Halsey Part 1 Reaction: Endometrisosis, Lupus, Chronic Illness

hello hello party people never seen this before I saw a clip of it not the whole thing obviously um I am intrigued uh this is from howy part one endometriosis lupus and the unfiltered truth about living with chronic illness wow put myself over over there I guess over here maybe okay here we go oh she probably suffer from beginning now I think you had a miscarriage once on stage I miscarried during a concert what yep what happened I I started miscarrying before the show did you know I knew I remember thinking to myself I'm 20 years old like I should be able to carry a baby I didn't want to be pregnant I was way you know involved in my career but I you know so I had a lot of complex feelings of like relief but also confusion but also guilt and also grief and then at the same time I had a big burning question in my mind which is something must be wrong with me hi I'm Dr taies alab body and I'm Mary Alice Haney I mean like if you're miscarrying on a regular basis I think yes I agree there's probably something wrong with you physically today we are so excited to welcome Grammy nominated Platinum selling artist and fierce women's Advocate Hy to the show she is not only a multi-talented performer and entrepreneur but also one of Dr A's favorite patients I have had the pleasure of treating her for over 10 years today Hy opens up about her recent health challenges including lupus and a rare te- cell disorder we also discuss her journey with endometriosis and the joys and challenges of motherhood you are not going to want to miss this episode thanks for listening to [Music] shmd okay so I don't know how many of y'all are listening or watching this podcast today but this woman walked into our set and it was like a ray of sunshine walked in gave me the biggest hug and you literally are I'm a little Disturbed that I just found out that your mom is 50 and I'm 51 but other than that I'm so excited to have you today on the podcast and Dr a has told me so much about you and just how much she loves you and how you are actually a doctor that you well okay I'm so happy to be here and I'm so so excited I have known Dr a for such a long time she's like a member of my family and I'm so excited to get in to everything today as far as me being a doctor um yo every time you see her she has more and more tattoos I think she gets them like per album or per concert well I guess it can't be per concert but um yeah I think every tattoo was based on the album cover image the the songs Etc um yes you are Dr ashy some of my friends have been known to say that about me no I um I obiously have like the most respect for all of my doctors I just like to pretend to be one but in a in a well-meaning way you know what I mean no I'm the same thing I play one on on this podcast totally I play the really uneducated one because I'm always like what does that mean no it's so funny I was looking at a friend of mine the other day and he we were sitting out in the sun and we were talking and he started getting this like red rash on his face and it was like white under his eyes it was sparing his neighbor lazy oold I was in the middle of a a conversation and I was like Hey I was like so we can maybe do it and have you had your thyroid checked and he was like yeah uh I I did I was like do you have Hashimoto he was like yeah but I literally just found out how do you know that I was like just wondering I'm telling you she told me that about you she says she's going to know because we're going to get into you you know you made this incredible announcement this week about we're going to get into all of that but she said you know what and I said Dr R you know you are a gynecologist but you know everything about you know everything about everything and she's like actually she is going to come in here and know more about what's going on with her body than I could even tell I might just ask her she'll answer all your questions and before we jump into that so we were talking earlier too about names and you were saying um our producer's name is Sterling and and it was just a beautiful name but you were saying be careful what you name your child because they'll want to change it did that happen because your name is your surname or your given name is Ashley yeah yeah so my birth name is Ashley and uh being an Ashley born in 1994 was like I mean my name might as well have been John like I was like at least seven Ashley's in my class growing up it was like Ashley F Ashley B Ashley s and I you know I always make the joke be careful because they'll change it and then I did you know so now it's so funny when people the only people who call me Ashley are my mom and Dr a yeah I'm like yeah some people everyone calls me Ash or they call me Hy and you know I've just I've just come to answer to it uh it turns my head just as naturally as if you called me by my birth name and how did you come up with Hy well it's an anagram so if you rearrange the letters of Ashley makes Hy but I came to that conclusion because I was riding a subway train um the L train in brookin and there's a stop on that train the Hy stop which was my stop and one night I was on the train and I was looking at the letters and I was just like if you move all those around that looks a lot like my name and then within like a couple couple weeks I you know I was kind of tasked with this thing that was like you need to pick a stage name how old were you at this time I