saying, I'm having some spotting.
Speaker 3: What's that about.
Speaker 2: They're disproportionately told, Oh, it might be your fibroids. Oh,
Speaker 2: it probably is just a heavy period, sixty seven year old.
Speaker 2: So we found this so when we think about when
Speaker 2: people talk about access to care, I don't want to
Speaker 2: hear it. We did that research nationally among the cancer
Speaker 2: registry linked to Medicare insurance claims across the entire country.
Speaker 2: Black women systematically who are older showing up with cancer
Speaker 2: signs being reassured, not receiving appropriate diagnostic testing for their
Speaker 2: uterine cancer that they subsequently have, and then they get
Speaker 2: diagnosed at advanced stages when we can't cure it. In addition,
Speaker 2: what we found is that even when they do get
Speaker 2: the diagnostic steps, because I did a lot of qualitative work,
Speaker 2: which means interviews. Along with doing we do a lot
Speaker 2: of state level and national level analysis of care and
Speaker 2: what's happening to people, but we also do to understand
Speaker 2: to talk with women on the ground, like what are
Speaker 2: we seeing here? And they would say these innoumetrial cancer
Speaker 2: survivors would say, you know, I did have an ultrasound.
Speaker 2: They just told me it was my fibroids, Like, actually
Speaker 2: did have the first step. So we had a paradigm
Speaker 2: in gynecology that says, if somebody comes in with postmenopausal bleeding,
Speaker 2: you do an ultrasound. If that ultrasound, if they're in
Speaker 2: no metrium thickness or measurement is under four millimeters, there's
Speaker 2: no chance that they have a uterine cancer. Because we
Speaker 2: looked at these large population studies and that like, there's
Speaker 2: basically no chance, so you don't have to even do
Speaker 2: a biopsy because that rules it out.
Speaker 3: It's probably just some menopausal bleeding stuff. Okay.
Speaker 2: So when I looked at this, because I was like,
Speaker 2: how well does that work in black women? Because it
Speaker 2: just why all these women tell me they got ultrasounds
Speaker 2: and they were reassured. You know what we found nobody
Speaker 2: had ever studied it in Black women before this rolled out.
Speaker 2: So before this process rolled out, it was not studied
Speaker 2: in Black women. The studies were from Scandinavian countries, Hong
Speaker 2: Kong and Italy, and we adopted them wholesale. Half the
Speaker 2: studies excluded women with fibroids, so not even other women
Speaker 2: with five right, So then we adopted this paradigm. So
Speaker 2: then in my work, we spent years, six years doing
Speaker 2: research studies questioning does this actually work in black women?
Speaker 2: How do we know that it works? What does if
Speaker 2: we start to pull together a little case report here,
Speaker 2: miscancer there, If we start pulling these things together, what
Speaker 2: is the pattern we see? And the pattern that we
Speaker 2: found is that it absolutely is not an appropriate triage
Speaker 2: step for Black women. That ten percent up to twelve
Speaker 2: percent depending on the measurement threshold you use. Of Black
Speaker 2: women with uterine cancer are missed by this testing. And
Speaker 2: I think that's important because this is not the ultrasound
Speaker 2: doesn't say like, if your ultrasound result is positive, you're
Speaker 2: going to go straight to hysterectomy or you're going to
Speaker 2: go straight to chemo.
Speaker 3: It literally is just.
Speaker 2: We'll do a biopsy to check. So these women were
Speaker 2: reassured falsely. And you just ask yourself if you went
Speaker 2: in for some spotting or something like that and somebody
Speaker 2: told you, Okay, well it looks like it's your fybroids,
Speaker 2: or if it doesn't look like is, how long would
Speaker 2: it take you to come back to be.
Speaker 3: Like are you sure?
Speaker 5: A long time?
