Heavy Duty Hysterectomies: Special Guest, Tigress Osborn

Hi, welcome to Big Sexy Chat. I'm Chrystal. I'm Merf. And we're just two rad fatties sitting around chewing in the fat twice a month. We'll be chatting all about current events, hot topics, sex, sex toys, relationships, fat politics, cannabis, CBD, you name it. We're gonna talk about, we're really excited to have you part of our community.

Welcome and enjoy. Hi, welcome back to big sexy chat. My name is Chrystal and I'm here today with of course my fabulous co-host Merf and we're also excited to have Tigress Osborn with us here today. So, Hey ladies. Hey. Hi. How's it going? Merf I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to talk to Tigress and have this bonus episode for so many people, cuz I know that it's going to resonate and it's gonna be one of those that the ripple effect is just amazing and make a big difference for folks Tigress.

When we were talking about this. You know, it's clearly not that sexy , but we really wanted do it because we know how important it will be for the fat community. And we said, well, let's do it like a bonus episode. So although won't be the super sexiest episode, it's gonna be really, I think, informative and helpful.

So welcome everybody. You're so happy to have everybody here. And it's always exciting to have Tigress in community she's wonderful and just always fabulous and amazing advocate and activist. And she does so much for all of us. And if you don't know her, trust me, she's, she's helped out with something that you, you can do nowadays with Viv.

You're a fat person because she's been doing this activism for about 15 years, RIS 20 something like. Not, not 20. I started full figure entertainment in 2008. So I used, I came into this by way of running a plus size nightclub event in Oakland, which I do like to think was very sexy. We were a very, it is like, you know, dress up and have fun times kind of event.

Oh yeah. And so, yeah, so since 2008, I've been sort of a public figure of fat visibility. Absolutely. I'm so happy for all. I'm so grateful for all that you do for all of us fatties. And so Tigress and I have something in common. We both had a hysterectomy about the same time I had mine in December, 2020.

When did you have yours? I had mine. I had mine in July of 2021. So about six months after me. Mm-hmm  and we're both fat and I'm 54. Oh, and I should say that, you know, tonight we might be talking about some things that might be a little bit sugaring for people. We're probably gonna mention exact weights or, you know, I don't know about exact weights.

I don't know if anybody knows their exact weight, but you know, we'll be benching numbers probably. And we're gonna talk about some stuff. That's tough, tough stuff around women's reproductive health and organs and all that good stuff. So if you're triggered by those kinds of things, we'll try to put some resources where we will put resources in the.

And we definitely have I'm sure a lot of resources that we wanna share. So if, if it triggers you to watch this or listen to this, maybe you can read the resources and we'll have the transcript there too. So people wanna skip over things. I don't know. It is gonna be a great talk and really useful and helpful.

And we're gonna I was gonna also say that Tigress used to be from what used to live in here in the bay area. And this is where I met her here in the bay area. So she was running these really fabulous and sexy events in Oakland. And I did get to go to one. I went with my mom. It was, it was, it was so fun.

Oh man. It was very sexy, very beautiful, cool venue and just tons and tons of really awesome events. And now Tigress is in Arizona doing what she can in Arizona for all of us who are on the liberal side of life and all of us who are fat. Yes  thank you.  yes. The liberal side of life is there's more of the liberal side of life in Arizona than people think that I, yeah, I keep hearing that.

It's still, it is it. It is not the bay. It is not the bay. It is not open. So they're pretty spoiled here. So I'll turn it over to you, Murr. Yeah. I wanna give some information on hysterectomy. So, sure. You know, hysterectomy is when we're removing the reproductive organs of a female and, and taking out the uterus, the ovaries, the Philippian tubes, all that stuff.

And so there's different types. You can have partials, you can have a full hysterectomy. There's lots of different variations of that, depending on what the need is for the individual. And so, we're gonna be talking about how our reproductive health impacts all kinds of things. Mm-hmm,  just your, your physical body, your mental health your engagement with communities supports how you feel about your sexuality afterwards.

Like, and just being able to, you know, React and, and engage with people when there's a lot of myths and misconceptions is what I'm getting at. You know, there's things that people believe that happens when you, you no longer have those reproductive organs. So we're gonna talk about a lot of that. And I think we'll just jump right in.

let's refer to people as uterus, Havers. Maybe it is difficult to have these conversations without anyone anywhere saying something thatno that is like very firmly centered in the gender binary. Like one of the things that I know is like, as, as hard as I work to, to not use binary language around these things, does everyone else in the medical system around me very much was.

So I just wanted to apologize in advance if I, you know, quote from people who did that, or if I slip into that I tend to use the, I always use the term urate to talk to about people, whatever gender identity who have those physical parts, but then when I didn't have a uter anymore, I was like, so am I former U or am I just the U like, you know, what, what, what exactly do we do with this language?

But I just, you know, thank you Chrystal for acknowledging that, cuz I. You know, I'm, I'm very aware of that and I'm very aware of it. When I go one of the, the big pieces of, of having this procedure and preparing for this procedure for me was that every time I had to go to the women's health department in the, the local, you know, clinic that I go to, and it's very clearly marked that, and I have lots of trans and non-binary loved ones, and I know what that would mean to them.

If they were having reproductive health stuff and they had to constantly be checking in at the women's health center. I had a lot of sensitivity around being someone who is. Childless and who has mixed emotions around that and having to constantly be in this environment where everything was about motherhood and happy motherhood, like in in the clinic that I did a lot of my pre-op stuff in they have like all these, like pictures of pregnant bellies that are painted with flowers and smiley faces and stuff like that.

And it's like, just thinking about all of us for, for any of the many reasons related to our identities, our life experiences, our traumas, whatever who are not there for happy reasons, and that have to have that sort of like constantly bearing down on them is something I was always really, I, I had a lot of tenderness around when I was preparing for, and then following up from my surgery.

So I'm just, I'm really grateful that that y'all are creating a space where we're thinking about who might have tenderness sensitivity, trauma around any of this like language and procedures. Yeah. And we can all, I mean, for sure start talking about uteruses and fallopian tubes. We can all fall back into that very binary language.

So I I'm sure I'll screw up too, but let's do our best. Right. All of us, all we can do is do our best and try to be tender with other people's tender feelings. Absolutely. Thank you. So let's jump in. Tigress would you like to share what your experience was with getting a hysterectomy and kind of the, maybe start out from what your symptoms were and kind of lead into that, that whole scenario.

So, so the, the sort of long story  is that, or the long range story is that I, you know, I was a person who had a period pretty early. I actually started in my period, like the, the same week we were doing the thing in, you know, in school where you like go in the many of us grew up at a time where there was like a thing where they separated the boys and the girls and the girls watched the special film strip.

And the boys, I watched some of the special film strip and talked about masturbation or something. I dunno what they did, what free to be you and me. Yeah. And right. And they were all these com companies like, you know, carefree and, and Tampax and stuff that sponsored these things in schools, these education programs that were also, you know, meant to make you an early user of their product brand.

And so , so I started my period, like at the, like the same week as that, it was almost like the little lecture was like, you know, and go, right. So. So I had, I had been a, a, a person who bleeds since I was 11 years old. I'm now 47. I had my hysterectomy when I was 46. And and for large periods of my life, I had like I had very regular periods and then I had no periods and no matter what, whether I was on birth control or whether I, you know, what whatever was going on in my life, didn't always impact that, but it was always still healthy.

And and through my thirties, I was, I had a pretty regular cycle, you know, every once in a while I'd get a little off track, but then it would like sink with that. And it was, you know, sometimes kind of heavy, but nothing to be concerned about. And then I think it was in my early forties that it really sort of started to become like, What the hell is going on here.

And what is this murder scene that I am dealing with all the time. And I know we didn't say in those, in the content warnings, like anything, it's gonna get graphicness of descriptions, but you know, I. It was just, you know, I was bleeding a lot more heavily. I was bleeding a lot more. I used to always tell people three dimensionally because I was having a lot of clotting and increasingly the cloting, it was started with like a little bit of cloting and then it started with like, is that an organ that fell outta my body?

Like, by the time I was. Actually on the active wait list to have a hysterectomy, by the time we made it to that decision, my medical team, and I made it to that decision you know, during the first year of the pandemic. And so there was, it was still considered an elective surgery for me, like you bleeding, you know, 10 to 15 days a month heavily is not a problem to us in terms of whether you're gonna live.

So that's still considered an elective surgery, not a life saving surgery. So you're just on the wait list and you're gonna be on the wait list for however long that is. And so I waited for a long time. But by the time I was, you know, coming up close to it, I remember I think it was like the, I don't think it was the final period before I had the surgery, but it was pretty close to that, that I, you know, I was showering and like, I thought like a creature ran down my leg or something like there was the, like the size of what fell out of my body and rolled down my leg.

I seriously like in the shower with me that I can, it was, it, it was just unreal. And, you know, and part of what happened is elders and elders. In this case who mostly were cisgender women would hear some of these stories and kind of go like, oh, that's how it was for me in my forties or, oh, that's how it was for me in my fifties.

But like nobody had ever said that before you had to get to, we're talking a little bit more about like para menopause and things like that now. But in my generation, at least where I grew up and then where I was, you know, living my adult life, it wasn't until I was already having those things happen to me that the conversation started opening up around, like, why don't we talk about any of those things?

So I knew about hysterectomies and I knew about menopause, but I didn't, I didn't know. That's what I was gonna say. 10 year period before menopause. Yeah. Let's just, let's just say it now for anybody who's liar, right? Per menopause is at least 10 years, you might get lucky. It might be less, but it also might be more mm-hmm  and there's gonna be a 10 solid years and most people.