think I was 18 wow yeah and I I just knew right away that it was that and now it feels you know it took some getting used to but now it just feels like just the same as if someone was like hey Ash like you know and um how old were you when you started this journey of being Hy I mean in terms of your you know being a musician and your career right now I was 18 I was 19 when I wrote my first album um and I think I was about to turn 20 when it came out um and you know I I had always loved music but I wasn't that kid you know where you were like you should do American Idol or like you know Christmas parties and your parents are making you sing for people or like a school like you know it was very much just like a private love of mine um until I figured out that I was really bad at Sports and when you're really bad at sports you have to do something when your parents are working a bunch of jobs and they need you in extracurriculars you know they want to keep you you know out of the house but not on the street getting into you know who knows what it was usually music so for me it was piano then it was violin then it was cello then it was guitar and then you little by little I started learning how to write music um but I wanted to be a painter and I went to art school and my apologies to anyone watching or listening who's currently an art major or was one I had the realization that uh being a painter was like the riskiest career choice that you could possibly go for so I did the obvious thing which is I tried to become a pop star instead you know uh so I got very lucky that that that worked out yeah that's amazing so um I want to I don't know when this is going to air we hopefully it's going to air soon if we can turn it around in time because this week you made some big announcements about your health talk about that what drove you to do that this like why now and then we're going to talk about all all the things you've been so public and and on this podcast we feel so blessed to have people with the platform that you do that are want that want to talk and want to help other women to know that they're not alone and that these things are happening to them and and hopefully give them some insight so that they can go to their own doctor and help with their diagnos it I mean absolutely I think you know the thing that really opened my eyes to the necessity of that conversation was my experience with endometriosis because when I met Dr a I don't know if you remember the exact circumstance that landed me there but I um I had been really struggling for a long time with my menstrual cycle and how old were you at this point my from my from the time I was like got my very first period like it was oh and you know I heard the same thing that everybody hears which is women in our family have very heavy periods perod s you know I used to stay home from school or I needed had to get a doctor's note or you know or a doctor just being like taken Advil and call it a day but I kind of knew something was wrong um I think that I was given the a diagnosis of PCOS when I was in high school but it was done in a very nonchalant way it was kind of just like a lot of women have this I don't know go home whatever you know what I mean go to the hospital if something bad happens we don't know um there's no like education no information I didn't really understand even what that was at the time but it wasn't until I was I think I was 19 I was 19 and I was I went to go see my ENT um Dr Neri um and we was sitting in his chair and I was having my vocal cords looked at and I was turning green and he was like what's going on and I was like you know I had an IUD place to a couple days ago and I've been in excruciating pain and I keep calling the doctor and they just keep telling me to take Tylenol I was like but I feel like something is really wrong with me and right away he was like you have to go see taies like he was like this is not you 19 you guys have known each other that long 10 years yeah and so it wasn't even like up for I think I was 20 but regardless it doesn't really make a difference but you know he he so he sent me to see taies and she saw me the same day she was like absolutely sender him and I came to see her and my IUD had preparated and she was like if you came to see me a couple days later you could have G gone septic you could have like I don't I don't know what could have happened to you she was like why did you get an IUD are you is it for birth control what was the reason I was like I was told it could help me with my period pain wow um this is 48 minutes long we're going to power through it trust me she asked asked me three questions about my periods and then she looked at me and she said you have endometriosis I said I have what I had never even heard of it cuz you've been di somebody had told us she P point I think I think at that point also I remember you told me something about when you go on stage at least that's what I remember you would almost want to faint and and that was her Chief complaint to me and I I was thinking to myself so you know I'm I'm I'm not I'm not a neurologist you know what am I going to do with this but I started asking my questions GYN related and it turned out when she I think you had a miscarriage once on stage I miscarried during a concert what yep what happened I I started miscarrying before the show did you know I knew and I was like in a really I was in a really tough position because it was really early on in my