Speaker 2: A long time, especially if it's not painful, right, especially
Speaker 2: if it's not so women would wait until they're passing clots,
Speaker 2: until they're having cramping. These are signs of cancer progression,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden we go, oh, no,
Speaker 2: another black woman diagnosed with stage four. So these are
Speaker 2: the kinds of things that we found in my research
Speaker 2: that pushed back against the idea that like, well, this
Speaker 2: is just an issue of like access to care, poverty,
Speaker 2: or the other narrative, which is that this is some
Speaker 2: this is just a biological issue, that black women's bodies
Speaker 2: are just broken. So it was actually just this year,
Speaker 2: in April of this year, twenty twenty six, is when
Speaker 2: the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists finally updated the guidelines,
Speaker 2: base on my research, based on our research, to finally
Speaker 2: say you cannot only rely on ultrasound for people who
Speaker 2: have these risk factors, and one of the risk factors
Speaker 2: is being black, because again we know that this does
Speaker 2: not work as well because of fibroids, and because the
Speaker 2: types of uterine cancer black women get are kind of
Speaker 2: a different type and they don't grow in the same
Speaker 2: manner that the way that the other one.
Speaker 3: Is supposed to detect.
Speaker 2: So like that's why, you know, people ask me, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, I mean, ultimately, the answer is racism. Like
Speaker 2: I can give you the breakdown, but y'all know what
Speaker 2: I mean, right, Ultimately it's gonna come back to racism,
Speaker 2: because yeah, one of the manifestations of racism is not
Speaker 2: just targeting you for mistreatment, It is ignoring you, right,
Speaker 2: it is the neglect of your outcomes is another very
Speaker 2: active form of racism. So you're starting to hear the theme, right,
Speaker 2: We're not stuttying this, We're not doing this.
Speaker 3: We're rolling out this whole thing.
Speaker 2: And the whole idea of the ultrasound trio strategy was
Speaker 2: to save women from a painful biopsy. Save white women, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, don't say that, but that's who we're We're
Speaker 2: not we didn't even study black women, So so this
Speaker 2: is an we're we're prioritizing the comfort of white women
Speaker 2: over black women's lives every single time.
Speaker 5: That is so mind blowing us.
Speaker 2: And how and how yeah, like you said, doctor don Like,
Speaker 2: how how common is that story? We're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: now I understand what's going on. So it's why I'm
Speaker 2: so passionate about this because you can see how like
Speaker 2: how important it is for black women to be aware,
Speaker 2: to be educated.
Speaker 3: Are things changing in my field? Sure? I mean I'm
Speaker 3: out here.
Speaker 2: I wrote my first book, I've written over one hundred
Speaker 2: research papers, like, I'm out here trying to change the
Speaker 2: game in my field in terms of this is how
Speaker 2: we have to switch because I know, right, it's going
Speaker 2: to take both.
Speaker 3: It's going to take.
Speaker 2: Black women being aware and informed and understand and have
Speaker 2: a different threshold of what we tolerate and not be
Speaker 2: passing down this idea that we all just bleed and
Speaker 2: cramp and this is just the way it is. We're
Speaker 2: going to have a different threshold so that when a
Speaker 2: six year old black woman has a little bit of spotting,
Speaker 2: she's like, absolutely the f not right. I'm going to
Speaker 2: the doctor right now. You're gonna give me the tests
Speaker 2: that I need. And we need physicians to be informed
Speaker 2: to understand the problem with the prior guideline, what they
Speaker 2: missed out on learning because of what happened, and understand
Speaker 2: and be able to see black women's vulnerability, see us
Speaker 2: as needing help instead of assume that we're fine. That's
Speaker 2: why I wrote the book Thank.
Speaker 1: You, listen, I was gonna say, I cannot agree more
Speaker 1: with what Dom said, like, thank you for being out
Speaker 1: here doing the work, being of service to the community.
Speaker 1: This is so needed and I hate to do this,
Speaker 1: but I have like a double question because you answer
Speaker 1: questions so well, so.
Speaker 3: Okay, so organized.
Speaker 1: I see you're so organized that they're My first question
Speaker 1: is how can we as black women. I want to
Speaker 1: I hope I'm working this the right way because I like,
Speaker 1: you said something earlier, and I'm like, we can all
Speaker 1: relate to this. We know how to suck some shit up.
Speaker 1: We will suck some pain up and be like, oh girl,
Speaker 1: I'm not on the floor. I'm not dead.
Speaker 5: I could still walk like I'm I'm not dead. I'll
Speaker 5: be fine, Like I'm with you.
Speaker 4: We don't have time to go tonight.
Speaker 2: I don't have I literally don't have time for this, right,
Speaker 2: I really don't have time for.
Speaker 5: Luxury like that.
