Nam Kiwanuka: You're listening to Mistreated. I'm Nam Kiwanuka.

While women tend to live longer, they're more likely to live with chronic illnesses, be misdiagnosed, face years, sometimes decades in getting a diagnosis, and have more side effects to medication.

According to the National Institutes of Health, the NIH, because much of the previous work has been done in males and treatments have been designed in male models, we have come a long way in understanding disease mechanism in males. Therefore, it is no wonder that treatments fail to work well in females given basic research is dominated by work in males. That research is from the NIH, which is the same body that mandated women to be included in clinical trials in 1993.

Medical misogyny is a term that has been used to describe what happens when women are seeking health care, and women's physical pain is dismissed and often pathized into something that is quote all in her head. Because the male body has been the default in medicine, conditions that primarily impact women like PCOS and endometriosis are underresarched, misunderstood, and underfunded. And for endometriosis and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a diagnosis can take years, even decades.

All the while, the individual with it is expected to live with the pain and the debilitating symptoms. Even conditions that are commonly understood in men like autism, ADHD, and cardiovascular disease are misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and underdiagnosed in women. In May 2025, the CBC reported that the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the CIHR, has mandated the inclusion of sex and gender as criteria for awarding grants since 2010. Despite that, a group of researchers found in 2023 that less than 6% of Canadian health research funding went to women's health and that while women's health was focused on pregnancy, breast, and gynecological cancers, doctors and researchers wanted the field to be broadened to include conditions like migraines, and chronic pelvic pain, which studies show are more common amongst women. This health gap not only impacts patients, it carries into the operating room for female physicians.

In an interview with the Canadian Medical Association, Dr. Fiona Matal, an obstatrician gynecologist in Calgary, said this. Sexism has been around longer than medicine itself. While there has been progress, we are now seeing more females and males in medical school classrooms. Disparities still exist at higher levels of administration where decisions are made about where health care funding goes. There is a lack of support in operating room budgets and there are still inequalities specific to sexual and reproductive health beyond women's health. We are constantly struggling for access to care for our patients. In addition, equipment used in surgery is designed for male surgeons resulting in challenges for the female surgeons. So, not only are women patients experiencing challenges in accessing the care they need, female clinicians are also facing additional roadblocks. A recent study from January 2026 found that while female family doctors spent more time caring for patients, they earned less money. On today's episode, we speak with Tracy Lindenman about her book, Bleed, Destroying Myths and Misogyny in Endometriosis Care. We talked to her about how her pain was dismissed for decades and how it took 24 years to be diagnosed with endometriosis and adenomyosis.

She tells us how the lack of knowledge about her condition led to decades of her having to advocate for herself and how that changed how she sees the role of doctors and why she ultimately decided to get a hysterectomy. Tracy Lindenman joins me now.

Nam Kiwanuka: Tracy Lindenman, welcome to the podcast.

Tracy Lindenman: Thank you for having me. Towards the end of the book, you write, "I was diagnosed at 35 after waiting 24 years. Being robbed of that time is probably the greatest injustice of my life." You had your first menstrual cycle when you were 11, and you had been experiencing this chronic pain from the time that you were 14 years old. What was it like for you to finally get receive that diagnosis at age 35?

Tracy Lindenman: It was like, tell me something I don't know. I already knew what I had, right? It was just getting someone to rubber stamp it, right? And to tell me that finally the system recognized that something was wrong with me and that, you know, they were maybe going to do something about it. So when it happened, you know, like laying on the table, this transvaginal ultrasound transducer inside me, right? And I was just so angry. Like I was just so angry. It had taken so long. Yeah, I wasn't relieved. I was angry.

Nam Kiwanuka: Tell me more about that because you also talk about anger in the prologue.

Tracy Lindenman: When women have any kind of chronic illness, and you're told to suck it up, that what you feel isn't really that bad. You know that to a previous episode it's all in your head maybe even or maybe what you're experiencing is mental illness and not physical pain. Like there are just so many things that you're told to say and feel but anger is never one of them, right? Women are never allowed to be angry and you know especially you know probably your experience too women of color can never be angry right with a doctor because you know like it's just not an acceptable way for women to be in this world.