career and there was a lot attached to the show so there was you know a like a corporate partner there was like a Greater Media entity partner but more importantly than that to me there was like a thousand kids who waited all day long to get into the show and see me um and what I ended up happening was I ended up just putting on like an adult diaper and I was like the show they they'd only asked me to perform I think like 45 minutes and I didn't really have that much music out to be honest with you so I don't know that I could have played longer I didn't have the material and I went and I did show I left stage I threw up in the parking lot I went to a hotel and I was sick all night I remember lay I remember sitting in the bathtub cuz I just didn't know what to do with all the blood you know forgive me for being so graphic and then waking up at 5 or 6 in the morning to get on another airplane to go to uh Canada and are you still bleeding throughout this whole yeah I was bleeding for hours and I think that painful that is by the way I just want to put it out there it I mean I've had one miscarriage I was on the floor like vomiting it's so painful it was tough it was hard to be on my feet and it's it was interesting about it is that the performance was actually recorded so you can go on YouTube and you can watch me Miss carry oh my God through a concert and it's funny because when I look at it now I see myself just like white and sweating and my voice is different my voice voice is like guttural you know what I mean it's like I sound and look like a different person can you imagine no I can't I mean I've had sever a woman can do that and but I had to go get a DNC I mean that's you know like my doctor was like this is you know you're going to need to get a DNC so I I didn't have to go through that and I just remember feeling like I don't know who to talk to about this cuz at the time the only like stories about miscarriage that I had heard were from women were happily married and you know it was um a a tried pregnancy and they you know most of the time would speak about it after they had you know successfully conceived and carried you know to term and been like so this happened before this does anyone know if she was seeing GE ezy during this time like from 18 years old to 20 years old and technically would he have been the father that's what I'm interested about it was just the world of information that was accessible to me I just felt so alone you're a baby I did not even know who to talk to like I had no idea what to do what is it a c ah we started CMD because there are so many facets of women's health that we just simply aren't taught and we want to arm you with the tools and information you need to be your own health Advocate and take control of your health one of these topics that I had no idea about until I started this podcast was vaginal health and your vaginal microbiome it's something I had no idea about until I started this podcast also something should all be informed on because it's such a big part of our overall health that is why I love seeds vss1 vaginal symbiotic it promotes a healthy vaginal microbiome and helps maintain balanced pH levels which is crucial for our comfort and well-being just like our gut microbiome we need to take care of our vaginal microbiome that is why I love seeds vss1 vaginal synbiotic it promotes a healthy vaginal microbiome and helps maintain balanced pH levels which is crucial for our comfort and well-being one of the things I love about seed is their commitment to science and rigorous testing they've formulated this product based done 15 years of research on the vaginal microbiome and the result is vss1 the first clinically validated vaginal probiotic with three proprietary strains of L Chris pattis it's designed to support your natural defenses and protect against daily disruptions like menstration exercise and stress and what's great about vss1 is its proactive sustainable approach to vaginal care instead of just treating symptoms you see I don't want to seem insensitive and Skip all this but like this is taking up I understand like you know with people who do the podcast that there has to be some sort of profit incentive of course this is it's it's just there could have been a VI attached to this or something that I could look at um the text is I feel like it could have been done better basically IT addresses the root causes of imbalances shift from hard har reactive treatments to proactive sustainable care with vss1 from seed go to seed.com GMD and use code 25 shmd to get 25% off that's 25% off bs01 at seed.com shmd code 25 shmd now that it's summer and it's hot outside we all know we're just not sweating in our armpits and sometimes you need a little extra coverage for those other areas you know what I'm talking about the underbob sweat is real especially this time of year that's why I love first a Beauty's new whole body 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code chmd at first a beauty.com slmd you know those days when you're just feeling off maybe a bit sluggish or dealing with headaches you may not even know it but you're probably dehydrated I say you may not know because I had El sparkling a bold 16 o can of sparkling electrolyte water and I remember in that moment I had so that was that was one one miscarriage I had two within the same year this is before the IUD yes and I remember thinking to myself I'm 20 years old like I should be able to carry a baby I didn't