Speaker 1: But then also, what does advocacy look like in the
Speaker 1: doctor's office when that doctor's like, oh, we'll give you
Speaker 1: the ultrasound, Like, what does it look like.
Speaker 5: In the question?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad you asked, because I had no interest
Speaker 2: in writing something that's just going to depress everybody and
Speaker 2: just or just enrage us and have nowhere to go.
Speaker 2: I don't know about y'all, But don't tell me about
Speaker 2: any problem I don't have and not give me something
Speaker 2: to do about, Like I.
Speaker 3: Don't okay, I have no age.
Speaker 2: I'm like, this is no I need some action oriented
Speaker 2: like give me hope. So the whole third part of
Speaker 2: the book is literally that, like the whole thing is
Speaker 2: like this is how we're going to get ourselves together.
Speaker 2: But the specific section that's on how do we advocate?
Speaker 3: There are multiple levels.
Speaker 2: One is when you are informed, you're already having a
Speaker 2: different conversation, like you don't have to go to the guynecologists,
Speaker 2: like they have some black box and we'll just see
Speaker 2: what they have to say.
Speaker 3: You can come in already.
Speaker 2: You know what these canditions are, You know what the
Speaker 2: risk factors are, you know what they like, so you
Speaker 2: are understanding not only that, but also what are all
Speaker 2: the treatments available and all that stuff. Number two is
Speaker 2: it's languaging. So and I just want to take a
Speaker 2: moment a beat to explain this because what we how
Speaker 2: we learn to communicate as black women, which is part
Speaker 2: of how we learn to be strong and navigate a
Speaker 2: world of racism and sexism, et cetera, is that we
Speaker 2: learn to communicate with what we can with our agency,
Speaker 2: what we're able to do. Do you have heavy bleeding,
Speaker 2: I mean it's heavy, but I can make it. Are
Speaker 2: your periods painful? I mean yeah, it's I mean they're
Speaker 2: pretty rough, but I mean it's not like I'm taking
Speaker 2: days off work. So we lead with what we are
Speaker 2: still capable of doing because we know we live in
Speaker 2: a society that looks at us and says you're probably lazy,
Speaker 2: you probably didn't, don't deserve to be here, You're probably
Speaker 2: dad da da da dad. So we are very used
Speaker 2: to making it very clear what we are capable of. Okay,
Speaker 2: hold that in your mind. Physicians in training. Antony as
Speaker 2: a gynecologist in training, especially in gynecology, So much of
Speaker 2: our triggers, like if this is a problem, should we
Speaker 2: do this test or whatever, is driven by when somebody
Speaker 2: comes in and says.
Speaker 3: I have a problem.
Speaker 2: We have a few screening tests, but mostly we don't right.
Speaker 2: Mostly it's about you coming in and saying this is unacceptable.
Speaker 2: What we are trained to listen for is what you
Speaker 2: can't do. So we measure severity by oh wow, this
Speaker 2: must be bad. She can't work anymore. Oh wow, this
Speaker 2: must be bad. She's not able to travel anymore.
Speaker 3: Oh wow. So we are listening for your deficits.
Speaker 2: Black women are leading with what we're still how we
Speaker 2: have adapted, and how we can still do things. So
Speaker 2: I emphasize this point because it might sound subtle, but
Speaker 2: it is a game changer. So instead of my periods
Speaker 2: are really heavy, and they're bothering me. Are you still
Speaker 2: able to go to work?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Now, and that guy in college is going okay, so
Speaker 2: it's not that bad, instead of it sounds like this,
Speaker 2: or are you still able to travel?
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, it's I can.
Speaker 2: Still travel, but I have to wear four overnight pads
Speaker 2: and an adult diaper in order to get through a
Speaker 2: long flight when I'm on my period, or I will
Speaker 2: have an accident. WHOA, Now I'm looking at you different.
Speaker 2: So what we need to do is we need to
Speaker 2: lead with our adaptations instead of leading with what we're
Speaker 2: able to do. Sure, you can still work, but to
Speaker 2: how how are you still working? I'm strapping heating pads
Speaker 2: to my pelvis. I am in bed working from home
Speaker 2: because I cannot be that far from a bathroom. You
Speaker 2: see what I'm saying. Like that, we have to be
Speaker 2: honest about what it's taking. So then somebody is like, oh,
Speaker 2: these are major adaptations. That's severe. Did that make sense
Speaker 2: to y'all? You see how it's like subtle, but it's huge, huge,
Speaker 2: it's huge huge. Actually, when we know we know this
Speaker 2: from research, we literally know this. Black women's pain, they do,
Speaker 2: our pain is not legible our suffering is not legible.
