IPPS Annual Fall Meeting - It's Here!!

Today (Thursday) from 8:00am to 5:00pm I was at the IPPS Annual Fall Meeting Basics Course, a one day seminar

• ...for medical students, residents, gynecologists, physical therapists, urologists, primary care physicians, nurses, surgeons, pain management physicians, psychologists, neurologists and basic science researchers who would benefit from a more detailed introduction to the concepts and terminology of pelvic pain issues and treatments before attending the IPPS Annual Fall Meeting on Chronic Pelvic Pain.

Wow. Looking at the list of all the different professions represented here makes me appreciate how multi-faceted pelvic pain is.

It was great. Over the course of a whopping ten lectures, a few breaks and a cocktail hour, I learned a ton, met fabulous people, and got a lot of ideas not only for future blog posts, but also for how the medical world can change to better serve both patients and clinicians.

It's now 9:30pm and I am snuggled in the top bunk of my HI-Chicago  hostel room, just a few blocks away from the Palmer House Hotel where the conference is being held. 

I am so grateful to be here. I would love to fill your brains with all the wonderful things I learned today, but that will have to wait for future posts...yawn... It's bedtime, people. 😴

IPPS Annual Fall Meeting Starts on Thursday!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! This Thursday through Saturday I will be at the

International Pelvic Pain Society's Annual Fall Meeting 

Yikes.

It is intended for doctors, physical therapists, and students, not patients, so it took a lot of guts to sign up. "Who am I to crash their party?" I wondered. And yet, and yet. I am so looking forward to learning, and sharing that information with you. I also hope to spread the word about this website, so more women can find it and get the sisterhood they need to make it through to the other side.

The meeting is in Chicago, which I have only driven through once before, and happily the event is downtown so maybe I will get a chance to see a few sights between sessions. (Very few - the schedule is packed.) I'll be crashing at the local hostel, and perhaps will pass the word on there about YatraYoni as well.

I am excited, but also nervous.

I'll be traveling alone to an unfamiliar place, going to an event for which I am under qualified :). My good girl complex is rearing it's ugly head - I am not one to bend the rules like this - so I am trying to remember two favorite quotations of mine:

Well behaved women rarely make history.

and, from Eleanor Roosevelt,

Do one thing every day that scares you.

(Okay Eleanor, I am and I will!)

Of course, other than my handy dandy quotations, the other motivation I fall back on is YOU.

You are the reason I write, the reason I research, the reason I fly halfway across the country to attend a medical conference when I am not a medical professional. I write for you because ten years ago, no one wrote for me. 

Please know that when you are in despair, there is a real person who has walked this path and won, and she is reaching back to help you along. Not only that, but she is thrilled at the support YOU are giving HER by reading this blog.

We can do it! Hugs!

Oooh, the Chicago Skyline. Windy City, here I come!

ADDENDUM: November 3rd, 2014. I found the name of the woman who coined the phrase "Well-behaved women rarely make history" in this article here! Her name is Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and she is a history professor at Harvard.

Visiting with My In-laws

Visiting my in-laws is a whole different story than visiting with my family. Whereas my family is reserved, my husband's family is Brazilian.

You can imagine the culture clash. 

My in-laws only met me once before I developed vulvodynia, so they never got to meet athletic Faith or overachiever Faith or actress Faith or loud Faith. They instead see foreigner Faith, quiet Faith, exhausted Faith, and sunburned Faith.

I find it challenging to be around my in-laws because as Brazilians they have endless patience for people. Family get-togethers, late night dinners with friends, even buying toothpaste - everything is done in a group, the larger the better. As a non-native Portuguese speaker, the cacophony of voices that accompanies every activity makes it difficult for me to follow the conversation and quickly exhausts my brain.

Whenever I am around them I feel like a party pooper.

* * *

How have I dealt with pelvic pain with this troupe of loud, loving, social people? By clamming up.The same technique I used with my family, but for a different reason.

In my family pelvic health is personal and therefore confidential.

In my husband's family, such information is legitimate grist for the lightning-fast family communication network.

If I told one person about my pelvic pain, EVERYONE would know: not only my in-laws, but also cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and the cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents of the cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

Family friends and their families would know. The barber would know. The car mechanic would know. 

And I would be mortified.

This news-spreading is a national past-time, and in no way would my family mean to harm or embarrass me. Folks simply want to know how everyone is doing, and I have yet to discover a topic that is out of bounds.

So, while I have allowed my family to think of me as lazy, uncooperative, or a disappointment, I get the impression that my in-laws think of me as a weird American, a fragile being from a strange world where solitude is something enjoyable. 

In my early trips to Brazil I tried to attend every activity, but over the years I have learned to ask for time alone, and my new family has chalked up this bizarre request as a cultural difference. 

Being brave enough to pipe up and ask for accommodation, even if it is attributed to culture clash rather than health problems, has helped me a lot in handling the overwhelm of being in pain while in a different family, climate, culture, and time zone.

* * *

These days my pain is gone and my energy levels are up. Maybe some day I will adapt to Brazilian customs, but for now I am happy that I chose to retain my privacy, and even happier that over time my in-laws will get to know the new me: Healthy & Happy Faith.