want to be pregnant I was way you know involved in my career can we see this you know so I had a lot of complex feelings of like like relief but also confusion but also guilt and also grief and then at the same time I had a big burning question in my mind which is something must be wrong with me because of all the times in my life where I should be able to conceive and carry to term this is the age what's happening and so those were some of the questions that I brought to Dr a when I first you know started seeing her and ultimately you know she was she did say in this office you know she was like you have endometriosis she was like I'm going to confirm it with a surgery she was like but I'm looking at you and I know that I'm not wrong and she wasn't she wasn't wrong at all there was a bunch of little blue M&M's inside me when she she got in there but does endometriosis cause miscarriages yes with it causes Mish heres it causes painful period it causes heavy periods it causes um painful sex it can cause recurrent bladder infection so organ damage if the tissue scar tissue is aggressive enough m i women who had to have bowel reections because the endometriosis got into their bowel it's it's really kind of like a full body you know condition and a lot of people really reduce it to being a reproductive Illness but sh the effects of endometriosis because you know at its core it functions like an autoimmune condition um and it's often coor morbid with a lot of other conditions like some of the other ones that I have you had but at the time you don't know any of this I didn't know anything at all I knew that my mom and my M and my nana and my my great Nana all had heavy periods and they all struggled to conceive that's what I knew I knew that my nana used to pray that someone would leave a baby in a basket on her doorstep in the 30s you know incredible did you have a hard time conceiving cuz you have a beautiful little boy so I didn't because of the 8 years of work that Dr a and I put into my fertility journey and with her guidance you know I I was in such an exceptional position to be able to but it took a lot of work on both ends it took a lot you know of thinking outside the box from Dr a it took surgeries it took Lifestyle Changes on my end um you know both like physical lifestyle changes but also emotional ones what were some of the things that you did I mean I certainly had to mitigate the amount of stress that I was under like I certainly did um you know my cortisol was not helping at all and Dr I used to tell me every time I saw her she'd be like you are too stressed out you've never seen some I mean if I tell you someone Works harder than I do can you believe it cuz I've never met someone who works harder than me this woman does that's not true it's true and I always I'm like what are you doing she's like I'm doing this and I'm going on a tour and then I'm going to go here and and I'm like oh my God this last time I'm like tell me you're going to take take our our little but but you know it's like sometimes when you get the one thing that you've always dreamed of you're like I've got to you're young too when it happened to you so you don't really have the the life's experience to know hey you got to slow down and you don't have to take every single job that's offered to you and you don't have to do every single photo shoot and you don't have to and and and but you have to learn that as you get older yeah you need security too I think in a certain regard I think that once it became really apparent that the men in the black suits areen going to come in and drag me back to Jersey that I was like okay and I could start saying no to some stuff but also it took you know some personal rep prioritization you know where I was like I want to be a mom I would tell Dr every time I saw her I want to be a mom I want to be a mom and she was really honest with me she was like I want you to be a mom too and I think that you can conceive naturally she was like but I think you need to make these changes and I did you know in terms of my diet the relationships I led into my life the amount of work that I was doing um and then funnily enough um when I did conceive you know I had expected it to take maybe 6 to 12 months first try really first try it goes to tell you I was telling you when you suppress endometriosis patients and you treat the implants laparoscopic surgery you reect it and you suppress it they do get pregnant that's how you get an endometriosis patient out of the hands of the fertility doctors yeah so say that again explain that again so end for endom iosis if you want these patients you know at a young age I always tell you if you know I always tell her if every 20-year-old in Los Angeles would go through my office once just once yeah I would these fertility doctors would be out of business because a lot of the money they make is because of these endometriosis patients who can't get pregnant right average age of diagnosis for endometriosis is 32 if she had not come to me she would have probably waited 10 years you know someone would diagnosed diagnosed her at 32 she would have probably had Advanced adenomiosis which is almost like Endo in the wall of the uterus she would have had adhesions in her pelvis her egg count would have gone down her egg quality would have gone down but when you reect these implants outside of the uterus you res means just for cut them out you cut them out you cut them out and you basically bring down