Speaker 2: So you are sitting there in pain, suffering, and literally
Speaker 2: people are not seeing it the same way they would
Speaker 2: see it on somebody else. We have research studies that
Speaker 2: have demonstrated this without a doubt. So our ability to
Speaker 2: communicate very clearly about what's actually happening is important, and
Speaker 2: it's why we have to beat back against the silence
Speaker 2: that so many of us were taught. We were taught
Speaker 2: to be quiet about these things. We were taught not
Speaker 2: to make a big deal about these things. Right, A
Speaker 2: successful period is one that nobody knows about.
Speaker 3: Right. But if that's what.
Speaker 2: You've been living for twenty years, for thirty years, you
Speaker 2: have to do some work so you can get to
Speaker 2: the doctor and say, I actually put trash bags under
Speaker 2: my mattress so I don't ruin another mattress with the
Speaker 2: bleeding from my periods because of the accidents that I
Speaker 2: have at night.
Speaker 4: Wow, some of the stuff, some of the symptoms that
Speaker 4: you are explaining like taking was taking me back.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, wait, girl, me too, I'm going
Speaker 4: to sen I was like wait, oh, some of that
Speaker 4: I was adapting and didn't realize that those were probably
Speaker 4: absolutely I mean, and I was out here thinking I
Speaker 4: had caught it halfway early, you know, And but as
Speaker 4: you're as you were explaining some of these symptoms, I'm like, no,
Speaker 4: I actually was dealing with things way longer than then.
Speaker 4: I was paying attention to it.
Speaker 2: And when again, you know, you don't learn to silence
Speaker 2: and keep things secret without a dissociate level of dissociation,
Speaker 2: I don't think, oh yeah, so that's happening to us too,
Speaker 2: like I don't.
Speaker 3: This is part of why in the book I talk part.
Speaker 2: Three, I talk about getting back in touch with your body,
Speaker 2: because like I can tell you, I definitely it is
Speaker 2: like I do not exist from the neck down. If
Speaker 2: I'm at work, like don't it's I'm literally putting it
Speaker 2: out of my mind literally. But that also means that
Speaker 2: you're not noticing when you're going from like normal to
Speaker 2: mild symptoms right to moderate. It's like it has to
Speaker 2: be severe before you're like whoa, whoa, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Because we're so used to kind of right, it doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: We're disassociated. So you see how there's like all these
Speaker 2: layers that start to add on. It's not one story, right,
Speaker 2: It's not one thing it's not one piece of mistreatment.
Speaker 2: It's like, that's what is so crazy to me about
Speaker 2: this crisis, the hidden crisis of the black wombs, because
Speaker 2: it's like all these things are coming together for the
Speaker 2: opposite of what.
Speaker 3: We really want.
Speaker 2: We want womb healing, we want to feel good, we
Speaker 2: want a good quality of life.
Speaker 3: We don't want to have to stop living our.
Speaker 2: Lives multiple days a month or weeks a month because
Speaker 2: of what we're going through, and we want to live.
Speaker 2: We don't want to end up with late stage uterine cancer.
Speaker 2: But when you step back and you see all of
Speaker 2: these influences, you start to see how we're getting the
Speaker 2: opposite of that. And that's what I want to change,
Speaker 2: layer by layer, layer by layer.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So one of the things that is coming up for
Speaker 4: me is I'm thinking about women like myself who have
Speaker 4: had hysterectomies, right, Yeah, and how oftentimes the narrative is okay, well,
Speaker 4: once you have a hysterectomy, gynecological health is not a
Speaker 4: big deal anymore all as well.
Speaker 3: But we know that's not the case.