Nam Kiwanuka: You write in your book that anger can be power. How can anger be power?

Tracy Lindenman: Anger, number one, that's a lyrical reference to The Clash, which is an underwriting theme throughout the book is like my love for punk rock, but also anger's power, you know, because finally you get to express yourself the way that you are and it's a little bit like you no longer care as much about what other people think of your feelings, right? Like you kind of get to transcend some barriers that had been put there for you and that maybe you put there for yourself and you're finally able to say the things that you really want to say and because you've already been mistreated right for so long like what's the difference? Like you've tried being the good patient, you tried being the docile patient, you've tried being, you know, all these different things and then finally you're fed up and you're like, you know what, I'm just going to be as angry as I feel. And that's rewarding sometimes.

Nam Kiwanuka: To even think about your situation because you had your first cycle at 11 years old. You started feeling this pain when you were 14 years old. And I think when we talk about chronic pain, something like endometriosis, we don't really think about it happening to younger women. And from what I've been learning about it is that a lot of times for women who end up having endometriosis, it starts very young. And so you during those formative years where you should be concentrating on what I guess what teens are supposed to concentrate on, you're always in pain. And I think it's also like it teaches you things when people don't believe you. Especially doctors.

Tracy Lindenman: Yeah. Yeah. So, I started seeking medical care when I was 14, but my periods were awful from the very beginning, like really, really long, really, really painful. And, so, you know, being 11 and saying that, you know, everyone in my family said, "Well, that's normal." Like, that's just part of being a woman, you know, cuz of course when you get your first period, you're like, "Congratulations, you're a woman." You're like, "I'm literally a child. Like, I'm 11 years old, but thank you." But yeah like you know a lot of people in around you say that it's normal because maybe they also had terrible periods. There is a hereditary component to endometriosis.

That you know they've normalized it because their parents normalized it because their parents normalized it. And so you really have no idea of how far back it goes. The pain and suffering because everyone has just been told that it's normal, that it's supposed to be that painful and you know those periods are supposed to be that many days. And learning what's actually normal, you know, learning that so far after my first period, you know, learning that in my 30s, like what's actually a normal amount of blood to lose, like what's a normal number of days to have a period, what's a normal amount of pain to feel? And I was like, this was never normal. But and yet everyone around me, including, you know, my mother had been told that it was. And so, you know, and then the doctors say it too, of course, but you know, living in especially living in Quebec, having access to medical care was a whole other story.

Nam Kiwanuka: You write the feeling of quote having no options and that quote do the dismal math on all this and becomes clear we're being given care by a system that fundamentally does not care about us and that quote it's delusional to think that in a world full of abuses of power that medicine is somehow exempt doctors are given enormous trust and power by patients and society at large and some doctors abuse it out well um I think most people want to believe that if you are in pain or need care for your health that doctors can help you. It's not only their job but their moral responsibility. How would you describe your experiences with doctors trying to access that care? Yeah, we we do think it's should be their moral responsibility. Why else did they get into medicine honestly and a lot of doctors will tell you that they did it for because they wanted to help people.

Tracy Lindenman: But what ends up happening through a lot of different things is that that's not what ends up happening in the patient's experience. And you know the knowledge that doctors have is seen as kind of like an authoritative element in the room whereas the knowledge that patients have about their own experiences is not considered knowledge at all. Right? And there's this concept that I talked about in the book a little bit called epistemic injustice. You know, epistemic meaning like how do you know what you know? But injustice is like there are some people whose forms of knowledge are not recognized as knowledge at all. And you know when you're in a room with a doctor and they're like well I went to school. Did you? And you're like no but I live in this body 24/7. And they're like yeah but I went to school. And and just that upholding of, you know, these systemic forces in that in that doctor encounter, you know, in these closed door environments. And that's just a one-on-one experience, but it's also something that reverberates throughout the system, right? And like a lot of people who don't have contentious relationships with doctors are comfortable receiving that kind of I I got the knowledge to give to you about you. But when you're constantly told that what you know about yourself isn't real or valid, then you start really questioning how the system operates.