the inflammation in the pelvis by how by removing these implants because these implants are stimulated by the estrogen right so you lower the estrogen but or give progesterone to them which is how I got pregnant yeah so we reected it we suppressed it with progesterone so when I took the suppression hormonal suppression off she immediately got pregnant you did even I was shocked didn't believe it I called her I said I also tested positive 7 Days post ovulation which is very early like 7 DPO positive test is like crazy and I know a lot of people who are trying and doing the the the tests and the waiting know that that's very early and I think it might have been six actually even but I remember calling Dr a like a week after I ovulated and going I'm pregnant and she was like come see me in a couple days and I came in there and I never forget she goes oh my gosh there's a heartbe you got so so excited and you know funnily enough I was having this conversation with Dr Dan Wallace who's my rheumatologist we we love Dr Wallace he's been twice on this podcast he was showing me pictures the other day he was like he's the sweetest human being he really is he also a genius he's a genius you know he's like an absolute genius in his field and and we were having a conversation um you know because not to Pivot to too like uh drastically here but um you know this announcement that I made this week was about some some diagnoses that I have and you announced that you have Lupus and rare te- cell disorder yes so I have Lupus and sometimes with lupus there's other complications I announced like a couple years ago that I had been diagnosed with shog and syndrome which is really often comorbid meaning going alongside of lupus and you know because lupus is an autoimmune condition sometimes it can suppress your immune system to the point that you um develop like a t- cell uh lymphoproliferative disorder they're like the most common in patients with a suppressed immune system or patients for imun compromised and what are the symptoms of both of those lupus is you know it's funny cuz the te- cell disorder is the scarier on paper but lupus I think is the scarier in all actuality in what way um because the te- cell disorder operates like essentially like a leukemia and so what were those like in your body what was happening all right guys I need take a break um I'm going to drink some coffee or something we we'll jump right back into it all right all right part of people let's uh try to finish this um it's it's not really what I expected but is some parts are interesting so let's go ahead so I was definitely I was getting sick very often I was losing a lot of weight this all happened within a couple months after I had my son when I gave birth to Ender I Ender I think I weighed about 165 lbs I remember that because I went to see Dr a for my six week appointment and she said to me congratulations you've already lost 11 lbs and I said I started crying and I said the baby was six so I'll never forget that um but then what happened is I started losing weight progressively and by the time I hit my pre-baby weight I was like huh and a lot of people were like well you're breastfeeding it's common to lose weight quickly when you're breastfeeding and then it kept going and I was in doctor's offices saying to them you know I'm 20 at the time I was like I'm 26 20 28 years old and all anyone could really tell me in the beginning was that kind of like that I should feel lucky that I was losing weight so fast and I remember one doctor told you you probably had an eating disorder lots of that a lot of it was that I had that was heartbreaking cuz she looked sick yeah a lot of it was like you know what's this obsession with your weight why do you why are you keeping track of how much you're losing you know thinking that that was kind of um psychologically motivated rather than me being genuinely in fear for my life then what started happening was I would get pain um like kind of like almost felt like it was like in my bones I was used to joint pain cuz I you know that sort of like Rheumatic um like joint pain that comes with autoimmune illness I was really familiar with so you knew you had an autoimmune disease I didn't know what you just didn't know what it was yeah and so I also knew that endometriosis you know can be really complicated as well you know so sometimes it was hard I yeah I was having pain I was having nose bleeds I was having and you're a new mom and it's like oh yeah and I was having organ pain which was really strange because I think a lot of doctors are of the mentality that you can't feel organ pain but you can feel referred pain a lot of the time so I knew that my insides were hurting a lot of people would say to me your period's probably coming back you know I was like let me tell you I know about period Gramps I know about them more better than anyone this is something else and then with the lupus it was like hair thinning um the lupus and shrin is like salivary SW gland swelling so like my glands here here like here kind of would like swell up and it made my face look really strange and unfamiliar um and the fatigue was h i mean Indescribable the fatigue I thought I was narcoleptic I I I could I could barely stay awake for more than a couple hours a day and again A lot of it was you're a new mom of course you're tired and I was like listen I'm very fortunate I have a lot of a lot of support you know like there's no reason that I should be this