Finish their their into menopause by the 51, but I was almost 53. So it's but 10 years of, like you said, horror shows and like murder scenes of periods with huge clots and disgusting gross stuff. And while, and even if you're comfortably, like, even if you're somebody who's not, I'm like, I'm not easily grossed out by my own period.

Right. I wasn't easily grossed out by my own period, but even then it's still something shocking. And for me, there was something still a little bit like disconcerting about seeing this, like my body didn't used to do that, you know, and it is doing some things. And every time I think we've hit the stage, we're like, that's the most of what it's doing then, you know, some entire Cal liver falls out of my, my legs, whatever.

And like, What is happening here. Right. So, and, you know, but for me there was like all the usual suspects, like the C P C O S and endometriosis, and, you know, and do you have fibroids? Like I had some fibroids and they kept telling me like, yeah, but they're not in a place that should be causing this heavy bleeding or, you know, they're not big enough to be causing you as many problems as they're causing mm-hmm

So there was always like, sort of a little bit of mystery and it just and because of that, there was a long period of like, well, we just want you to get an I U D and see if that works, or we just want you to, we want you to have ablation and see, you know, see what that does. And I was really, for people who don't know, ablation is like a procedure where the lining of your uterus is C is down either frozen out or burned out.

And it's usually an in-office procedure. It is usually a low risk procedure, although some of the possible Complications can involve like burning through fun the wall of some other organ or like there. So, so like it's very, very low risk if that happens, but when it happens, it's pretty frightening.

And then there was just like the discussion of what would happen afterwards. If you, you know, if you have the sort of burning kind then, oh, you know, well, when for, for six weeks, you'll probably, you know, feel some, you'll have a lot of discharge and you'll, you'll smell things that smell like you've been at a barbecue and I'm like, I don't like any part of that, especially if you're telling me that it all just might grow back in a couple years and I'll be right back where I started.

So, it also, for me the There was a recommendation that I not have that as an outpatient procedure that I have that cause of my sciatic pain and the difficulty I would have like sort of staying in position to have that as an outpatient procedure. Mm-hmm  that I'd be anize and have it as an inpatient procedure.

Well, if we're doing all that during COVID, we might as well do the surgery. Right. So that's how we kind of made our way, you know, it was like sort of a long winding road from this seems a little unusual, oh, this is actually pretty usual for a lot of people who, who have uterus, but it is still an inconvenience.

This is more than an inconvenience. How can I work and manage my life at this level of bleeding now I'm anemic. Now we're gonna get, you know, really get more serious about this. Quick question. Yeah. I was just gonna ask, you know, from, from the start of, of really working with your medical team to when you actually had the procedure, how long did you have to advocate for yourself to have the actual hysterectomy?

I got lucky because once I once I got the team that I've been working with, since I moved to Arizona, they were pretty  like, they, they listened to me a lot. I mean, they, I think the first doctor was sort of like, you should just have an ablation. It's not worth that other stuff. And the next doctor who looked at my records and talked to me you know, we, we were doing video calls by that point, but then that doctor was very much like, I think the right choice for you might just to be, to have the surgery.

And so the, for me, more of the waiting time had to do with COVID and timing and hospital availability than it had to do with fighting with doctors. There, you know, there was a little bit at first of a, like, this is not something that's killing you, so just live with it. But, but once I hit the first doctor who was like, no, this is a very serious, like life altering thing for you, even if it's not.

even if your life is not in immediate danger, this is the, the way that this is impacting your life. And I, you know, especially because I do also have chronic pain, so the sort of like my sleep was being affected because I was bleeding so much that I was having to get up so often to change. But the last period that I had, I, the only reason I did not just spend the heaviest day, just literally sitting on the toilet yeah.

Was because my sciatic pain would not allow for that. Otherwise I would have, because by my last period I was, I was sleeping.  in a diaper with an overnight pad in the diaper, on a puppy pad, on a towel and still bleeding through stuff onto my, you know, clothing and bedding and stuff. And so, yeah, I I'd been wearing adult diapers for, for months.

Mm-hmm  I had sort of developed that pad in a diaper procedure because pads are lot, a lot less expensive than the diapers. If you are a larger person who's considering using diapers as backups, I will tell you that I wear you know, size in, in quote unquote women's fashion size, you know, 26, 28, or sometimes 30, 32 underwear and an extra, a double, extra large in most mainstream diaper brand still works for me because they're that they, and I'm very belly heavy for people who are thinking about whether that would work for them.

And I was really lucky to have another friend who is very belly heavy, say like, girl, it could fit my apple it'll fit your apple kind of. So I know that your mileage might vary for different body types, but all of that to say, like, you know, that's not anything like, I don't know how I would've been working.

If I had not been, I was bleeding like that during COVID. So I was working from home when I was working. So I could do things like just sit on a black towel and change my clothes all day and do change, run to the bathroom all day. But right before my COVID layoff, the last conversation, serious conversation I had with my boss before that layoff was just like, listen, my, you know, people around here seem real interested in how many breaks I take.

And I'm gonna tell you my first few months, Working here the worst days have always fallen on the weekend or on a federal holiday or something, but coming up next month, I'm gonna be in the bathroom at least once every 45 minutes or else you're gonna have to replace my chair. And she was just like, why don't you use my executive bathroom?

Like just work in my office those days, where you're next to a bathroom. And you know, and then, you know, and then COVID shifted everything. And I ended up being laid off and being working from home during those like next few months when all of the heaviest days were gonna fall during the work week. I don't know how I would've been able to continue to work especially in a workplace without an understanding supervisor or, you know, cuz even when you're, once you're at the point where like even diapers, aren't working, you have to have break time.

You know, you have to be able to do that. So that was why, I mean, I just like I got, I had a pretty feminist gynecologist as part of the team of gynecologists that I was working with. And I think that that probably helped move things along. I have one question and one thing to add about the diapers.

I'm larger than Tigress in that my my weight is around my lower tummy, thighs and hips. And I also found some diapers that work. So I will definitely put that brand in the notes and I found it through a group. I think that we all belong to called caring for our fat bodies on Facebook. And I just asked, so who's found a diaper cuz I'm consistently a size 30 pants.

So I, and I'm like all my weight's right down there and I found these diapers. They were actually even a little big for me, which is lovely. Cuz they're so comfortable. I was like, oh I could get used to this.  it's really nice. But then the question I wanted to ask you was what was your diagnosis before?

Like did they say you have endo? Did they say you have, you said you had some polyps. They said, they said fibroids. And I, I had there were fibroids that they could see on my, all of my ultrasounds. I'd had several ultrasounds. Because the first time I had a really serious incident of like super heavy bleeding.

Sure. I actually went into the ER because I wasn't sure what was going. I hadn't been prepping that kind of bleeding and I was and I had a sort of public disaster with a a menstrual cup cause I was, I was in, I was in a public restroom and it was full even though I had just emptied it. You know, 30 minutes ago at the last public restroom or whatever.

And I dropped it and it just like, it was like a mur. I mean, it was just like all a murder scene, like all blood all over. Like I had to have them close the bathroom down kind of thing. And then even with all of that, like my friend ran and bought some PA, like I just stayed there. My friend ran in Boston pads and underwear and whatever.

And even with all that, by the time we got to the car, I was bleeding through those next things. So I called an advice nurse for my insurance. And they told me to go to the ER, that it was probably P menopause related, but we, it was better to be safe than sorry. So that was my first vaginal ultrasound mm-hmm

And from that time they could see fibroids, but it was always, these fibroids are not like, you know, I would hear from other people about like, I've I, these doctors, doctors would say things to me like, well, once I removed a fibroid, the size of a basketball from some and mine were like tiny, like mine were really tiny to be causing so much havoc.

and where they were was, you know, they, doctors kept telling me, right, this is not a place where they should be causing you this much havoc. Once they actually removed my uterus, it was, it was more enlarged than they had seen on the on the ultrasound. And the fibroids were bigger than what they thought they were.

But even so, like, there are lots of people who have much larger fibroids and they have a lot more pain than I had, but they don't have the kind of bleeding I had. So everybody's just kind of different now. Merf you have endometriosis, right? I do. I have endometriosis in poly polycystic ovarian syndrome and, and hearing, hearing Tigress describe What you've experienced is where I'm headed.

So I'm I most recently, when you said Cal liver, I was like, holy shit, somebody else has experienced this too, because I, I just recently bled out and I'm fully anemic now I'm to the point where I almost need to have a transfusion. And a CLO came outta me. That was the size of my Palm mm-hmm  and ran down my leg.

And I was just like, what the fuck? Like, I was just, it was terrifying. And I'm getting on the flip side of that. A lot of like, First of all, no one is gonna allow you to have a hysterectomy because you're too young and you're still a childbearing age. So you may change your mind, even though you've said you don't want kids, we're gonna assume that you may change your mind.

So you're not gonna be able to do that. Oh, but Mer, what if you just got your husband's permission, would that help? Yeah, I know if I just Haven a 10 day waiting period and got him to sign off on it. OK. But can we out there for a second? Cause you might have some listeners who just think you're kidding about that.

But there actually are procedures around Fe you know, female reproductive organs that, you know, especially getting your tubes tied that cannot, will not be performed by any medical team, if you are under a certain age. And if you are partnered, do require you to have a legal document from your spouse, giving their permission.

So for people who like don't know that, that wasn't just like, like us kind of being smart asses about that. Like that's like for real, it's just, it's, it's so comforting. In my position to, to, I haven't had a hysterectomy, I desperately want one because I can see that's where I'm headed and I'm having so many problems medically because I, I need it out of me and I don't want it in me anymore because I have all those issues and I still continue.