And yeah, like the abuse of power becomes more obvious in those situations because they're not listening to you in the way that you want to be heard. And so, you know, there are a lot of reasons why doctors may do that. You know, the training system is not kind to them. I understand that. They're also told like the social element of medicine is really never fully accounted for. You know, the how do you treat patients is not medical knowledge. That's social knowledge and the socialization of doctors is not really necessarily well managed. But like so much of medicine is interpersonal. It's not stuff you learned in an operating room or in a textbook or in an autopsy room, right? Like it's actually the social stuff that doesn't get enough attention. And so, you know, that's where it all plays out. Like that's where the inequality really plays out in in how you know you get treated in or mistreated I guess in the doctor's office. And those little power dynamics, you know, especially for me, like I came from a home where like I didn't have great parents, right? And they had substance abuse problems and stuff like that. And so I already felt neglected at home. And then that power dynamic was replicated in the medical system. And it was just the same thing over and over again being told by, you know, these systems that, you know, they're supposed to care for you and that they actually don't. It must have been really difficult too because throughout the book you write about different experiences that you had just the like the I don't want to use the like put words in your mouth,

Nam Kiwanuka: But you had a black book that you kept notes of your visits to the doctors.

Tracy Lindenman: At one point a doctor suggests that maybe you have borderline personality disorder

Nam Kiwanuka: Because I guess they didn't like how you were reacting to what they were not doing for you. And then at one point you're in the ER and you're hemorrhaging and a nurse dismisses what's happening with you and then proceeds to have a conversation about you where you can hear.

Tracy Lindenman: Yes.

Nam Kiwanuka: You can hear the conversation. I just want to talk a little bit more about that because when you go through a medical system that doesn't seem to understand what is happening to your body and then you try to advocate for yourself because I don't know about you but like I was raised in a family where you look to authority and you respect authority people and authority figures like doctors, teachers, etc. And it's really nerve-wracking. It was really nerve-wracking for me to push back against what the doctors were were saying or when I was being my pain was being dismissed. How do you think that has changed you?

Tracy Lindenman: I think ultimately the experience made me trust myself more

Nam Kiwanuka: In terms of understanding how my body feels, you know, what's normal, what's not normal, when to push, when to back off, that kind of thing. A lot of people who have any kind of chronic pain condition kind of go through cycles of like seeking care and then pulling back because it's just very overwhelming to like constantly be exposed to doctors and and that kind of stuff. And so like I've always just kind of uh well not always but more recently I've started kind of being like I need to take a break from doctors like I can't be ex like so I'll cancel appointments or move them out and that kind of stuff. Um because I don't have like the mental capacity to like deal with the project that is like long-term chronic pain, right? It's like cuz it's my daily experience, right? Like well now like I don't have periods anymore because I went into surgical menopause when I was 36 but I also have like a chronic back condition right so like just trying my best to like manage it in the ways that I manage it that are accessible and less invasive to me and then only seeking care when I've like hit a wall and I need to I need to actually like consult a medical professional and so trusting myself to kind of be the judge of that is is kind of how I approach seeing doctors now. For better or worse, I guess.

Nam Kiwanuka: You write quote, "I lived my medical struggle relatively quietly until recently as a serious journalist, and serious journalist is capitalized. As a serious journalist writing about serious stuff, that's also capitalized." I had to ask myself how much I wanted people to know about my body. I felt weak for letting the pain reverberate throughout my life. For the longest time, it felt like if I opened the door and finally talked about it, my health problems would grow to define me. Worse, they could change how people see me. I could look crazy for taking on a system that society views as an altruistic force constructed for the good of mankind. First, I understand this so much. It's hard to put yourself out there when you already feel so vulnerable. So, why put yourself out there? Why write this book?