exhausted okay so at this point all the doctors that you've seen said like basically you are either you have an eating disorder you're a new mom that's why you're tired you're so you finally go see Dr Wallace and he does he does he do a battery of test like how does he find out what it is that you have so the first Doctor Who suspected that I had lupus was actually a woman and she asked me the question you we were kind of going through all of this she knew that I had tested positive for early detection shog um and she was just kind of looking at some of these these like illnesses that I had been diagnosed with and they were kind of missing like a bigger chunk you know and she asked me the question she said how did you feel during your pregnancy and I said I felt the best I've ever felt in my entire life I made an album I shot a movie I was like 6 months pregnant running after a horse in the forest I was diving I was acting I was like I felt incredible why and she was like well because in patients with lupus a lot of the time they can feel really good when they're pregnant because we treat lupus with immunosuppression and the baby sort of acts as immunosuppression your immune system goes down in pregnan I did not know that that was insane yeah and so she was like light bulb and then she kind of trans transferred my care to to Dr Wallace who confirmed my sle diagnosis and he um you know when I first started seeing him I looked and just was terrible um and I was feeling really hopeless um of course you were yeah I was feeling really hopeless and I remember the you know and it was hard because I was trying to deal with the the te- cell lymphoproliferative disorder and the lupus at the same time and some of the um the treatments for them are contradictory that diagnosis I had had confirmed with a bone biopsy which was amazing deeply unfun painful oh deeply unfun and um I knew that there wasn't at that point in time significant bone marrow infiltration and so if there's not significant bone marrow infiltration then they can they sometimes give you a little longer of a window my doctor at the time was like you should use that window to freeze your eggs um just in case this goes you know in a in a different direction but I ended up starting the the lupus treatment the bista the problem was is they told me that it would take 6 to8 months before I would feel anything my do Dr Wallace you know we were talking kind of about what family planning looks for me moving forward with this diagnosis and he said to me there's a regiment that I recommend to my Lupus patients and it involves progesterone suppositories um a corticosteroid and then something else that I can't remember right now and I just looked at him and I said that's what Dr a gave to me and that's how I got pregnant I don't know how you knew I literally could cry right now I don't know how you knew but what you making that decision in that moment is why I was able to have my son [Music] now made from DEA oat cream blend it's finally summer I wish I could spend every day at the beach but there's truly nothing better than the smell of the Fresh Ocean Breeze on a hot day but recently I've been using oia's andaria algae body oil that brings that feeling right into my daily routine and you guys I'm obsessed I literally get out of the shower and I slather that oil all over me I'm always looking for ways to 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alone the mental energy to get through and organize them all I'm a double Virgo but you would never know it by looking at my desktop I know that I'm not alone when I open up my calendar and I'm just instantly overwhelmed with everything I have going on it's easy for things to fall through the cracks when you're going a mile a minute that is why I have to tell you guys about oh high. a it's an AI personal assistant that helps busy people manage all the things we have to keep track of we all have that mental running list of everything we have to do and oh high. a is literally like having a second brain it keeps track of to do and I just remember when he said that me she's just so smart and so intuitive and just like you borderline psychic like I was just like I just couldn't believe it I was like of course of course she did of course she did of course she knew and even if you did we didn't know you knew you know what I mean and I was I just was so yeah I was so grateful the best thing about Ash is she listens you know when you tell her you need this she doesn't argue with you she knows a lot I'm not kidding I know she she's no I wasn't kidding with you see when she talks you can't I mean she knows so much about her body she knows exactly what's wrong with her and every time whenever she complains of something I never I I always take her seriously always because she knows and um and you tell other people to too she'll bark up a tree for me she'll call someone else and be like she's going to go see you listen to her yeah I mean it's like having her as an advocate I grew up really you know without access to great with me to meaningful Healthcare you did yeah I grew up in in like a pretty you know you know at best lower middle class at worst abject poverty like you know welfare like we did not have from to riches no so far uh it's it's this whole thing is not what I expected and um like if you look at the title if you look at the upper left up there like this is I mean IT addresses a like I feel like they never really fully explain explain