Speaker 4: No, can you explain that? Can you share with us, like,
Speaker 4: what are the things that folks really need to be
Speaker 4: paying attention to even after you've had a hysterectomy.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for asking this question. I'm going
Speaker 2: to go back to the face analogy. If somebody for
Speaker 2: some reason took off your ear, would you be like, well,
Speaker 2: there goes my face. Don't need to go for eye
Speaker 2: check ups, don't need to go to the dentists.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: Right, So again it's like, once we're aware that these
Speaker 2: are multiple organs, this is not one thing. So one
Speaker 2: thing is that that clarity because a lot of women
Speaker 2: tell me hysterecto me and I immediately my next question
Speaker 2: is what parts do they remove and what parts do
Speaker 2: they leave in? Because hysterectomy is used for all types
Speaker 2: of things. Are your ovaries in? Are your tubes in?
Speaker 2: Did they leave your cervix behind? Didn't get removed? These
Speaker 2: are things. These are all varieties, and it's disturbing sometimes
Speaker 2: how much people can't answer those questions for me. So
Speaker 2: that's when it's like, Okay, go back and get your
Speaker 2: your your surgery report, go back or whatever, because we
Speaker 2: actually need to know what organs are there. So that's
Speaker 2: the first thing I would say for a woman who
Speaker 2: said why I had to hys direct me, I'm done.
Speaker 2: I would be like, what parts are in you? And
Speaker 2: what parts are not? And do we know that.
Speaker 3: Even if you have everything removed? Actually, let's go the
Speaker 3: other way.
Speaker 2: So for some women that hysterect me just means that
Speaker 2: the womb itself was removed. They still have their cervix,
Speaker 2: they still have their ovaries, and some of them even
Speaker 2: still have their tubes. So why do you still keep
Speaker 2: needing to go? One, that's rix can still get a
Speaker 2: cervical cancer. Also, it can get benign cervical polyps and
Speaker 2: growth that can cause bleeding and all sorts of just
Speaker 2: annoyingness to you. Two, we still those ovaries can still
Speaker 2: get cysts, They can still grow masses, they can still
Speaker 2: twist and cause pain. They still, you know, they can
Speaker 2: still basically create symptoms that need to be worked up.
Speaker 2: You know, you might be thinking, I just have constipation. Girl,
Speaker 2: you got a new ovarian cyst, right, So if you
Speaker 2: don't know that, then you won't have that stuff checked out.
Speaker 2: Number three going out Now, even if you have all
Speaker 2: your perts removed, meaning I should be clear if you
Speaker 2: have your uterus and the cervix and the tubes and
Speaker 2: the ovaries are all gone. You still have a volva
Speaker 2: and vagina. There can still be lesions in the vagina,
Speaker 2: cancerous lesions, benign lesions, et cetera. There can be cysts
Speaker 2: in the Barthlin's glands that are on the outside. Then
Speaker 2: there are also things like atrophy and the way that
Speaker 2: their conditions. They're not cancer, but conditions that change with
Speaker 2: age in terms of the vagina and the vulvar area,
Speaker 2: some of whom require like medicine to treat something called
Speaker 2: lichen sclerosis. It's just a disease of the vulva. It's
Speaker 2: the skin disease of the volva. Many women spend years
Speaker 2: before they're diagnosed because they assume they just have dryness
Speaker 2: and they don't go to the gynecologists anymore. And likensclerosis
Speaker 2: actually starts to destroy the architecture. So you could lose
Speaker 2: your clitaress, you could lose your labia, you could lose
Speaker 2: all of that, just thinking oh, I just have dryness
Speaker 2: and doing your douches and trying to do your Yoni
Speaker 2: steams and all this nonsense. Meanwhile, you literally have a
Speaker 2: skin condition called lichensclerosis that we can treat. So I
Speaker 2: am not trying to terrify people I'm literally just just imagine,
Speaker 2: imagine if the narrative right was basically like you never
Speaker 2: have to worry about I don't know your heart or
Speaker 2: your kidneys.
Speaker 3: You know, they're just there. Who cares about them?
Speaker 2: You know, let us know if you feel like maybe
Speaker 2: your kidney's about to explode, but otherwise it's fine.
Speaker 3: If somebody in my position would have to.
Speaker 2: Be like, y'all, there are a lot of kidney diseases.
Speaker 2: This it's not to scare you, but it's just to
Speaker 2: be like, can we please change our imagination around these organs?
Speaker 2: There are organs like other organs in our body. Why
Speaker 2: would they not need to be checked on? Why would
Speaker 2: they not.