Tracy Lindenman: Um the when I was finally diagnosed, I finally felt like there was like an arc, right, to the story, right? It was just this like slow ever climbing feeling of like seeing another doctor and another doctor and another doctor and another doctor and then finally the diagnosis is almost like a peak where I was like finally there's like a turn in the story, right, where I can kind of come back down. Um, and because writing a story that doesn't have an arc, like it just feels like when does this book end, right? Um, so finally getting um the recognition that there was actually something very wrong with me uh kind of provided that impetus to um to finally say what I wanted to say.

Also like I had been a journalist for so long never writing about myself and never writing about you know even women's health really that much beyond you know a couple stories in the news and so I thought it was time for me to try a different form of journalism like it was part of my professional aspirations as well of just instead of doing the daily news and you know that kind of stuff like be finally writing something more long form. So, it was a professional challenge. It was also the personal challenge in the sense that I finally was able to to put an end to this story or or some kind of ending anyway. And then I I think I finally had like the the perspective that I needed on my own suffering and the suffering of other people to, you know, to to make meaning of it, right? And not just to be mad about it, but to like tie it to history and to tie it to like all the things that I ended up tying it to.

Nam Kiwanuka: And in the book, you've done so much research. Was there was it was part of it for you to say this is not just in my head. This is not just a me problem. This is something that's happening systemically and has been happening for a very long time and we need to start paying attention to it.

Tracy Lindenman: Yeah. Like the there are like more than 700 citations in the book and the reason why is because I felt like I needed to make a bulletproof case, right? Like I needed to bring all the evidence

Nam Kiwanuka: Um to say like this isn't just an embodied experience that women feel right that that like it's something real like this is part of like a you know systemic patriarchal force that we are kind of made to comply with. Um, and to so to bring that like you know like feminist expression to what was being experienced was was like a really powerful experience for me and that's something that really resonated with a lot of my readers um because you know they they had been looking at it from a different angle the angle that they had been told to look at it from right like that doctors are altruistic that they get into this for all the right reasons um they're just here to help you and it's like well are Hey,

Nam Kiwanuka: When you were 26, you decided that you wanted to get a hysterectomy. How did you come to make that decision? And was it a difficult one for you to make?

Tracy Lindenman: No, it wasn't cuz I never wanted kids. And to me it was well, it's just logical, right? Like I have terrible periods and I don't want kids. Why don't we just get rid of the thing that's giving me the terrible periods? Like to me it was such a like you know my access to the medical system was you know hard. Being able to especially growing up in Montreal like you know the medical system in Canada is like not great but in Quebec it's especially awful. And so I was like instead of making me go through all these appointments like over and over again like why don't we just like solve this once and for all you know? And so I offered it as a solution to my doctor being like, "Am I not so smart for coming up with this idea?" Uh, and then she was like, "You're crazy. You're going to change your mind. You're going to want kids." And for someone who only knew me 15 minutes at a time for a couple years. To say that to me who has known myself for all of the 26 years at that point I had been alive. I was like, "How do you know me better than I know myself?"

Nam Kiwanuka: Well, at one point you asked your boyfriend to write a letter to your doctor. Why did you do that?

Tracy Lindenman: Yeah. So, that was the surgeon. Because I had finally like graduated to seeing a surgeon to consulting a surgeon about having surgery, right? So, I was like, I want to make sure I do it right the first time. I don't want to like leave anything on the table or anything not addressed, right? And so, my boyfriend couldn't like my boyfriend at the time, we're not together anymore, but my boyfriend at the time like we we both didn't want kids. We had never wanted kids in our entire lives. And so I was like, but he couldn't come with me to the appointment. So, I was like, "Can you if you can't come, like, can you at least write this letter just in case I need it?" Right? So, I had it in my purse folded up. And, you know, I was like, I'm not sure if I'm going to need it. But then I ended up referencing the letter, right? Because I was like talking to the doctor and he was like,

Nam Kiwanuka: You know, yeah, let's do the surgery. Like, let's do the surgery that you want. And I was like, "Finally." You know, and and then I kind of joked about the letter in my purse and he was like, "Oh, like you don't need that here."