I got the ablation talk, I got the I U D talk and I'm not gonna let it go. I'm gonna continue to bang the drum, but it's just so comforting to know that other people are experiencing this and that there are resources available because honestly, if you had asked me three or four months ago, I would've just been like, I'm screwed because I'm fat and there's never gonna be an option, you know, to have an adult diaper that fits me or have these things, you know, and we shouldn't have to think that way.

Yeah. It's really frustrating. Yeah. I wanna Mention another resource group. Chrystal mentioned the caring for our fat bodies group on Facebook, on Facebook. There is also a group called fat positive and queer positive perimenopause. And it is gender inclusive. And you know, and it includes people from, you know, people who've had hysterectomies, who've had partials, who've had ablations, who've had like, who've done none of those things who are trying natural remedies who are just living with it.

Like it includes a wide variety of, of people, you know, and some people are just living with it. And I was, you know, the, one of the positive side effects for me of being laid off during the pandemic was that, that meant that I was on government insurance. Mm-hmm . And so I was now part of. So that meant that I didn't have to worry about coverage to get this done.

I didn't have a choice in doctors. I got lucky with doctors, but one of the things that it did mean for me was I worked with a medical team who worked with a lot of fat people because when you work in a low income clinic in predominantly black and Latinx areas, you know, there's a greater propensity of higher weight folks in those areas and in that socioeconomic class.

So for, for all of the complicated social reasons, or maybe not that complicated racism reasons why, you know, all those folks are in the same place at the, at the poor people's clinic, which I, you know, was and am. And and, but what that meant for me was that I had a surgeon who'd worked on a lot of fat bodies.

Whereas if I had been out at, you know, one of the suburban. Let stale hospitals or something. I might have been the first fat person they were ever considering working on. And so my surgeon was very confident and was actually like super reassuring about cuz I ask very direct questions about body size related stuff.

I don't wanna hear bullshit about BMI mm-hmm , but I do wanna hear where your bullshit about BMI is gonna get in the way of me doing what I need to do. Right. So is there a cutoff for this anesthesia? Because the pain doctor had a cutoff for me to get these shots I needed because of the anesthesia. Do you have that here?

My doctor was like, do you honestly think I'm you're the fat person I've ever worked with? Yeah. You know, and so, you know, and, and, and I was just really lucky that way that he was very matter of. About body size. And so was the anesthesia team at the hospital where I had my procedure. They were just, and to them, it was just like a non-issue the way it should be in everyone's medical treatment.

Right. It should be, I've had experience working with these various kinds of bodies. So yours is just another one of various kinds of bodies. And I was very, very lucky in that way, but it was the sort of like, you know, the surprise twist of being at a low income clinic. Yeah. And I'm privileged, right?

Like I am. I am articulate and articulate in English as a first language. I am a brown person. I am a light-skinned brown person. I'm a highly educated person who is not intimidated by people with medical degrees. So I have I go into this space and who's like packed, armed with, you know, armed with information about what their bias is about.

All the things I am fat, childless, middle age brown, all the things, right. I go in well informed about all of those things. So advocating for myself looks a little different than it can look for other patients. And and if you are not that person and you are not in the middle of a pandemic where they won't let you take someone with you, take someone like me with you, you know, because even as that person, with all those privileges going into those spaces, When it's you, you still can have some nervousness about it, or you can forget things because you're thinking about the other questions you had or, or whatever.

And so, if you can take an advocate with you, I highly recommend that to I don't Chrystal, did you get to do that or were you too deep in pandemic times to take anyone to your point, RIS about you having been ready and you have found your voice. Also, I found my voice and I was ready as well. So I had my, my armor, my fat person armor on ready to pounce when anybody ever mentioned anything to me.

But the thing is, nobody said anything to me for a really long time, till like an hour before my surgery. And I was questioning them. Cause I was like, nobody's questioning me. I was kind of worried, cuz that's not typical, but. I can get into that in a minute, but it was when the person was taking my blood pressure and I was like, oh Lord, I had to educate everybody around the bed.

But you know, I, I'm lucky to have found that, but no, I had to go in alone. And now actually we were right before a surge of COVID. So they didn't let me spend the night. And my boyfriend's like, are you sure? I think you should spend the night. So they, no, you have to go home. We didn't want you in the hospital with all the COVID people.

So I had to go alone, but it was fine. I was fine. I'm 54. I, I have some thick ass skin now. I've been fat since the third grade. I, my COVID the way that COVID impacted my surgical experience was I did finally get to have surgery during a time when my surgery was scheduled at a time when things were low and then things spiked, but I was already on the schedule.

So I got to keep my date. But part of what it meant was that when I came into recovery, I had some I had some oxygen problems during the surgery. And so I needed to be on a BIAP when I came out of the surgery and I and, and the, and the doc, my surgeon did believe, like there was nothing else in my medical history that said I would definitely have that problem.

I have sleep apnea and some people with sleep apnea do experience some of the oxygen problems, but they usually even write out I was on what is called a, I think it's Trund Berg table and they were gonna do, they were gonna do a robot surgery. I know Christian Chrystal, you have a robot surgery story too, but they were gonna do a robot surgery with me, a different procedure than the one Chrystal was doing.

But similar. And they put you on this tilt table. And when they tilt you a lot of people, especially people who have sleep apnea can, they can see a drop in their blood oxygen. And what normally happens is when they tilt you back, you even write back out.  and I didn't even back out for so long that they had to actually stop all the procedures and have the anesthesiologist monitor me for a while.

And they really believed that that was a result of me having had COVID that's right. You had just gotten over it, but there was nothing, there was nothing else, you know, like even the sleep apnea didn't indicate that I shouldn't even back out. My surgeon had never seen anything like it. So they, they attributed that to COVID.

And then when I had to be in the recovery area after surgery I was in one of those like crappy recovery beds for a super long time before I actually got a room because the hospital was so full. And so, and when they finally moved me into a room the, the person next to me in the recovery area was just like sobbing and in terrible, terrible pain.

And she had just had a mastectomy. Excuse me. And I wanted to give her my bed cuz it was the last bed in the hospital. They wouldn't let her have it because she needed to be in the cancer wing. So that's, those are the ways that COVID, you know, I mean, other than the surgery delays yeah, because of the scheduling and stuff, those are the ways that COVID impacted me, but I ended up having a full incision surgery.

So I had a, you know, so I have, I have this sort of like classic, I don't even have the like bikini C-section looking scar or whatever. I have the classic, like I call it the Frankenstein, you know, smiley face. No, I don't have, I don't have the smiley face. I have a straight line down the middle of my belly from my belly button, you know, down to the, the top of my  yes, yes.

Down to the top of my pre big area. So, so I had, you know, so I had the, that you know, you know, I, I have that scar  I was always interested why they didn't do the robot surgery, but it sounds like there was a lot of good reasons because the, at, at my hospital, they only do it through that Berg method where they have you on that table and I couldn't stay on the table long enough to gotcha.

Yeah. Makes sense. Mm-hmm  yeah, yeah. I get it now. Yeah. And, but what about your, what was your robot one? Like, so you had a really different experience with the surgery itself than I did. And with the setup. Yeah. Yeah. I'm always curious why, you know, why were you and I just approved, not like immediately, but like without much debate about our weight to have her hysterectomies, when other people can't get their knee surgeries and their hip replacements, unless they're under certain BMI and all that other bullshit that never came up for me.

And it sounds like that really didn't come up from you for you either until you brought it up.  mm-hmm . I mean, I think some of it was that it seems like you and I had some luck of the draw involved in who we had as our actual medical teams, because certainly there are other people who have You know, dealt with doctors who suggested that they lose weight before they could have surgery or you'd be safer or you'll be more comfortable or your recovery will be easier or whatever.

I mean, some of it, I think is that you and I probably both go into the space, like we're, I'm not here to talk about weight loss. I'm here to talk about you doing something with the body I have right now in a way that, you know, in a way that a lot of other patients aren't there yet on their journey of self-advocacy around size stuff.

So when the, when the first doctor says, well, you know, this, your bleeding might not be as heavy if you lost some weight because fat stores estrogen. And so maybe you would, then they go, oh, I should try to lose some weight. Whereas I might have had some of those slots in the background, but I'm also still gonna ask you to tell me what you would tell the person who wasn't my size.

Mm-hmm . I only wanna hear about my complications that have to do with my weight, if they're actual practical complications, like I can't lay upside down on this table, cuz my belly is too big. Then I want you to tell me if there are other alternatives for what kind of table there is or like I want, you know, I wanna do that kind of practical stuff.

Mm-hmm  but for so many patients, yeah, a combination of. You know, personal shyness, modesty intimidation about the medical system and internalized fatphobia can all be part of the reason why when the very first person says anything about wait, they go, oh, that person must be right instead of, oh no, we're gonna do a different thing.

Hi, let me introduce you to a different kind of patient today. Yes. You're gonna get a new religion today.  mm-hmm  I actually I had my surgery in a, you know, because I was at accounting hospital. That is a teaching hospital. So that means I'm not just working with my surgeon and my gynecologist. I'm working with like 1700 approximately people who come in and come this room to learn something from the science experiment of me.

Yeah. I am fine with that. I'm not shy about people seeing my cause I would just tell people, well, Chrystal knows, cuz I used to model that's for lingerie fashion show. Everybody see my booty. Go ahead. You know, and so I, I'm not shy about those kind of things, especially in a medical setting, but also in the sex types, setting big sex attack.

Mm-hmm . And so, so I don't care about the other people being around or who saw the inside of when you cut me open, whatever. I don't care about any of that. And I'm happy to engage with these people who are learning. And so what happened is I had an actually an undergraduate medical premed student who was doing some kind of summer internship thing at the hospital and who just came into the room at like 5:00 AM while I was in recovery to check my vitals, cuz he's got a chat practice, you know, checking my vitals, but they had introduced me to him.