Speaker 6: Need to be assessed unless you think of women as
Speaker 6: just vessels for reproduction, which is how we end up
Speaker 6: here right where.
Speaker 2: We have these conditions that are common, they're not rare.
Speaker 2: People have them, and yet so little discussion.
Speaker 1: Doctor Kimmy Dall, this has been such an insightful conversation.
Speaker 1: It's been insightful, It has been mind blowing, and I
Speaker 1: think I feel like we need to have you on again.
Speaker 1: But I want to ask you, is there anything else
Speaker 1: that you want to share? I know we reference your
Speaker 1: book plenty of times, But is there anything else that
Speaker 1: you want to share about the book, about your work,
Speaker 1: about how people can support because I feel like we
Speaker 1: can just ask you questions all day long and you
Speaker 1: have such good energy.
Speaker 5: We're like, we're I've been, so let us know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: I think what I want people to know is that
Speaker 2: I guess I just want to share, like this book
Speaker 2: is deliberately written to be readable and interesting and to
Speaker 2: basically teach you on the sly like it is full
Speaker 2: of information. Don't get me wrong, you going to finish
Speaker 2: reading and being like I am smarter than I was
Speaker 2: when I started this book.
Speaker 3: But the whole point, like I don't want to read
Speaker 3: a textbook. I don't know about y'all. I like, I
Speaker 3: love fiction, I love stories.
Speaker 2: So the book is just it's written to tell stories,
Speaker 2: tell my own story, which is woven throughout the book,
Speaker 2: and tell the story of four or five incredible women.
Speaker 2: And most people have told me, man I was up late,
Speaker 2: because I wouldn't. I needed to find out what happened
Speaker 2: to Maya, So like I like I would not put
Speaker 2: this book down, like I needed to know what happened
Speaker 2: to Miss Barbara by.
Speaker 3: Page sixty seven, like I want to know, so, like
Speaker 3: it's so.
Speaker 2: I just say that because I know we can be
Speaker 2: intimidated by medical books and maybe some people who even
Speaker 2: bought a medical book before and they're excited and then
Speaker 2: they started and they're like, oh my god, like this
Speaker 2: is just tables and charts, and I'm you know, so
Speaker 2: I guess I just wanted to say that that too.
Speaker 2: If you're listening to this and you're like, this sounds
Speaker 2: really great, you can find book on anywhere Amazon, you know,
Speaker 2: independent bookstores, Kindle. I read the audiobook, so if you
Speaker 2: like my voice, you can just listen to me.
Speaker 3: Read the audiobook.
Speaker 2: The audiobook is on Spotify. A lot of people can
Speaker 2: just listen to it on Spotify. It's on Spotify. It's
Speaker 2: also at your local library. Like this book is everywhere.
Speaker 2: It's everywhere you buy books, and I just challenge you,
Speaker 2: just crack it open and get started, because I promise
Speaker 2: you you will want to keep reading. And I want
Speaker 2: you to read it because I want us to be
Speaker 2: informed and I want you to feel the way I do,
Speaker 2: which is that I absolutely deserve good womb health.
Speaker 3: I refuse to settle for less.
Speaker 2: Also gynecology, which we didn't talk about, was built on
Speaker 2: the black woman's body. The knowledge that we have came
Speaker 2: from the black woman's body. I'll be damned if I
Speaker 2: don't benefit from that knowledge.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, and that amazing book is a terrible strength,
Speaker 1: The Hidden Crisis of the Black Womb and Your Survival
Speaker 1: Guide to Healing, Doctor Kimmy. This was absolutely phenomenal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was amazing. Thank you so much for the work
Speaker 1: that you're doing for our community. We will definitely keep
Speaker 1: in touch with you because things are going to continue
Speaker 1: to change and we're going to need your insight and
Speaker 1: understand how we can support you and the research that
Speaker 1: you're doing so that we can continue to drive this
Speaker 1: mission forward that you and your team are driving.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 5: We isn't there a rapid fire? Oh do you want
Speaker 5: to do the rapid fire?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: I was ready for you are ready for? Okay?
Speaker 1: You know what's so funny. Sometimes people want to do
Speaker 1: it and sometimes they don't. We're going to keep this
Speaker 1: in y'all. This is a part of the I was.
