I've fought a war nobody could see for most of my life.
On the surface, everything looked perfect. I was a high-performing executive leading global teams, building strategies, crushing quarterly goals. My leadership scores were exceptional. I showed up. I delivered. I excelled.
But inside? My body was collapsing.
Severe endometriosis. Interstitial cystitis. Pelvic floor dysfunction. A constellation of chronic pelvic and bladder conditions creating the perfect storm of invisible illness.
Every single day, my nervous system operated in survival mode—managing relentless pain signals while simultaneously handling quarterly projections and team leadership. I became a master at compartmentalization. I gave everything at work, then collapsed at home.
I was physically present for my family but emotionally and energetically absent—watching my life through a fog of pain and exhaustion.
I was performing wellness while my health crumbled beneath the surface.
The Cost of Invisibility
My partnership with my husband shifted from 50/50 to 30/70, then to 10/90.
He carried almost everything at home—bedtime routines, dinner prep, school pickups. He brought me food and medicine when I couldn't move. He came to doctor appointments because I couldn't remember what to say through the brain fog.
He wanted me on medical disability a year before I finally broke. But I refused to surrender what I'd worked decades to build.
The guilt was crushing. I sat at a desk all day, accomplished my work from the comfort of an ergonomic chair, and still had nothing left for the people I loved most.
The hardest part about fighting an invisible war is that you're fighting alone. No one could see my pain. No one understood why I was so exhausted. And worst of all—for years—doctors didn't believe me either.
The Thing That Saved Me (That I Didn't Know Was Saving Me)
I've been tracking what's happening with my body for years. Scattered across apps, notes, AI conversations, scraps of paper. Bladder symptoms, pain locations, food triggers, cycle patterns, medications, stress levels.
All of it documented. All of it there.
Just like at work, where I naturally collected evidence, gathered feedback, looked at data, made decisions. That's just how my brain works.
But here's the problem: I had all the data. Mountains of it. But I couldn't connect it to tell the story to my doctor in a way that was concise and impactful.
I remember working on a particularly tricky project with my leader—tons of data points, several factors that influenced each other, all interconnected in ways that were hard to explain. We were strategizing on how to present it all when he said:
"We have to use this data to tell the story so the audience understands the impact."
That clicked.
I realized: This applies to everything. Including my health.
I didn't know it yet, but this insight would become the bridge between my daily suffering and medical understanding. I just needed the right moment to use it.
That moment came on the worst weekend of my life—and it changed everything.