So I knew he had been in the observation area during my surgery. So I was like, have you ever heard of the national association to advance fat acceptance? And I'm a different kind of patient than you might be used to, let me tell you about this and then engaged him in dialogue around things like you know, many of your listeners might not know this, but like most medical medical students do not ever practice on a cadaver that is fat because there is no medical school in the country that accepts higher weight cadavers.

And it has to do. The logistics around embalming, a cadaver, which is different than embalming a corpse. And like that makes it like a hundred pounds heavier. And then we're gonna have to move this around and blah, blah, blah, excuse, excuse, excuse, and what that, but what that means is fat people cannot donate their bodies to science and therefore medical students never practice on fat bodies, but like ex like walking this undergraduate medical student through that and watching them be like, wait, what do you mean?

Part of what I was able to say to him was you got to observe a physician who didn't do any of the things to me that I know through my activism, get done to fat patients all the time. And you may not know how rare that is, but I know how rare it is. So please take that learning, apply it to everything that you become as a doctor and share it out with your classes do better.

Right? Absolutely. Do that. Do better. Chrystal, did you have students in your procedure? No, not that I know of. I had some assholes though, but I'll tell you about them in a minute. Okay. Yeah. Let me stop talking so we can hear your surgery story. Merf I don't remember. I remember that we talked about at Tigress's role at Napa and when we were, before we started recording, did I mention that she is not here for work reasons or this reason that she's part of the Napa organization, but did I say that when we did it the second time, I don't think so.

Yeah. Okay. So for people who don't know what Napa is, UMTS is the national chair of Napa, which is aafa.org online. And it's called the national association to advance fat acceptance, and they do so much great work and we'll definitely put them in the notes. And Tigressres is a part of that organization. And you have been for a couple years now, right?

Tigress. I mean, I think I've been on the board since well, I've been the board chair for a couple years. Yeah. I've been on the board since 2014. Yeah. And for a few years before that, I did some stuff, fashion stuff at the Napa conferences through my night club event. Right. But I've been the board chair for about two years.

And so I was the board chair when I had this surgery. And so just as, just as I am not officially here as the NA board chair, I was not officially a hysterectomy patient as the NA board chair. But while I'm here,  let me tell you exactly, you know, my young intern friend about some of these. Because that's just what, you know, I, I, we, all of us who are activists and advocates should have permission to turn that off when we need to, in order to manage our lives.

For sure. And also sometimes I don't want to turn it off if I've got the, the, the bandwidth to do that advocacy, especially in such a unique situation. Yeah. If I've got the bandwidth, I wanna do it so that someone else who doesn't have the bandwidth doesn't have to, or the next time I don't have the bandwidth, somebody who's already did some of that learning and teaching, you know?

So, so yeah, so I, you know, we, so we just, you know, we had a little bit of a. Little bit of Napa hiatus while I was recovering, because I was, you know, if I'd had the robot surgery, I would've had a few days of recovery. Yeah. But with the full incision surgery, it really was more like, you know, they said four to six weeks recovery.

I had other people, especially other large belly people. Talk to me about like, really that might look more like two months to really prepare for that. Sure. And, and take it easy. Um, You know, one of the best things that happened to me was, well, you had gone through your surgery already. Mm-hmm  so I had us resource but also other people in fat activist community were just so generous with sharing the details of their experiences and the, and their learnings around recovery.

Like try getting out of bed this way or think about getting you know, there was a lot of discussion around like binders or girdles or things like that to do after the surgery. Yeah. To help with recovery and healing. And I ended up learning from, you know, another leader in, in fat community. I think it was rabbi Amina from fat Torah.

Mm-hmm  Who was like, you know, what about a plus size pregnancy band? Because that might be more comfortable. I couldn't get into it. I couldn't get into a binder because of my chronic pain. Yeah. But I could get into a plus size pregnancy band. Sure. Well, I wasn't thinking as a person who just had all the pregnancy parts removed, let me get some pregnancy, let get some pregnancy swag to go along with my recovery.

You know, I feel like those kinds of like best practices and tips and stuff were just invaluable. My surgery was definitely easier and my recovery was easier because I talked specifically to other people with diverse bodies about it. It helps big time. So Chrystal, it sounds like there was some time to prep and there was some information given to tyres ahead of time to really kind of prepare.

Did you have that same experience? No. Only because. I was asked on a Tuesday if I wanna have a hysterectomy on Thursday. So I was like, yes, let's do it. But my situation's a little bit different why I got to this point. And I was doing the math when tyres was speaking earlier, I started my period at 12 and I had it until I was 52 when I had my hysterectomy almost 53.

So 40 years of a cycle, most of the time bleeding every 28 days, lots of times where I didn't hit bleed at all. And then at the end murder scene after murder scene, after murder scene for the paramount of ha years, good times. So I, then I got I had a little cancer on cancer free now. It's was just a real strange thing.

I accidentally got pregnant. Didn't know it. I had a miscarriage, didn't know it. And then, then it just all started going really, really quickly. So I had two days to get ready for a hysterectomy and I had to go get COVID testing to get it ECG and a EKG and all this stuff done. So there was no time to really think about, I just knew that I didn't.

I knew it just had to go and I didn't wanna wait any longer. So if they could get me in on Thursday and she said, I wanna get you in before the COVID surge. And I said, okay, let's just do it. And I was off because of the pandemic. So I was, my business was shut down. And so I was like, yeah, this is a great time.

So let's just do it. And so I did it and it was, you know, pretty good actually situation for me, but I have good insurance thanks to my partner. He works for the county. So I have Kaiser afterwards. Kaiser told me that surgery would've been about $90,000 out of pocket, but I had great insurance. So it only cost me my copay 20 bucks, which is pretty amazing.

And they did the DaVinci robot on me. So, but they did tell me that ahead time. So of course I was on Google and YouTube looking up, what is the DaVinci robot? And it's basically apparently it's technology that was developed here in the bay area. And it's designed to have a, a type of surgery where there's just very little.

Incisions things that just aren't are gonna heal more quickly where, like I had a gall bladder removed about 20 years ago. They see those three little cuts on my tummy and one through my belly button. And that's all that has to heal. Really. I had a full hysterectomy, a Tigress. What kind did you, did you leave an ovary?

I left both oh three. So I had, so, and I learned actually, cuz I went, when I went to sign some paperwork and it was like, you're having a full hysterectomy. I always thought full meant all the parts full mince means all of the uterus radical means all of that. I had radical. Thank you. So I was like, I was like, I'm not having a full, I, I'm not, they tell me I get to keep my, what are you talking about?

But it was because if you're keeping just the ovaries, but your whole your whole uterus is being removed. And I also had my cervix removed and fallopian tube. So all I kept was the ovaries, but I kept both. Yeah. And I have nothing and, and a new cervix, I always say I have a new vagina.  low mileage.

it's only a year and a half old. I'm just imagining a used car salesman, slapping, slapping the cervix and being like this baby's brand new.  exactly. Yes.  low miles. Low miles. Yeah. And it's different too, because I think you might know this already at Riss, but once they remove your cer. It's no longer called a vaginal canal.

It's called a cuff or a vault. Yeah. When I asked them, I was like, all right. So I need to know about this cuff because they kept referring to the cuff at the end. Right. They stitch up the end of your vagina. And I, and my, my guidance just told me that like, historically they just left that open. So it was just like, Opening into your body cavern.

Right? So now I do what they call a cuff where it's like a tiny fold over and they stitch that up. Right. But what I was imagining in my head was like the cuff of like a men's dress shirt. Right. Like a cuff, you know? And so I was like, so how much depth of vagina did I lose? Because they made this cuff at the end.

And she's like, no, no. It's like an eighth of an, it's like an eighth of an inch, if that. Right. Yeah. So I didn't lose any depth.  yeah. So here's a sexy time talk. Like I didn't lose any depth. I had some, you know, I, one of, you know, so many people worry about if I have to have a hysterectomy, what is that gonna mean?

In terms of sex, in terms of hormones, in terms of all that mm-hmm  well, I kept my ovaries, so for me, the sort of like sex drive things and all of that stuff were all, are all still where they would've been, how they would've been going along with my chronology anyway. Yeah. And, but, but the night before my surgery.

Why I was still looking up stuff the night, like I'm looking at stuff that I've mostly already read. Right. And all of a sudden I come across like some website that says something like, well, probably if you're keeping your ovaries, everything will be the same. But if you are a person whose orgasm is very connected to your to your uterus convulsing, mm-hmm , then that might really change the intensity of your orgasms.

And I was like, I don't . I mean, am I, like I had to like, really I'm. So I'm like laying there night before my surgery thinking like, how much does my uterus convulse my uterus? Right. Like I know how much my vaginal walls do things. Sure. Right. But I wasn't trying to control my uterus my whole life. I don't know how much it convulses in there.

Right. And so like, I was like, what, what is, what does this mean? And so I was until the first time that I did have sex after my surgery, I was very much like, is what if I. Find out now that all these years that I was, you know, so, that I was, you know, so orgasmic or whatever, that, that was all the uterus was doing all the heavy lifting of that  and now it's gone.

Right? Yeah. But for me, that recovery, you know, that, that piece, all, everything fell into place, so to speak. Okay. Um, But I, I do know though, like, like, I don't want to take that lightly though, because I know how much that first of all, traumatizes people, it does happen to, and also slows some people down in getting the medical care that they need, because they are worried about how that's gonna affect them or their partner or whatever.