Speaker 3: Like, come on, let's do a rabbit fire. I don't
Speaker 3: even know what it is. I'm just excited.
Speaker 5: Don't let's get into it. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy you said that, so, doctor Kenny, because
Speaker 1: we recognize, appreciate, and celebrate the multifaceted woman, and we
Speaker 1: believe that it's okay to be bougie, classy and ratchet.
Speaker 1: You can still be elegant. Okay, you could be elegant
Speaker 1: and dance to strip club music. We want to invite
Speaker 1: you to the oh you blatchet segment? Do you take
Speaker 1: on the challenge?
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to surprise you, and we're gonna just
Speaker 1: start off with the first question, which is we're easing
Speaker 1: you into it. The first question is what's the best
Speaker 1: piece of wisdom or advice you've ever received on any topic?
Speaker 2: Gosh, I would say probably you know your purpose, which
Speaker 2: is an internal your internal compass matters so much more
Speaker 2: than any piece any piece of feedback, good, bad, anything
Speaker 2: that you'll get on the outside.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, Oh that was such a good answer, so
Speaker 4: profound and wholesome. And this next this next question is
Speaker 4: like taking us back to the nine to nine year
Speaker 4: two thousand and it is totally like ratchet. So I
Speaker 4: have four words for you, hm, twerk or two step.
Speaker 3: I want to tell you something.
Speaker 2: My spirit wants to twork, but but my capability should
Speaker 2: rest in the two step.
Speaker 3: See you tell hi.
Speaker 2: You know that's that's really what it is. My spirit
Speaker 2: is working hard.
Speaker 5: Though. What it happened was we got okay, you know.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying A way okay, Yeah, but you know
Speaker 2: the two step is where I usually I'm like, let.
Speaker 3: Me just stay over here.
Speaker 5: That is so funny.
Speaker 1: That's so funny.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: Our final question of this segment is what's the sexiest
Speaker 1: item you own?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: I got some baddie lingerie?
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, me and my husband had our fifteenth
Speaker 2: wedding anniversary last year, so I was like, I ran through.
Speaker 2: I said, let's get let's do it up. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: I got some you know, I can't really describe it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's perfect oka, Oh okay, my favorite color
Speaker 1: very only.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say I.
Speaker 2: Would say that, and then I guess the second thing
Speaker 2: would be my brain.
Speaker 5: I know that's right.
Speaker 1: Those are good answers, the best of both the worlds.
Speaker 1: Come on, come on, yes, nothing sexy a smart woman.
Speaker 1: Listen listen that part is that part?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 4: So now we moved to the sentence completion. One question
Speaker 4: or topic I wish people asked me about more often,
Speaker 4: is my favorite romance novels?
Speaker 1: Oh, you and Donald will connect on this. What's your
Speaker 1: favorite romance novel? We gotta know I.
Speaker 2: Probably don't have one favorite, but I just finished Obviously
Speaker 2: I just said that. But anyway, I just finished a
Speaker 2: series I've read before, but I really like it. It's
Speaker 2: called Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and it's just really good.
Speaker 3: It's really really well with it's back.
Speaker 2: It's like old, it's like back from like the two
Speaker 2: thousand first of all the good things today could never
Speaker 2: But it's called Daughter of Smoke and Bone and it's
Speaker 2: a trilogy and it's fantastic. And then there's another one
Speaker 2: that's almost like it's romance. It's like romance slot, it's
Speaker 2: almost more fantasy than romance, called Cushio Dart is the
Speaker 2: first of this trilogy, and it's like that trilogy is
Speaker 2: probably one of the best pieces of literature.
Speaker 3: I've ever read.
Speaker 5: Oh, thank you for putting us on. I'm gonna have
Speaker 5: to check that.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Yes, Okay, the next sense of completion.
Speaker 1: It is the most embarrassing thing I've ever done to
Speaker 1: get my CRUSH's attention is this could be any stage
Speaker 1: in life.
Speaker 7: Oh this is I just I'm in pain, definitely, like
Speaker 7: the sending my friend to tell my crush that I
Speaker 7: like them, but not that.
Speaker 2: They knew that I knew that they were telling and
Speaker 2: just all to get a note back that's like I
Speaker 2: don't like you. Oh no, there's no hope here.