Tracy Lindenman: But I didn't know the like the fact that I didn't know if I would need it or not like says more about

Nam Kiwanuka: Yeah.

Nam Kiwanuka: But it's great that you finally ended up with an adult who was like, "It's your body, your choice." Um just I just want to also u make sure that for anyone who's listening that we know that um uh hysterectomies don't cure endometriosis. Did you know that at the time?

Tracy Lindenman: No. Um, but also I think I think I had like to me it was also symbolic like I needed to get rid of it, right? Like to like do something about um what I was experiencing and in the end it was the right call because it drastically changed my life. Um, I also had, as I learned, adenomyosis, uh, and endometriosis. I had both. Um, and the a lot of my symptoms, a lot of the digestion problems that I had that, you know, the doctor was just like, "Oh, I guess it's just IBS." Um, were actually endo. Uh, because I had endo on my colon. Uh, and my the endo, like the plaque of endo on my colon was, uh, fused to my uterus and it was pulling my uterus backwards. Um, and so I had a lot of weird symptoms and pains associated to that and removing the uterus eliminated that, right? Because it was no longer being pulled back. Um, and you know, the adenomyosis, which is, you know, an inside the uterus kind of phenomenon, uh, was addressed by the hysterectomy. So,

Nam Kiwanuka: Oh, I had that fun one, too. Um, it's so I I giggled a little when you said IBS because that's something I like I I don't know if I've ever met a woman who's not a doctor hasn't said you have IBS and it turns out to be fibroids, PCOS, or endometriosis. You write something that made me feel heartbroken for you. Um, when talking about how your hysterectomy has impacted you, you described that quote, "Indendometriosis was just a massive monster under my bed, it shadows creeping up the walls of my life whenever I shut off the light that I wasn't able to see beyond it. I may have also stopped seeing myself as a whole person. Can you tell me more about this?"

Tracy Lindenman: Andis was kind of like this thing. I mean, it's been five years since my hysterectomy, so my life has really changed dramatically in that time. Um, but like it was something that kind of stopped me from doing a lot of things in my life, right? Like that. It just felt like um like there was always like reminders of like the things I could and couldn't do or you know like I also write about how you know Endo kind of um directed like what choices I made in my own life like am I going to go out tonight? Am I going to go socialize with people? Am I going to go on vacation? When do I go on vacation? Like when do I go on this trip? Can I organize it around my period so that I don't have to have my period on uh when I'm on vacation?

And the um all of those like persistent reminders like it's always on your mind like you're thinking about it constantly even when you're not on your period because it controls so many other aspects of your life, right? And so it is the monster under the bed that like you fear, right? Because you're planning to experience the pain. So you're thinking about like, okay, like I have to get all this stuff done. I have to uh you know, I have to make sure that I do XYZ before, you know, the PMS starts and then um you know, and then finally I like I'll be out of commission for these days and then I can't go on vacation and my friends invited me to this thing, but I don't really feel like doing it. And so it really directs so much more of your life than than ever than people ever recognize or give credit to because a lot of people are just oh like it's a few days out of the month like it's really not that bad. It's like yeah but it's my whole life actually like and so and and then it would kind of you know at the worst times like when the periods were really heavy and the pain was really bad that's like when it started to emerge right like that's when the monster is like hello I'm here. Um, but you always know that it's there, right? Um, yeah.

Nam Kiwanuka: Yeah. It's a very lonely experience and I've had lots of my friendships suffer because of that because it's kind of like living with chronic pain. People just don't really understand it. And who wants to go clubbing when you have like a pad this thick? Not to get too graphic. Um, you wrote about birth control pills and even Lupron. These also have really adverse side effects for some people. But yet instead of addressing the condition that you have, you're given medication that can actually create other harm for a person, especially for women.