Right. And so that piece is really, and my doctor was really upfront before I even asked any questions about this. Okay. Like you might have some questions about this. Let me just tell that's great. And I was really, I was really grateful for that because I had very much grown up with those sort of you know, myths around.

Yeah. You're gonna dry up. You're gonna be like, theara desert. You're gonna right. A woman is ruined, ruined she's forever. She's had that, you know, or she's worthless once she's had that surgery or whatever. And like, I'd heard that kind of language around me growing up when other, you know, older women, or even my, you know, my mom had a hysterectomy relatively young which is part of what we, didn't part of why we didn't know what per menopause was gonna look like for me.

Right. And you know, I'd heard those kinds of things around me. Okay. In the sort of hu tones. Right. Of like women talking, even though the kids are around or whatever. And the things you weren't supposed to hear the grownups saying about well, so, and so's, you know, the reason, so, and so's husband cheated on her is because once she had that surgery, she just wasn't the same.

We're like that kind of shit. That's like, yep. There can be. Elements of that experience to what actually happens to people mm-hmm . But the fact that we talk about it in those sort of discarding ways, instead of with compassion or with, you know, with resource sharing, to figure out how to make it better for those people or like any of that stuff, there was, you know, there was a little bit of that anxiety around it for.

One of the things my doctor did say to me was like, you might find, and many women actually do find that even though they thought sex was gonna be worse after they had it, it's actually better. You don't have to worry about pregnancy anymore. You don't have to worry about whether you're gonna get your period.

If you're somebody who was bleeding, like I was bleeding, like I used to refer to my period as the shining. So that seat, the elevator opens up. Right. Nobody feels sexy when that's happening. I mean, that's. Kink that's. That's fine. Go ahead. What you do, not mine. So let me not say nobody. I did not feel sexy feeling like if I opened my legs, the shining was gonna happen.

right. And so, so there, there was like, that's part of what my doctor was, was reassuring me about was like, you know, you won't have to worry about that element anymore. Yeah. And it's, it's, you know, I still have like, Chris, I don't know if you do this, but like, I still sometimes will, like, I'll be in target and I'll be like, what am I forgetting?

Oh, I need to get right. And I'll go down to the OB and then I'll be like, I do not need to get . Right. It doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while, I still have that. Cuz you live with it for so many years as part of your life. I think I have like the ghost feeling of like, maybe I'm getting ready to get cramps and I'm like, oh no, that must be something different because there's nothing in there.

So I had the radical, by the way, I had everything, including my cervix and I was inverted on the table for three and a half years, three and a half hours while I was sedated for my surgery. And then my vagina assisted with the delivery of all my bits. So everything came out through my vagina, all of it.

And then they took care of closing the cervix up and then no sex for 10 weeks after that. But I don't take any hormones because it was a tiny little bit of cancer. It's was called choreo carcinoma. It was very complicated. We had to send my kitten caboodle off by FedEx to Johns Hopkins, to Kaiser hospitals, you know, looked at it.

Then they sent off to Johns Hopkins for another opinion. And then we had a fourth opinion from Stanford that I paid for. And then, yeah, so it was complicated, but thankfully the cancer was only in my body. It was like two millimeters. So it was in and out pretty quickly and so far so good. I'm on surveillance now, but they give me a pet scan like twice a year.

And that's the one that looks at everything. It's the neatest test ever. And So far so good. And it was basically because I got pregnant. You shouldn't get pregnant at the age of 52. We weren't trying, we blamed the pandemic because what else are you gonna do? You know, you can only do so many puzzles, right?

So like don't have sex against her. So  yeah. It's not, I had a Mo pregnancy, if that means anything to anybody, but since then, as far as I I'm a very, I like a lot of sex. I have a lovely partner who I like to have a lot of sex with. I am not taking any hormones because of the cancer. They were worried that the you know, the cancer can grow from hormones.

As we all know, hormones are running. The whole show, everything that you're doing in a day is all run by hormones. And they took my ovaries out. And for the first time in my life, after my hysterectomy, I had my first hot flash. I was like, oh, this is what it feels like. Cause I've never had one. And then they lasted for about a month and then I haven't had one since, and I'm not taking any hormones.

And my sex life is fantastic. Again, waiting 10 weeks was trick. Actually I had to wait like 10 and a half weeks because my friend said we were in Las Vegas and for, to visit my family. And she's like, could you just, could you guys just wait a few more days until you're back in Kaiser country? I was like, bitch.

Cause then she got in my head, you know, and I was like, fuck, she's right.  because Las Vegas is not Kaiser country. So, but we're like, but she just wanted to be close to your medical professional. She was right. But you know, I was like, emailing my doctor, could we have anal sex? No, I'm like, oh, so we figured stuff out how to have some fun, but you know,  anyway, it was, yeah, it was so, but everything's fine now.

I don't have any, I don't have any issues with desire, but I am. I've always been a person that likes a lot of sex. So maybe that helps. I know, but some people, it does affect their desire. I don't have any issues with lubrication, but if, when I do, cause sometimes it happens to people. I just use good lube you know, the store bought kind and.

So far, everything seems to be pretty normal. I, I did have you guys already had a Lu episode of your big sexy talk show? Cause I feel like there's a lot of like vaginal dryness, shaming. There is sort of like, I mean, you know, God bless WP cuz that song slaps, but also that song reinforces the idea that there's something like inherently better about natural lubrication than if you need some kind of other lubrication.

And like if you need some kind of other lubrication, just no shame. Do it. And guess what find your sometimes and your favorite? Yes it out. Sometimes it makes sex. Way better. But what I used to say when I did all those home parties, look, there have been times when I've been really turned on and super dry, and then I've been really wet at certain times when it wasn't like all that.

And I'd be like, don't, don't, don't get all excited. I'm not that turned on just my body defies me. And it's just wet right now, but youre, nothing you're doing is really that special. Cuz you know, sometimes it just wasn't and then, but then other times I'd be, you know, it just there's no there's no rhyme or reason.

So there's no, there's a reason why they make lubricant because all of us have issues at some point or another. And also if you have a really good lube, we talked about this already. Didn't we Murf loop a little bit. If you have that really good silicone loop. Yeah. Oh man. It takes like your, your your Honda Toyota sex to like rolls Royce sex, even if you're already wet on your own.

So don't shame people for how wet they get or not. And don't shame people for using lubricants. There's some really good ones out there and Yeah. Remind me which one you love. Merf millennium. That's right. Millennium ID, right? Yep. ID millennium. Lube. I wanted to mention where I did get a little bit of fatphobia during my surgery.

So Kaiser, you know, they sometimes have your reputation for a lot of medical fat phobia, but I didn't run into it too much for all of this whole situation for other things I have. But when I first got to check in to the hospital, you know how, you know how, when you see another fat person out in the wild and you're like, I see you.

Mm-hmm  mm-hmm  you look so cute. I love your outfit. Even if you're just saying it with your eyes. I go, this, I was I getting ready to get checked in. And my, the lady was checking me in big girl. I was like, okay. Yes, she sees me. I see her. This is gonna be great. And then I get into her office and she has this little baby chair for me to sit in.

I was like, oh, Uhuh, I go, can I have another chair? That's my butt's not gonna fit in there. Oh, you don't have any other chairs? You don't have any other chairs in this whole building.  she? And she had like one of those $500 ergonomic chairs. I was like, she like could just, just stand. You're gonna be, you're gonna be laying down for a long time soon anyway.

Yeah. Hell of AVAs. Right? I go, yeah, that's true. But I, I don't know if, is this gonna take a half an hour? I can't stand here for half an hour like this. And she's like, well, I don't know what we're gonna do. And I'm like, okay, I need a chair. So we had some person try to find us a chair and they found me something.

But anyway, I was like, so disappointed from this other fellow fellow fat, babe. So that was my little first bit. And I was like, damn, it was going so well. And then nobody questioned whether my BMI or weight was too high, you know, by according to Kaiser's typical response, they're both too high, but they didn't bring it up.

So I finally like, do we need to talk about my weight cuz you know, they can see how fat I am, but they never brought it up. . But then when I got to the room where they do the surgery prep, they tried to put me in one of those little tiny beds. So I was like, maybe they just need me to sit here for a little while.

But then I asked one of the nurses, how long am I gonna be in this bed? Oh gosh, until you have surgery, probably like six, six hours. I was like, oh, well, no, this bed's not gonna work. We're gonna have to find a bariatric bed. Well, she had all these excuses. I go, look, I can't lay in that bed for six hours. It doesn't even fit me.

And she was so annoyed, you know, I have to go find a bed. Yeah, you do big, well, yes you do. I mean, it's like my whole ass is hanging off both sides of the other bed. So that took a little while. And then, then it was time to really start getting prepped for surgery. And I think you probably remember this Tigress, but there's a lot of people in your room asking you questions.

One, person's taking your blood pressure. Another person's checking something else. They're putting the pulse thingy on you. And of course the lady's trying to take my blood pressure with a small. Regular size, whatever they call it cuff. And I go, oh, you know what, my blood pressure's gonna show up really high if you keep using that cuff.

And she's like, well, lemme just do it. So she does. Of course, I'm like I told you, it's gonna be high. I'm gonna just that get one of those large cuffs out of the drawer. And you know, what's bothering her. The, the bags are, are sealed around the cuff. I'm like, okay, well, open it up. I mean, like 50 cents. Okay.

We're talking of plastic. I go, well, just go ahead and use that bigger one. Just works better. No, let me try again. I go, it's gonna gonna come out high and you're making my blood pressure higher by the way. And I said, no, I really, I need the big cuff. If I use the big cuff, if you use the large cuff on me and she'll, well, your arms aren't that fat.

