Friday 8pm, The Doctor Calls…
“Illness is sometimes the answer to a prayer” – Caroline Myss
photo credit: Brad Strickert
6 minute read
It was 2019 and I was at my naturopath, I had lost my period and I had suspected it was due to stress. She came into the room and told me that my blood work revealed that I had prematurely sent my body into Perimenopause, I was 35 years old. This is when your ovaries stop releasing eggs prior to menopause. It was happening to me 10 years too early, the root cause, too much stress.
Three years ago this should have been my huge wake up call, it wasn’t. I didn’t listen. I had ambitions, goals and a Mount Everest sized to do list and big responsibilities to the studio and my staff. I left the office with a protocol to work on reversing the diagnosis and get my period back. To be completely honest I felt nothing, maybe a numbed state of shock but mostly because my head was so full with everything already and another long day ahead of me, I couldn’t handle anything else. So I suppressed it and stuffed it deep down in my “I will deal with this later” box. It didn’t seem like a big deal to me anyway, I was single and wasn’t sure if I even wanted children. My maternity clock never seemed to tick and I wasn’t in a rush to walk down the aisle. Instead I was fuelled with so much drive and ambition for my career, brand and studio.
This was the same year I would back to back launch a satellite location, the Chi Junky Studio at Sweat and Tonic, do a two month renovation for Chi Junky Leslieville, grow the studio team to 56 people strong, have record sales, organize and run my first international retreat in Nicaragua and then come home to close the studio to brace for a global pandemic and return to operating the studio as a one woman show. The long term stress was insurmountable and instead of listening back when I had the chance I ignored it and then it got worse, much much worse.
Fast forward 2.5 years later, March 2021, Friday night 8pm, the phone rings and it’s my Doctor, I thought this couldn’t be good and answered. Leading up to the phone call, I hadn’t had a routine check up in over three years and I had been feeling so exhausted and burnt out, far beyond what was normal for me that I decided I should probably go. They say no news is good news but on this Friday night I was getting an incoming call from my Doctor, I was about to get some news. She proceeded to tell me that my pap smear results came back abnormal (this is quite regular) what was not normal was what she said next…they found precancerous cells on my cervix and I was to go get a biopsy at Sunnybrook hospital to assess me for Cervical cancer.
I am 37 years old…how could this possibly be happening to me? I spent the last 10 years eating organic vegetables and drinking green juice. I thought I was healthy. What I realized is I was so focused on taking care of my business, I stopped taking care of myself and I let the stress of it all override any healthy habits I had. When you are chronically stressed and not sleeping for years on end your green juice and organic vegetables don’t stand a chance to help you.
Back track to February 2020, I re-launched Chi Junky Leslieville, post reno, with packed classes of up to 40 people at the same time as operating, running and teaching at the very new Chi Junky studio at Sweat + Tonic. To everyone watching me from the outside, everyone saw some version of “success” which ultimately assumed happiness, like I had it all. Here’s how it actually went down for me. In order for me to hit that level of success, I worked 7 days every week, a minimum of 80 hours often times more. I slept an average of 4 hours a night sometimes less and only more on the days I couldn’t function from lack of sleep. I was glued to my phone/computer, saying yes to everything and responding to emails even at 3am, just to keep up. There were countless times while teaching I almost fainted or had a breakdown in the bathroom prior to class.
The struggle to keep up with what I had built was very real and was quickly devouring me. To be completely candid most days it felt like a jail sentence, while I watched friends and family get married, have children, buy houses, go on vacation and simply enjoy life and personal time, I worked and everything I earned went right into the business. I had let the studio consume me with no boundaries and there was no way I could stop now. I was just beginning to peak after 6 years of working so hard to make it succeed, it would be impossible to slow down at the height of its success.
One of the hardest parts was how lonely it felt, the studio responsibilities all fell on me, there was no one else to share the load. I was sleep deprived, my home was a mess because I had no time to clean or do laundry and the fridge was always empty. Coming home alone with no one to share the highs and lows made a recipe for depression and even poorer self care habits. It was moments like this where I felt resentful to the life I built for myself and not even my inner circle could fully understand the weight of the anvil on my shoulders trying to keep the studio going on a normal day, let alone through a pandemic.
That being said, did everything I sacrifice, personal relationships, any chance of a life outside the studio and my health worth it? I still question it but in the end I have to say yes, I believe it was. The lessons I learned and the road I took all led me to where I am today and the person I am proud to be. The studio has become much more than a physical studio but a community more powerful than anything I have ever known and even though it has been the hardest years of my life I did it and I survived it. I would probably do it again if given the choice, hopefully smarter though. I lead a full life and have always lived by my own rules and not by the book, even when people questioned me. I’ve lived in 3 different countries, survived 8 years in Manhattan and lived on an 18-mile long tropical island off the coast of Belize. I have checked off every single career box on my bucket list by the time I was 36 and have far exceeded every expectation of myself and what I thought would become of Chi Junky. But I digress; let’s get back to the timeline leading up to the Doctor call.
After 6 years of hustling at the studio and 1 year of trying to keep the studio alive through a pandemic by January 2021 my burn out had gotten so bad that most days I could barely find the energy to go to the grocery store and walk back up my 3 story walk up. I went from powering through 80+ hour weeks for years to emails giving me debilitating anxiety and crippling overwhelm. The thought of my workload gave me chest pains, a racing heartbeat and even panic attacks. I could barely handle what was on my plate and it kept me up every night. I had been quietly suffering from a mild depression for years, it felt like there was a permanent dark cloud that hung over my head showering me with a heavy energy weighing me down. The exhaustion I felt emotionally and physically was indescribable and all the while no one knew.
I had stopped teaching back in December 2020 as an attempt to slow down and give my body some rest. Even though I was trying to reduce my workload I was still running the studio and I felt myself getting worse not better. I was too tired to workout or even get on my mat, my shoulder pain became so bad I struggled to get dressed, I couldn’t remember the last time I had a period, maybe 2 years at this point or longer, every night I was binge eating away my feelings, I gained 20 pounds and I had permanent dark brown patches all over my face. I felt downright awful and I barely recognized myself. At my lowest point I went into my family Doctor and naturopath for a full work up looking for answers this past February.
After blood work, ultrasounds, pelvic exams, pap smear, biopsy, x-rays I was diagnosed with the following list, yes a list.
Hypothyroidism – severe enough to be put on Synthroid – a lifelong drug to regulate thyroid function
Precancerous cells on my cervix
Ovarian Cysts on both ovaries
Amenorrhea – the loss of menstruation
Melasma – dark patches on the face due to hormonal imbalance
Rotator Cuff Tear
Frozen Shoulder
Adrenal Fatigue
Depression
Hormonal Imbalances – every single one of my hormones was completely out of whack
Disordered Eating
Anxiety and panic attacks