Tracy Lindenman: Birth control is supposed to be a firstline intervention for conditions such as endometriosis or just painful periods, right? Like when you're a teen, a first-line treatment is not the only treatment. A first-line treatment is supposed to be the first thing you do before you decide to investigate further, right? And so but a lot of doctors just stop at first line. And especially in Canada, the experience that a lot of the people I spoke to had was there was a lot of gatekeeping of access to the system where you know like there's so many people with this problem like you know why can't you just suck it up and take birth control like you know there not a lot of surgeons and they have really long weight lists and you know the the diagnostic process you know for the longest time exclusively involved surgery and access to surgery facilities and like and so there was a lot of gatekeeping of the system by general practitioners and generalist gynecologists who don't know anything about endometriosis or fibroids or or PCOS or anything like that.

And so like but it's always kind of funny because it's not free to see the generalists either, right? Like it costs the system something to continually go to your family doctor or to a walking clinic or to regular gynecologist when you're bleeding out. Yeah. And that's the most expensive intervention, right, is to go to the ER. And so those are those things are also not free. And also, we pay the taxes that they're protecting us, protecting the system, like they're they're preventing us from accessing a system that we paid for, right?

Nam Kiwanuka: What do you want people to know about what it's like to live with a condition like endometriosis and you try to get the care you need in a system that doesn't seem to understand it?

Tracy Lindenman: Like you said earlier, you know, it's a very lonely condition. And so, you know, from the onset of symptoms or or any kind of condition like fibroids, adenomyosis, like anything that causes like really terrible periods that are kind of unpredictable and pain levels and that kind of thing, like it's a very isolating and lonely experience. And so, you get depressed, right? And also you get depressed because people don't believe you because people don't seem to like really understand because all your friends and your family members are like just suck it up. Like everyone has a bad time. And so all of those things really make you question reality, right? You're like am I just weak? Right? Like did I just imagine this? Like is it really as bad as I feel like it is? And so there's this whole, you know, playing games with your own mind kind of situation where you try you go through these cycles of trying to address it yourself, trying to ignore it, trying to seek medical care. Um, and then you kind of restart them all when you've had enough of one, right?

Tracy Lindenman: Um but the like the the mental load of carrying that for years and years and years because the delay of diagnosis is allegedly 7 to 10 years but so many people are way outside that 7 to 10 year time frame. I don't know like I don't think I spoke to anybody who had a really easy time getting a diagnosis within just a couple years of onset of symptoms. Um and so yeah, like you you just suffer through it. Um thinking that, you know, this is just the way my life is going to be and then, you know, you get depressed from that. Like you get anxious about the pain that you know you're going to feel soon. Um anxious about the pain you're already feeling. Uh anxious about, you know, can I do all the things that I need to do or want to do with the the things that I've got going on? But of course, you know, most governments don't recognize endo is a disability, so you can't even get disability benefits. Um so you have to work, you have to go even when you're not feeling good. Um and so all of these things like they just pile up. It's a very cumulative effect. And then going to the doctor and all of this stuff has been happening to you every day of your life and then they see you for 10 minutes and you're rushed in and out. Um, and then they just listen to your symptoms and say, "Well, what do you want me to do?" It just feels like no one's really looking out for you, right? So, you do feel alone in that sense, too, because it's like, "Well, the people who said they were supposed to care for me don't care about me." And like if they don't care like I guess nobody cares, right? Um and so that feels very sad I think. And so like the but also like just all of my like crazy experiences with doctors including like that, you know, that conversation that the nurses had that I overheard like those things are just like they end up becoming reasons why you don't seek care, right? Like that you don't want to go to the doctor and expose yourself to this because you they've already proven to you that they won't do anything for you. Um and so you know the traumatic element is trying to trying to get help from people who don't care about you and then um and then just suffering anyway. Uh and that cumulative effect like really uh affected me mentally and it affects most people with endo I think mentally uh in ways that we are still not totally um reckoning with. Um and yeah like endo is a physical illness but it should also be seen as like you know a mental health crisis. No one is supposed to endure that much pain.