I go, just telling you, I'm a big person. Please use the larger cuff. I have much better results. She tries it a third time. I go, okay, this is ridiculous. You know, so she finally rolls her eyes, whatever, and she gets out the larger cuff and she starts doing, I'm like, can I have everybody's attention in the room here real quick?

Just wanna let you know, anytime you get a person of size in here. Just use the larger cuff. Okay. Don't argue with them. It's really just not that big of a deal. Just take another cuff out of the rapper and just do it. And they're all looking at me, but I'm like, I need everybody to hear me here in this room.

You guys all listen, just in case someone comes behind me. That's not as of loud mouth as I am, you know, and just can't advocate for themselves is such bullshit. And I asked for it like three or four times, it just shouldn't have, it. Didn't have to be like that. So I was pissed, but it finally, I finally got, went in to the room.

I was sedated. Well, not before I got sedated everybody comes in all the surgeons come and check in with you. Right. So then anesthesiologist came in really lovely person. She's like, hi, how's it going? We're really excited. We're ready for you. I go, oh I was waiting like, aren't you gimme a lecture?

What do you mean? I'm like about my weight is this is dangerous. No, I keep fat people alive all the time. That's my job. That's it. I go that's right. I was ready. I was like, come on, bring on and nothing. She's like, no, I always, that's what I do. It's my job to keep fat people alive. I just take, and this is well, and that's what we learn.

Like every time somebody successfully has a medical procedure, what we learn is it can be done. Mm-hmm  and if there's like a risk analysis that we need to do, like, oh, it's 5% more dangerous at your weight than it is what I want you to tell me that so I can make an informed decision. Right? I don't want you to just tell me no.

Right. And let me just say my numbers. So when I had my surgery, I was 350 pounds. I'm five, seven. And usually when I'm at Kaiser, I do get a lot of lectures and, you know, don't you wanna have weight loss surgery? Don't you wanna go on a diet? And I finally just said, could you guys just put it in my folder that I don't wanna be asked about weight loss surgery again, and I'm not gonna go on a diet just so I don't have to get, go through this every time.

But yeah, when I was getting ready to have this surgery, Nobody gave two hoots about it. They're just like, yeah, let's come on in. And I was sedated. I was under for three and a half hours and, and I was inverted and because of the invert being inverted oh. And I do have mild sleep apnea Tigress, but it's, I guess it's really, really mild.

I don't, I don't stop breathing so much, but I guess anyway, and I have a C P, but I they didn't bring it to the hospital with me or anything like that. And I hardly ever use it. I need to use it more often. And there's also another group on Facebook. That's really great for people who are fat and use a C pap P or BIPA.

So we should also put that in the notes, but yeah. I mean, fat pop. Yeah. Acne. That's the one, but yeah, I mean, I'm, I call supersize fat fat person, fat body, and you know, yeah, they just did it. And didn't question me at all. Was I was the one asking them don't you wanna question me about my weight? They're like, no, you're good.

I was worried about the anesthesia piece because I had been turned down for some Epidural shots that my pain doctor wanted to give me for my sciatica mm-hmm  because it was being done at an outpatient surgery center and the surgery center had a BMI cutoff for anesthesia. And I was like one pound under there, cutoff or something.

And he was like, that means if you show up on the day, you're having any kind of little fluctuation and weight and you show up on the day, they're not gonna give it to you. They're gonna cancel your procedure. Wow. And when that happened, and that was a few months before my hysterectomy. And so when that happened, I started doing some research around anesthesia and BMI.

And, you know, for the record, once again, I think we've mentioned this, but like I believe BMI is an, is a totally faulty made up problematic racist tool. And also it is a reality that it's used by the medical system. Right. Mm-hmm . And so I was looking to see. What information there was about anesthesias and BMI.

So that I had a better sense of is this this surgery center or is this anesthesiologist overall? And I remember finding some research from the American anesthesiology association or some information from them that essentially said, like, we, we don't really get that much training on fat people. Right.

And, you know, it's the same thing as everything else, right? Mm-hmm, , it's not that you don't get these things it's that you don't demand these things. Mm-hmm  or like if you're the American anesthesiology association, you should be providing training for, for anesthesiologist about like, this should be part of the certification process.

This should be like, so all of those, like big medical things that are outside of our control, no matter how good of an advocate you are for yourself, if you have to have your procedure at a place that has a policy.  your choice is try to get yourself small enough to, to abide by their policy. Try to take legal action against them, which there's not a lot of precedent for, and not a lot of success with or live with whatever your thing is that you're living or die with whatever your thing is that you have.

And it's ridiculous. It is you know, then you add, you know, PA you, then you add practitioner bias to it. I was seeing a cardiologist because of a blood, some blood pressure spikes I had when I had COVID and and my, you know, GP sent me to a cardiologist for follow up. And because of that, I had a cardiologist when I needed surgery clearance.

But my cardiologist wasn't available on the short notice of like the window of when they told me I needed cardiology clearance to when I had to get it. And so I ended up seeing another cardiologist at that practice mm. Who had never seen me before. And so, as soon as he walked in the room, I could tell just from the way he looked at me, you know, you have that spy sense around when somebody is gonna have an anti-fat attitude.

And I could tell just from the way he looked at me that there, that we were gonna have problems mm-hmm  and he looked at my EKG results and declared that I'd had a small heart attack and said to me You know, if you were telling me you were running five miles a day or something like that, I would say these, that I, that these are faulty results.

But when you're telling me that you don't exercise because of your pain then I'm just gonna say that you had a small heart attack, which meant that I had to do a stress test to get clearance for surgery which was almost got my surgery canceled because of the timing of having to get all that done in time for the surgery.

And when I told my surgeon that all that had happened, cuz it wasn't the surgeon asking for that it was the hospital's medical, you know, it was the medical Systems's requirements that you have to have this sign off by this kind of person and whatever. When I told my surgeon, he was like, I operate on people with much higher blood pressure than you all the time.

Mm-hmm. No. Plus the stress test had come up a hundred percent clean. When I followed up with my own cardiologist after surgery, he looked at the same EKG. And I said, when you look at that, do you see a small heart attack? And he said, no, I see somebody who put the the the sensors in the wrong places to read through your breast tissue.

This happens to women all the time. Shit. So it was as simple as like, you know, but, but that was the head of cardiology that looked at me, saw that I was fat decided that I'd had a heart attack, even though he's looking at exactly the same results as the cardiologist who's been working with me for months, that's such a bullshit.

Right? And so that was one of the places where it showed up. But again, one of the places where I was lucky enough to have a surgeon who said they are the ones being ridiculous. You are safe. Mm-hmm  I have done this.  like, I've, I've done this, I've done this with people larger than you. I've done this with people with higher blood pressure than you.

I've done this with people who have, you know, more other health challenges than you, you are giving to be fine. Mm-hmm  but had I had some other surgeon who was closer to the beginning of their career or didn't have that kind of experience or had more cardiology worship as, you know, you know yeah.

Whatever mm-hmm  I, I could still be sitting around here shining my way through eight towels a week, you know, for shit. So it, a lot of it, you know, a lot of it is I , I do, I do feel really lucky and blessed for the way that all that everything went for me. Yeah. And as the chair of Napa and as somebody who's been an activist circles for a long time, you know, you hear a lot of medical discrimination, horror stories, they don't all end like this.

But, you know, but you don't hear enough of the ones that do end like this. Yeah. So I'm loving being uterus free recovery was wonderful. When I came out of sedation, I was asking for some lumpia because I mean, who doesn't want lumpia  and they're like, why lumpia? I'm like, I don't know. I want some lumpia fried something fried in yummy.

And I'm really relieved that I did it. I had a period for 40 years. I. So many items of clothing furniture embarrass myself and country clubs bleeding through my pants. I'm fucking over it. So I was so happy to have it all gone and I've had a good, my recovery was so fast. Literally two days after my surgery, I'm like, I'm going to the grocery store.

My boyfriend's like, no, you're not. I go, I am. And he said, well fine, then just don't let them pack the bags more than five pounds. The coolest thing about having the surgery for me is that for like six months, whenever I went grocery shopping, he ran out to the car and got the groceries and unloaded my car.

But then after six months that ended, I mean, he could keep doing that. I know you major surgery to have a partner who does that. I'm just saying pretty awesome. I mean, usually I'm kind of like to just be on top of it myself, but I was like, Ooh, I could get used to this  little added bonus. Yeah. My recovery was longer.

Incision. And so I, and I also had I like, you know, I did all the things. I followed all the rules. I washed the way I was supposed to wash all the stuff mm-hmm  and I still got the, the tiniest, tiniest opening at the top of my incision. So then we had to be like super on guard for infection and I did get a little bit of infection.

Sure. And I mean, like I had the tiniest, like, I don't know how this doctor saw this without like the Sherlock homes. , you know, what do you call those things? Magnifying glass magnifying glass. Yeah. I was like, oh, microscope. But the funny thing is my doctor, when I had my surgery, I wanted to ask my doctor to take a picture of my uterus.

And then I was like, he's gonna think I'm a total freak and I'm not asking. I wanted to ask too. And that's funny. So I didn't ask. I didn't even, but he did, he, he just read my mind, he took a picture. He was like, I don't know if you wanna see this or not, but I took a picture. So he had this picture of my uterus with my cervix next to it.

And just because of. Like again, gonna be a little bit graphic, but like, just because of the configuration of like, it's not like they wiped it down before it took the picture or whatever, wasn't pristine little blood on it. And it had a little place where it was stitched, where they had, you know, stitched off the fallopian tubes to cut them or whatever.