a endometriosis I don't know if that's supposed to be a common knowledge but this is not what not that it makes a bad thing it's just not what I was expecting have access to healthcare we didn't see doctors very often I didn't see dentists until I was you know in LA and you have beautiful tea thank you um I they're all mine I promise um I I you know when Dr a like having this relationship with her I tell people all the time of all the things that I have in my career everything like of all the things all of the superficial lavish you know luxuries that come along with my my privilege to be in the position that I'm in as a musician the single thing that I am the most grateful for is having access to meaningful health care and to Compassionate healthc Care Professionals it's true it is a absolute game Cher my life would look so different it would look so different and because of that you know I send people to drct a I have like a running I will send everyone to Dr I like I'll pay for your appointment I'll pay for your appointment I'll pay for your appointment and Dr a by the way in return will very often off for her Services you know to people if I explain the situation to her you know one of my memories with Ash is she was like it was the first year I met her and I diagnosed her with her with endo and she felt better and you know even back then I was like as you have to talk about endometriosis you have to talk about painful period and like always she's like of course I want to educate so went on the doctor's show and some fertility doctor watched her episode and called me and said listen I want to give free IVF free egg freezing free everything to her just have her come to me so you know I called her on like CU it's a lot of money and I'm like Asher's this doctor and she was very young she must have been like 21 and I called her and I'm like there's this Doctor Who's offering all his Services free of charge you know what she told me over the phone she said you go tell that doctor I have money and I will pay for my own egg freezing tell that doctor to donate that egg freezing on my behalf to someone who doesn't have money I swear to God I hung up the phone and I'm like what this is the first time and the last time in my life I've never seen it again that I've offered a 20 30 $40,000 treatment to a patient free of charge who walked away from it I've seen you do the exact same I know but on that day I told myself and I've said it there are very few people who walk on this planet as kind as generous as loving as this woman sitting here and did you see her come in you were not here Sheed did I said it was a ray of sunshine I walked in and she gave me this this ginormous hug I'm like who is this gorgeous little wood gave me a hug she walked in right now and I'm like ash this is my team she went around and hugged every single person that's who she is though that's why people love her so much there's only one of her on this planet I'm going to like I think I'm going to combust if you keep going okay can I ask you okay I have a couple questions for you how do you feel now a lot better look at her she looks amazing better good they's still hard days you know like that's kind of the thing with autoimmune illnesses and and you know with you know specifically like any sort of um uh chronic disorder you know the hardest thing for me I think was trying to learn about lupus as it as it existing as an ill so affect me the longevity of my life and then also learning about chronic leukemias and how they're different you know from other conditions you know cuz like initially I was like oh my God what the heck is going on yeah you hear that you know and you have to kind of learn about the mech like the the mechanism of the disease really um and I would say that you know I'm doing doing significantly better but there are days where I wake up and I just get you know kind of put on my butt like and that when that first started happening that was hard cuz I was like oh my gosh we're going backwards it's going to happen all over again and then I had to get used to this new you know pendulum which is that some days I will feel that way um and I've learned what I can control and what I can't in terms of how it happens and I know that sometimes I can control if it happens if I decide that I'm going to you know try to squeeze a two-day music video shoot into one day do you guys want to have more babies absolutely I want more babies really badly I think you know I had such a pleasant experience being pregnant with my son and he's the light of my life I mean he is just the cutest cutest cutest little thing he's the best kid he's just the best kid and like honestly I think some things are sort of like divinely motivated or at least you know I do believe that things happen for a reason and like he's just got the most exceptional temperament and he's so loving and compassionate and I think about you know I've been sick for and when I say I've been sick I mean like his experience of me is that I'm sick not even just like I have a diagnosis like I'm living like a sick person for major majority of his life you know 2/3 3/4 of it um and I had a lot of guilt and I just remember laying there just feeling so bad about myself and then I realized that that unnecessary guilt was making me worse you know and I the thing I told myself is I was like I was grieving the fact that I couldn't be the best mom in the world cuz I wanted to be the best mom in the world you are the