Speaker 4: The loss I mean lost and you had to shoot
Speaker 4: your shot.
Speaker 2: Not only that my protection because let me tell you,
Speaker 2: let me tell you, being a late bloomer is underrated.
Speaker 3: Being late.
Speaker 2: Listen the young girls listening to be a late If
Speaker 2: nobody's paying any attention to you, you just go ahead
Speaker 2: and be grateful for that, because the way you will
Speaker 2: avoid so much drama and heartbreak because nobody wants to
Speaker 2: date you until you're like in your mid twenties, late twenties,
Speaker 2: like early thirty girl.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you, it's a beautiful thing, that's right. So
Speaker 3: that's how I feel, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Like, I just I was spared a lot of drama
Speaker 2: because I was interested in everybody.
Speaker 1: Ain't nobody was interested? She said, I don't want to
Speaker 1: all of them, all of everybody. Sail always take you
Speaker 1: over here. You know, nobody I asked somebody in college.
Speaker 1: When they're like, oh no, you were too you know,
Speaker 1: you were working too hard. People are like, we can't
Speaker 1: mess with her. She's actually studying. She tried to do
Speaker 1: so okay, she knew her purpose. But see, wasn't that
Speaker 1: protection though.
Speaker 4: Because because they could have pulled you from your purpose?
Speaker 1: Okay listen, and when I really was, I hear good,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 2: So this is a really I have really reset the
Speaker 2: whole situation in my mind.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, forward, yes okay, and so our last sentence completion.
Speaker 4: What I love most about myself.
Speaker 3: Is my heart. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like the passion and energy you see is so authentic.
Speaker 2: Like I care so much about giving and supporting all
Speaker 2: of us to live the full lives we want to.
Speaker 2: I just I feel like a calling on like this
Speaker 2: is how I am serving black women, This is how
Speaker 2: I'm uplifting us because we are so beautiful and so amazing.
Speaker 2: And like, I just I appreciate my heart so much.
Speaker 2: I love that I love hard. I love that even
Speaker 2: like the you know, not people, like the inanimate things
Speaker 2: I love, like my favorite books, like I just I
Speaker 2: love that I have that much passion and joy and
Speaker 2: you know, delight and enjoyment of things. It helps me
Speaker 2: get through the dark times. It helps me get through
Speaker 2: the challenges all of that. So I think my heart, yeah.
Speaker 1: That is a beautiful answer, and we appreciate you so much.
Speaker 1: Doctor Kimmy, thank you for bringing up the rapid Fire segment.
Speaker 1: To do this, You've got to do your RAPHI fire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I appreciate you all. Thank you
Speaker 1: for reaching out like I am so happy. I'm never
Speaker 1: happier than when I'm in conversation with black women about
Speaker 1: this book. You have to know, and so I appreciate
Speaker 1: the support and inviting me on this beautiful platform that
Speaker 1: you've built.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, thank.
Speaker 5: You, thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 4: It's doctor dom here from the Cultivating her Space podcast.
Speaker 4: Are you currently a resident of the state of California
Speaker 4: and contemplating starting your therapy journey? Well, if so, please
Speaker 4: reach out to me at doctor Dominique Brusard dot com.
Speaker 4: That's d R D O m I Ni B r
Speaker 4: ou Ssard dot com to schedule a free fifteen minute consultation.
Speaker 4: I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for tuning
Speaker 4: into Cultivating her Space. Remember that while this podcast is
Speaker 4: all about healing, empowerment, and resilience, it's not a substitute
Speaker 4: for therapy. If you or someone you know needs support,
Speaker 4: check out resources like Therapy for Black Girls or Psychology Today.
Speaker 4: If you love today's episode, do us a favor and
Speaker 4: share it with a friend who needs some inspiration or
Speaker 4: leave us a quick five star review. Your support means
Speaker 4: the world to us and helps keep this space thriving.
Speaker 1: And before we meet again, repeat after me, I move
Speaker 1: an alignment, not urgency. What's meant for me? Responds to
Speaker 1: me Chief Thriving Lady, and tune in next Friday for
Speaker 1: more inspiration from cultivating her Space. In the meantime, be
Speaker 1: sure to connect with us on Instagram at her Space
Speaker 1: Podcast