So there's like this little stitching that form this little, it looked like a little mouth and it was like, I thought it looked like a really angry fish. Right?  it's one of my friends who likes creepy stuff. Cause she won't be grossed out by seeing this internal organ of mine. And she's like, I'm getting major Admiral act bar vibes from this.

Right.  and so we started star wars jokes about, well, people who don't know Admiral act bar is this creature in star wars. He's the, it's a trap guy from the original star wars. Anyway. I said something to that, the first follow up gynecologist, cuz after my surgery, I saw a different gynecologist. Every time I went back to the hospital for the follow up.

And so I said something to the first one and then the next time, the next time I go in, the person just walks in the room and is like, So I hear you have a star wars uterus, or like, oh, you're the one with the star wars uterus or whatever, by the time I had three or four appointments, it was pretty clear that that photo had circulated the hospital, which was again, fine with me.

Cause they're, you know, they're learning whatever, but that like, all these doctors were having conversations about my gigantic uterus, you know, my big Ute energy. Yeah. And my gigantic uterus UE my and you know, and my a, my star wars themed uterus or whatever. So, but it was at, it was you know, if I had not had the full incision surgery, there were some questions because of the size of my uterus about they do this thing where they like put.

If they do it with the robot, then they have to put this like bag in there so they can cut up your uterus inside the bag and then pull the bag out. And there were some questions about whether they would be able to cut it up small enough to pull it out vaginally without causing some like, you know, scratching or tearing or whatever.

So the good thing about having the fulls in surgery is it meant I had abdominal pain a lot longer, but I didn't have any vaginal pain cuz nobody had touched my vagina during the whole surgery. So there was that part that was that. And that made all like bathroom issues afterwards and stuff. Yeah. Oh yeah.

I had, I, I did have some bathroom issues for a few months, but just, I always tell people they send you home with seneco or whatever, take it and buy some more and take it for a few months and you'll be fine cuz mm-hmm  you don't wanna be bearing down too, too hard for any, anything  for a while, but yeah, that's about that was about it.

And I asked for a photo and she goes, oh, you should have told me sooner cuz I didn't ask until afterwards or like the next day or whatever. And I was like, by the way, can I see it? And she goes, oh too late. Oh shit. So do you, are you having hot flashes or anything like that? No. I'm not having anything.

Are you taking hormones? No. What I did have was I had an ovarian cyst this year, so I kept my ovaries because they were pristine. And then shortly after my surgery recovery, I began to develop a little cyst that caused me quite a bit of pain and discomfort for, you know, the months after my surgery. And that it is harder to get people to take seriously, because if it looks like it's probably not, you know, it looks like it's not malignant mm-hmm  and they they're like, there's no way it's a malignant tumor this soon after your surgery.

Cuz we would've seen signs of that during your surgery. Mm-hmm  so that was comforting, but that did not help me with the pain I was experiencing. Right. So I've been through three more vaginal ultras. I thought I would never have to have a vaginal ultrasound again after I had my hysterectomy. And instead I've been through three more vaginal ultrasounds and an MRI.

To try to make sure that we knew what is really going on in my abdominal area, that's causing this pain. And right now the, the cyst has, did go away on itself. So I had a cyst that grew to the size of a chicken egg. Wow. On my left ovary.  And like many of this, it's I think the term is he hemorrhagic like many of those kinds of CYS, it did actually go away on its own.

But there was a lot of pain and discomfort before that happened. And there was a lot of question about whether it was worth doing surgery when it might go away on its own. And when I've just had recovered from surgery and I'd had the full incision one and all that other stuff. So, and then there was another COVID surgeon, so it was probably gonna be a waiting list again, anyway.

And so, so my ovaries haven't been the most friendly with me since I kept them around. Sounds like it, but they are gonna make sure I'm aware that they're still there.  But my hormones do seem to be working, you know, pretty typically. And I do still have both of them. And if you know, I've recovered from that system, it's fine.

So I feel lucky about that too. Tigress, did you have to pay out of pocket at all? No. Awesome. Very cool. I didn't have to pay out of pocket. I like, I, I You know, I'm almost receiving what in Arizona it's called access. It's, you know, government, government healthcare. That's a beautiful thing. It's the equivalent of medical.

Sure, sure. Where you live. But it is also like, that is another thing where like lots of people who were you know, laid off during the pandemic, like navigating all of those systems is not easy. Yeah. I have a lot of privilege in understanding how to navigate those systems and you know, what to say, to make people do the things I need them to do in a customer service kind of way.

Yeah. And you know, and just like all of those pieces around systems management, Because of my professional background, my educational background, whatever mm-hmm  I just um, I have a lot of privilege in navigating those systems, same that many other who are using those resources don't have. Right. And that, that they don't even necessarily, they have difficulty jumping through all the hoops, getting the resources or making sure they keep them, all that kind of stuff.

And, you know, and speaking of that a lot of times, even I sometimes have executive function issues. And even if, if you can't bring someone with you, sometimes I have volunteered to help my friends who struggle with the sort of administrative stuff. Let me help you with the forms and the paperwork.

Let me, you know, take some of that off of you. So that's another way your friends and allies and family can help out is if someone could help you just keep track of all the paperwork and all the steps and where you've been and who you've seen, which doctors keep it, keep it in a notebook because you think you'll remember, but you won't, especially once you get into menopause, you won't remember shit.

I can't remember words. I have Wordof Phia since that got instant menopause, but. It just, that's another way to have a help a helper with you. And especially these days with many people have COVID brain fog, pandemic, there's all these other things that can get in the way. I, I mean, one thing I will say that I have learned through helping a few different people navigate medical systems is if you don't have insurance or if you are underinsured or if, even with your insurance, your bills are so outrageous that you think you're gonna have a heart attack.

Yeah. When you see them please do find out what financial aid is available from your hospital system. Because a lot of people don't even understand that there's scholarship of aid available mm-hmm  or they think they're not poor enough for it. Mm-hmm . But it actually uses. The calculation at most hospitals, maybe all hospitals uses is, is based on the, what the, where the federal poverty line is, but it's based on percentages.

So you can be up to, I've seen people up to 400% of the federal poverty line still get at least some financial aid and you won't know the answer until you apply and it might be a pain in the ass process, or it might just be a simple form mm-hmm , you know, but it's, but whichever thing it is like that is an option for you.

And a lot of people just don't even know that that exists, that there is financial aid available from hospitals. Yeah. And so please, please, please, if you need to have one of these procedures and you are underinsured or uninsured, you know, please do look at the resources that might be available to you in that way.

Don't just be. Bleeding through everything you own and sitting there in pain, because you're worried about the hospital bills later. See what you can do or see if you have, you know, a friend or loved one who can help you navigate that system. I have one question for both of you Merf and Tigress. I have a feeling, I know the answer to this.

Have you both had a coloscopy? Do you remember that? Having one of those, a colonoscopy where they go in really quickly, like takes 20 seconds and they go take a, a section of your cervix to use for they do that. I, yeah. I, my medical team referred to that as an endometrial biopsy. Okay. So I hadn't heard that term that you, it is one of the most painful things I've ever experienced.

That. What about you Merf have you had one? Yes. Multiple and it's awful. Fuck. And they put that stuff on it that they say it'll look like coffee grounds and it, Ugh. It's just so gross. I'm just gonna tell people if you listening, if you've never had one, you're getting ready to have one.  take an 800 Motrin before you go.

It just helps a little take the edge off. It hurts like hell for like 30 seconds, but that was worse than the whole fucking hysterectomy. Yeah, I think I agree with that for me, that, that, that you know, biopsy was more painful than recovering from the surgery. Oh, mama. I mean, obviously not in terms of longevity.

Sure. But just that, that moment of like, when they give you the scale and, and, and my, my system uses the little frowny and smiley face scale. A lot of you have probably seen that. Yeah. And it's like, you know, the super happy face at zero. And then at the 10, it's like the face where the frown is so big, it's pulling their face off

And I would put that I would put the height, height of that pain at the 10. It's just only, it's a 10 for a very short amount of time. Yes. But I would put it, I would put it at a 10. I wouldn't put my surgery recovery at a 10, even though I had to deal with it for weeks. Me too. Same. It was awful. And the first time I had to have two or three of them in the run up to my hysterectomy, and the first time I had one, the doctor was like, I'm gonna he had told me about it and I don't know if he had understated it or if I had misremembered what he said, but when I come in on the day of, and he's like, so are you ready for this?

And I was like, well, you know, you said it would just be like a pinchy kind of feeling. Right. And he was like, I don't think that's what I said.  he goes, some women feel like it's not really that big deal. And it's just uncomfortable for a minute. And other people have literally asked me how the hell I can give this to someone without izing them first.

Yeah. Yeah. And I like seriously wanted to kick him in his face when he actually did it.  yeah. It was bad. And I just sat in the car and cried, and I had like driven myself there. I was by myself. I just sat in the car and cried afterwards because it was just like, I was so shocked by how invasive and I generally, I'm not a person who has a, like, I have, I'm pretty, I'm pretty easy with invasive medical things.

Like you can put things into things and I'm mostly just like, that's medicine. It's part of what you do. Mm-hmm,  like, it's not comfortable, it's awkward or whatever, but you know, you signed up for this job. So go ahead and put the gloves on, do what you do. Right. Mm-hmm  that was really, so for me, it was actually really disconcerting to feel so violated by a procedure because I had not, I had not felt like that before.

It really sucked. I I've had it done three times, three times, Cuz they thought at first I had cancer and so they had taken a little, you know, biopsy to, to check. And then I had had. They had found endometriosis that I was, you know, actually given the diagnosis. And so then they were like, well, we gotta check and make sure.