best mom well the thing that I realized was like my only job is to be the best mom that I'm capable of being and hopefully my son will recognize that effort and will know that I've you know I did the best that I can and I also know that I need to be really strong and I need to work hard to get better for him you know so that I can be I can show up and and not just show up in in a way that I'm burning myself out to show up physically but show up and be present and look him in the eyes and replay and smile and react and not just be you know sleeping through my day because because I am splitting myself this way and that way and I'm not giving myself any time to heal and you know now that I've had this experience and then everything is kind of mellowed out a little bit more I think it's definitely going to change the type of parent that I am with him moving forward and with any subsequent children that I have you know cuz boys take a lot of I'm a boy mom too and they take a lot of energy I go over to her house and the girls are just sitting there playing and I'm like my boys were climbing and you're just like you're just trying to make sure that they don't jump off of a cliff I mean literally so I it's when you're tired and sick like that's just yeah and she works she doesn't talk about it she was sick but this woman Works non-stop that's why I keep telling her Slow Down slow down slow down it's very rare for me to tell someone slow down cuz someone needs to tell me to slow down I know I know but she was so sick she was still working she was taking she's always present for her baby she's she does it all it's your you have super powers I appreciate that Dr but I think you are like a very meaningful like person to Aspire to in my life you know like you were the first like really just badass professional woman that I built a relationship with and I remember thinking the same things I actually used to use you as an example all the time is just be like oh like I'm tired or I'm this whatever be like Dr Ray dude I was like she's like delivering babies and she's like saving people and she's diagnosing breast cancer and she's flying on an emergency plane to go help with a complicated delivery in a country like she doesn't speak the language and she's raising these incredible children you know and early in our relationship and when she's raising these incredible young women they're going to Stanford they and then she's you know she's she's bringing another young child into her life because she's an absolute Angel she's beautiful she's funny she's kind she's I'm I was just like ah and I remember looking at you and being like I but you know what is you were all those things but you also were real when you needed like you know you told me you were like you need to take a break you need to I can't you think you think that I want to take a break and I was like No And she was like well we have to sometimes you know that's really important to me like I don't think we were probably planning on getting into this but you know I I have no problem talking about it I'm so grateful that you recommended the the ketamine Clinic to me oh my God thank I want to cry if you talk about it it changed my life H I wasn't expecting that thanks so much for joining us today on shmd remember if you want to own your health a good place to start is by following us on social media at shmd podcast and by subscribing to our show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast for takeaways from today's episode visit our website shmd podcast.com we'll see you next time on shmd this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only it is not intended as a substitute for a physician's medical advice you should regularly consult your medical provider in matters relating to your own health even though we share our honest beliefs on shmd some some of the products and services we discuss may involve sponsorships or paid [Music] advertising H I was wondering what was going to come up and I recommend it all right guys um I don't know it just didn't occur to me that this might be a a female Focus kind of podcast um it's is is if you guys remember there there was um a housy uh I don't know what to call it it was like a it was like an interview and it talked a lot about mental health and stuff like that that but um this was I I wasn't I I wasn't really sure what I was going to be watching but it's um it definitely educated me in terms of like a lot of the whole you see I don't know how to phras this like like the female experience I don't know if you want to call it that but um I was not EXP the way the way the podcast starts out is like it implies that you already know about shmd you know what not but um this was it it was interesting I mean um it's like I said it's definitely not what is I was expecting but um um that was part one we we'll get to part two eventually um I think it's under 40 minutes so it's not as long as this one but oh my God the ads oh my God I understand they need sponsors and all that but the ads oh my god um I I'm interested in what what what are they going to talk about with the camine clinic but um um I I I don't want to say I'm speechless but this is a lot it was a lot to take in for me as someone who doesn't know a lot about this stuff and um I I feel like I learn learn something um all right guys well uh thanks for joining me for part one I'm going to I'm going to chill for a little bit and absorb all this take care yourselves in each other