Menarche

When I first started my period, my experience was utterly horrible. My parents were divorcing and each was too busy being self absorbed to even acknowledge me. I do not believe that it would have been a positive, celebratory experience regardless of their marriage situation, though. My father always instilled a feeling of shame and guilt within my psyche for being female and especially for growing up. I had no one to answer any questions or help me in any way, other than friends from middle school. To make matters worse, my period was extremely heavy and painful but I felt that I was disgusting and woudl have never asked them any questions. This experience has made me realize how inportant it is to make this open and a positive experience for my own daughter.

Personal Health

Taking excellent care of myself should be one of the most important goals in my life yet I seem to neglect myself. This is very alarming to me considering I already suffer from health issues that could lead to more debilitating disease as I age. What is even worse is that most people I know fail to properly care for themselves just like me! When I stop to think about healthy choices and how they are detrimental for optimal health, I realize they are not difficult to adopt. I could significantly improve my health by losing unhealthy midsection fat through diet and exercise.

So why don't I make this positive change? Why do a majority of people have such a struggle with making positive change? Life is stressful with most of us having overbooked schedules with family, work, school, volunteering and just life in general. I know that I feel like putting other responsibilities first and then I will get around to myself when I have time. That time NEVER seems to come though as each day presents new tasks. I have realized that I need to manage stress, eat a healthy moderate diet, get some sort of exercise EVERY day, and make time for me. Hopefully, I can succeed in doing this and with my success I can help as many others as possible do the same. We have to learn that our health is very important and without good health, nothing else really matters!

concerned...........

The health issues that most concern me are cardiovascular disease and all of the related problems either brought on by this condition or acting as a cause of it. As someone with a strong family history of heart disease and premature death, I am terrified. Three of my four grandparents died before the age of 52 of heart disease related complications. Both my grandmothers were sleeping (one was 52 and the other 49) and never woke up, while my paternal grandfather died from a heart attack at the age of 39. The history is almost unbelievable with my uncles, parents, and brother all suffering from hypertension. One uncle had a heart attack when he was 38 and underwent quadruple bypass. I, too, suffer from hypertension as well as palpitations and obstructive sleep apnea.

The past year, the realization has really hit me. I will follow in my relatives' footsteps if I don't make a change now. The biggest issue I have encountered is a lack of acknowledgement from health care professionals regarding young people, especially women, who have some form of a cardiovascular related condition. I kept going to doctors and the emergency room for my spiking blood pressure but was never put on any type of medication. Practitioners would just write it off as "nervousness" or "being stressed", even after hearing my family history!

Working in the emergency room for a small town hospital, I would see these same attitudes from the staff there. Anyone under 50 years old was almost dismissed and not taken seriously when they came in complaining of heart related ailments including high blood pressure and chest pain.

I questioned a young, Hispanic female what health issues most concerned her and she felt very strongly about diabetes due to her family history. During our conversation, she mentioned that her mother had symptoms of diabetes but hadn't seen a physician for these problems.
My other interviewee was a 54 year old, white female who had hypertension and was most concerned with heart disease and resulting death. She felt that the doctors she had seen did not address her problems thoroughly when mentioned. Yet her husband was sent immediately for various testing at the first complaint of the very same issues. This upset her and she felt that the doctor's office didn't believe or take her complaints as seriously because she was a woman.

Now I can see the correlation between all three of us.......................although we definitely have increased risks, there is some feeling of inadequacy brought on by the very providers responsible for "saving" us. All women I spoke with or about (including myself) felt unsure about bringing their health issues to light. When we have, it has been met with a reluctance to believe we could have a genuine illness; or maybe we feel that response will ensue therefore do not want to look like hypochondriacs or complainers by bringing up the issues. I feel the lack of attention and appropriate testing is complete negligence.