And then when I started having really bad bleeding and that whole start of the process, they basically were like, well, let's just check, you know? And every single one of those gynecologist said, okay, little pinch. And I, I don't know.  like, I, I just like, I've tolerated so many things. Like, I, I don't even, you know, wanna go into all those things, but it's like, that was just like little pinch.

Like it's not a fucking little pinch  yeah. It's like, somebody's taken like a chunk of the most sensitive tissue that you have and just like clipping it off with scissors. Like, oh, his gross is awful. Yeah. It's really bad. And. It's you have the recovery afterwards too. You feel crampy and stuff like that.

Mm-hmm  my gynecologist right before she did it. She said, this is the meanest thing I do to my clients. And I was like, great. Are her patients well great. You know, I mentioned meant to mention that about the cervix and orgasms and things like that too. I have lost the ability to have a cervical orgasm, which is from like the cervix getting bumped mm-hmm

So I, I haven't been able to do that again, but all my other orgasms are fine. So, maybe I can develop that one again, but so far I haven't been able to do that one yet. So maybe cuz my cervix is different now. I don't know. But yeah, that coposcopy thing is bullshit. They should come with a warning and they should come with sedation.

But so I'm sorry. So Chrystal, you have a surface or you just have the, the vaginal cuff cuff. Yeah. Sexy on that. Might cuff. I always ask my sweetie, you want some of this cuff? Don't you, babe. You want some more cuff? He's like stop calling it that I'm like, I know you want some  it's the craziest word. And they also called a vault, which I'm like, yes, because in vault, Very precious things go in there.

Oh, vault are stored in there. So  right. But it's just, that's their medical term for the two things, but, or like, Hey baby, you gonna get it this vault later  you didn't try to crack this vault.  I stop it. Stop it. Stop it. I feel that it's bad. I have more tails to tell on this hysterectomy, special episode than I would have on one of your regular episodes.

Cause it's like boring right now. So yeah, I wish I had more. I'll I'll I'll try to light up some, you know, summer adventures or something, so I can come back for one of your regular episodes. Sure, sure. Yes. Anytime, anytime. Yeah, this was great. Really appreciate you sharing so much with us Tigress. So I know you're always very, you're like me, your open book, and you're not afraid to talk about anything that's even the uncomfortable shit, right.

It's much appreciated because, you know, as somebody who's now walking this path and going through it, you know, I I'm in the process of doing that advocating and, and saying, Hey, this is not gonna work for me. I want the hysterectomy. I want this out of me because it's because becoming so problematic. It's, it's very very much giving me the boost, you know, to do that advocacy.

And I hope that it does that for other people too. Mm-hmm  to, like you said, Tigress, you know, you have to be in there and say, you know, I, I need this. This is what I want. And, and just really push forward with your providers because they don't know you. In your body and you have to be the one that says, no, this is what I need.

I know my body. Yeah. They are experts in some ways, in some ways in the body, they're not gods. Right. Sometimes they think they are, sometimes we think they are, they are not. And you are an expert in your body in a way that they are not, you know, I think of it very similarly to how like,  if you were a kindergarten teacher, you're an expert in kids.

Right. But somebody who's a mom is an expert in their kindergartner in a way that you are not mm-hmm  and you, it takes both of you working together to get that kid through kindergarten. Mm-hmm  because mom doesn't see some of the shit her little brat does when she's not around . And that kindergarten teacher who works with 30 little brats a day for 30 years sees all kinds of things.

A parent doesn't see mm-hmm  so it takes both of them working together to get the kid through kindergarten. Right. True. That's your, that's the parallel to your relationship with your medical team, right? They know stuff you don't know about bodies and you know, stuff they don't know about your body. Yep.

And it takes, y'all working together to get you through, you know, whatever you need to get through. But, you know, if you think they know everything  and you let them treat you, like they know everything then you know, it's, I mean, it's really hard not to, I, I don't wanna belitle that pressure in any way, cuz it's really hard not to.

And we are really a, a acculturated to believe that doctors know everything and they know they know best and they don't, you know, they have information. We don't have, they have expertise that we don't have. And we also have things they don't have. One of my friends always reminds me. She always says, remember they're practicing medicine.

I'm like, that's true. Mm-hmm  yes they did. They went to school. They got a lot of information that I probably don't have. I know I don't have and there you apply it. Another thing. The other thing is like, think about yourself on your job. Mm-hmm  no matter how good you are at your job, you can be really amazing at your job.

You can be doing, having done it for 20 years. You can be awarded in your job, whatever, and you still fuck up sometimes. Yeah. So do medical professionals. So even the ones that do have your best interest in heart, the best bedside manner, the, they stay up to date on all the research. They have all the thing.

Like they, you know, you could, you could be in their office on a bad day, or you could be in an office on a day that they're, they're not thinking clearly. So they don't think of the thing that, yeah. They would've said to you on some other day, like all of those things, all of those variables are there.

Yeah. So the more the more you just like ask and ask and ask and ask  the more likely you are to come to the thing where y'all are coming together and keep track, and then, you know, Sometimes sometimes you don't have any choice. Like one of the things that unfortunately does happen a lot in Facebook groups is people will talk about a doctor.

And the first, the first response from like the first round of responses will all be like, get rid of that doctor. You don't always have that choice. Yeah. But sometimes you can involve your insurance agency in advocating for your insurance company and advocating for you. Sometimes your medical system or your hospital has a patient advocate who can be a voice for you and other people don't use those services.

So like, you know what, just pull in whatever you can, mm-hmm,  pull in all the things, all the things you can. Great advice. Well, I just appreciate your, both of your times and, and sharing. Such a personal medical, you know, private sort of conversation with everyone and vaginas, vaginas, vaginas, cer uterus ORs.

You're doing a little ASMR there, but I, I really appreciate that because I think this is gonna be monumental to a lot of people and, and really make a difference. So it, you know, we wanna hear from our, our folks, our community of was this helpful. Do we need to have a second round of discussion about medical fatphobia or other experiences and just to kind of.

Piece apart, some of those issues that other people that are have bodies in different shapes and sizes experience. And it's just really, it's really enlightening because there's so much shrouded. Don't talk about this stuff. Yeah. Kind of thing. And it's nice to just dispel all that junk before I do our sign off.

I wanna just say, I am always available for other fatties that want to talk about their hysterectomy. I do my best to make sure I try to get back to you either via email or phone call or a private message. I'll do what I can, because I know it's scary. And if you don't know about napa.org, I would highly recommend you look into it.

I think 52 years now, Tigress they've been around yes. 53, 53. So, and they they're advocating for us. They're the organization that helps people when they wanna help to get legislation passed in different cities. I know that NA's been involved in helping fat people to create a protective class in San Francisco and they helped with that.

Right. Tigress. San Francisco and Santa Cruz where you are in California. Yeah. Yeah. And there are a handful of cities across the us, and we're also supporting some work in New York and Massachusetts. Now, Michigan is the only state that has a state law. That's right. Yeah. But we are supporting some work in Massachusetts and New York.

We are also exploring where we wanna take on leading some work next, so that, that legislative piece is really important. I just also wanna give a shout out to NA's advocacy committee. Yeah. Who's starting to really lean into some work around we have legislative advocacy, but we also have a crew of folks who are really leaning into some work around medical advocacy, around training for medical professionals around, you know, pushing back on bias research, like all of those kinds of things.

And I also just wanna give a shout out to one other organization if that's okay. Yeah. N the nobody is disposable. Coalitions has done, did really incredible work. And you can just, just Google nobody as disposable mm-hmm , or, or follow that hashtag on your favorite social medias, they did some really incredible credible work about around vaccine access you did and around care, gut care, rationing guidelines, mm-hmm  that were going to basically, you know, leave fat and disabled people out in the cold in terms of care rationing when resources were stretched during COVID and especially in California and in Canada, they did that work, but they they do have an active survey on their website.

That's about people who have if you have an experience where you have You've been not getting medical treatment that you need because of COVID because of COVID shortages because of COVID exposure because of whatever. They are conducting research about that. So if you have experiences like that, please do go to their website and fill out their survey.

Wonderful. But also just follow and support their work, their really badass coalition of fat and predominantly fat and disabled activists with some other social justice, justice activists backing up that work. And with lots of input from our friends at fat rose and from FLA the fat legal rights organization.

Love it. Love it. Shout out to all of those, for sure. Those of you, those of you who turned into the sexy chat and then got you. Blood and guts and legislation.  I know the shining. Oh, I totally relate to the shining  yeah. Yeah. And you know, but just know that there are, NASA's not the only organization doing advocacy work for fat community.

There are lots of folks out there doing this work doing it through and, you know, as, as much as we can through intersectional lenses. Oh yeah. Some of our organizations better than others mm-hmm  and just like really trying to work towards liberation for everybody. So, thank you Chrystal, for the way that you create community spaces that showcase this.

Thank you. Merf for, you know, bringing us the big, sexy chat with Chrystal . like I said, I hope to come back for a, a sexier topic. Absolutely. I'll know that we can make hysterectomy sex. Maybe I can make legislation sexy, but I dunno, we can make hysterectomy sexy, but it's really important. And I'm really glad that y'all came me too.

Thank you, Tigress. Thank you. Merf all right. So I will see you later alligator after a while crocodile. So where do you find your favorite fatties? We'll check out big, sexy chat.com. You can find our podcast on any major streaming service. Just remember to like subscribe and review. You can find us at big, sexy chat on Facebook and Insta and at big sexy chat pod on Twitter, you can find me Merf at merfygirlreview on Twitter and at merfygirladventures on Instagram, Chrystal tell 'em where they can find you.

Sure they can find me on Twitter at blissconnection, and they can find me on Facebook as curvygirlinc, download us every other Sunday and listen, whenever you want.