Nam Kiwanuka: We spoke to someone earlier in the season who said that endometriosis behaves like a cancer and therefore it should also receive the funding and the research like cancer does. But um you're right that it takes an average of 17 years for research evidence to be introduced and integrated into clinical uh practice. And that's just an average. If a cure for cancer took two years and a cure for endometriosis took 32 years, the average would still be 17. Um, writing the book must have been therapeutic, but learning something like this makes you feel what

Tracy Lindenman: It makes you feel like um that women are prioritized. What like and not like and not even that we need to be prioritized but like could we at least get like equal care and treatment could we at least get equal consideration um you know this one in 10 number one in 10 women have endometriosis I tried to find the source of that I couldn't find it anywhere I asked people who've been working in endo for decades I'm like where does this come from and no one could say but meanwhile whenever I just talk to women about endo Almost every woman that I've spoken to has some story. Either they personally experienced it or their close friends or their mothers or their sisters or their, you know, whoever. And so I think it's probably actually much more common than one in 10. Um, and yet, you know, it's not even treated as something to be concerned about. And I guess if it's so common, like why address it? We're kind of being told that it's just part of the human exper the female experience, right? But it's also like like if one in 10 women get breast or one in eight women get breast cancer, like the funding that is unrolled for breast cancer research is crazy. Like there's so much money for breast cancer research. And if endo is at least as common and probably even more common and yet like breast cancer like is awful. Like no one I don't want anyone to have breast. I don't want to have breast cancer, but like if you catch it early enough, like the recovery rates are pretty decent for most some people. Um, but

That's just like a time in your life, right? Like from the onset of cancer to remission, like that's a period of your life. And then, you know, you do have to do screenings in the future and that kind of thing. But whereas endo is a sustained experience from the onset of symptoms until menopause essentially and then sometimes even after menopause because a lot of people have reported symptoms after menopause. And so it's like a lifelong condition. Um and that still doesn't get any funding for like these lifelong chronic things and and it shouldn't be an either or. It could just be this is something that impacts women and we need to do the research and the funding and people shouldn't be asked to live with pain um without getting the care that they need. Um how are you feeling?

Nam Kiwanuka: How do you feel now?

Tracy Lindenman: This has been an emotional interview.

Tracy Lindenman: Um no, yeah, I feel honestly getting that surgery changed my life. Um the uh it wasn't a great experience having the surgery, especially you know 2 weeks later hemorrhaging to the point where I lost like 40% of my red blood cells. I didn't have a great time having the surgery. Uh but postsurgery 5 years out I can say my life is so different. It's so much better. I can actually like make plans for the future like and I can do things in a more long-term way because I was stuck in survival mode. Right. For the longest time, I was just kind of navigating like the everyday struggle of being alive in this world and in this body. And now it's like and I can actually make plans and like you know I went back to school like you know I did a masters and now I'm doing a PhD like you know I made big change like I moved to a different country like I you know there's so many different things that I was actually able to do after I had the surgery.

Nam Kiwanuka: Tracy Lindenman, it's been a pleasure speaking to you and thank you for writing this book. I imagine it must have been hard to do because even just reading the stories and having had that same surgery, uh it's hard not to separate what it is that you're doing as a journalist from what happened to you as a person. So, thank you very much for making this like leaving it on public record that this this matters.

Tracy Lindenman: Yeah, thank you so much.

Nam Kiwanuka: This was Mistreated. Thanks so much for listening. You can follow our show wherever you download your podcast so that you can get notified each time a new episode is available. We would love to hear your feedback. You can write me an email at mistreatedodcast@tvo.org or you can reach out to me on social media. Here's a comment we received on YouTube from our live episode on menopause treatment. Outstanding panel and I love the amazing host. Thanks so much. These are wonderful, brilliant women and I appreciate the personal experience discussed here and the fabulous input from two terrific physicians. Thank you for this highquality programming on such important medical concerns. Tackling miss and disinformation is critical. Huge gratitude. Thanks so much for leaving that comment. We appreciate it. This week's episode was produced by Matthew Omera and me and edited by Colin Kish. Camera work by Ricardo Diaz. Digital shorts by Ariana Longley and teleprompting by Alisa Verley. Production support from Jonathan Hallowell and TVO's digital media services team. Lori F is executive producer of digital. John Ferry is vice president programming and content. Thanks so much for listening.