 Good morning everybody. Forgive me if I have anything in my teeth. I just scarfed down a bar because I'm actually on my way to the doctor today, finally. I've been on a wait list because I'm on new insurance and I'm a new patient. I've been on a wait list for a OBGYN since literally like March. Most places didn't even have openings until July. I was able to find this place that could get me in May but literally like, I don't know what it is but right now, I don't know if that's normal but right now there is such a long wait for new patients at doctor's offices. So anyways, going finally, for those of you who were yelling at me, tell me I needed to go to the doctor. I've been waiting, I've been doing my best. Anyways, I'm doing like a fun, flowy look today because why not? So I'm wearing this dress that I got from Urban. It's actually a little big. It runs a little bit big. So this is an extra large. I should have sized down to a large but it's very cute. I love it. I'm just doing a fun bun today. Little founding fathers bun, if you will. My earrings are the ones that I wear pretty much every single day. They're from Target and my shoes, I honestly don't even know. I got these like two or three summers ago. That is my bath mat. My bathroom is a little bit messy. Like I said, I'm kind of in a rush. I just finished editing a video actually somehow. It's like 10 a.m. What time is it? It's 10.22. I actually need to get going. It only takes me about 10 minutes to get there but yeah, I am going to the doctor to like the OBGYN for the first time since I want to say like 2017 and that's way too long. So we're going to go get checked out and hopefully get some answers. I'll talk more about it in the car. All right, we are on our way. I really kind of want to eat this banana but I don't have enough time. I'm going to be there in five minutes. I was just on the phone with my mom but I have been, if you haven't seen previous videos or vlogs where I've talked about it, I've been experiencing pretty intense periods for the last, I want to say decade and they've kind of gotten progressively worse as time has gone on and due to my own research cause that's all I really have to go off of. It seems maybe something like an endometriosis or PCOS thing but regardless, I'm going to get a checkup today and then probably order some more testing to be done to get to the bottom of it and see what needs to be done because basically it's gotten to the point where my periods are so heavy and so painful that it's like debilitating for me oftentimes during my period and I have a lot of hair popping up in random places just being honest and I'm not going to feel ashamed about that at all whatsoever because it's very normal and I just kind of want to maybe talk about that so that in case some of you are experiencing similar things, don't freak out obviously but it might be something to look into. It might be completely unrelated but always of course, I'm not going to give medical advice, always consult with a medical professional but I just want to say a huge thank you to those of you who are in the disability community and educated me on self-diagnosis. I talked in a previous video about how, oh my God, what is happening? I was accused of self-diagnosing in a previous video and how I had said it wouldn't surprise me if I had Endo or PCOS and a bunch of people were like, you're so irresponsible, you're diagnosing yourself and a lot of people said that disabled folks actually have to self-diagnose so that they can advocate for themself for an actual diagnosis and I thought that was really eye-opening and something I didn't even think about so thank you to those of you who educated me on that, it made me feel a lot better. I was like, okay, because all I was doing was just trying to get a general idea of what was going on but regardless, yeah, I'm gonna go and hopefully we can start getting to the bottom of this. It just sucks how inaccessible healthcare here is, it's ridiculous. I have like pretty fricking amazing insurance but even then I had to wait like two or three months to be able to get on any kind of wait list to be able to even just get a check up because I'm a new patient so like I said, there were other places I think I called in February or March and there were places that were literally booked out until like the end of July. For those of you salty, salty, salty queens who were like, you need to go to the doctor before you get your hair done, I was trying. Here I am, you can't please everyone but anyways, yeah, hopefully we'll get some answers. So I'll check up with you after and let you know what the deal is. Well, that was an experience, I will say. I'm honestly still processing what just happened, whoa. I'm just gonna speak from my own personal experience. I can't speak for everybody else, I can't speak for people who are in the medical field and what goes through their mind but I basically the entire appointment was spent with the doctor telling me that I need to lose weight. There was really no concern at all whatsoever when I was expressing the fact that I have extremely debilitating periods. She was just like, huh, it happens, take ibuprofen. And I was like, yeah, I do, I take Tylenol and ibuprofen and it doesn't help, it's pretty excruciating. And she was just like, yeah. And I was just like, oh, I mean, do you think it could be connected to anything? Like, do you think that there's something? And she was like, maybe. But you know, the only way to find out is surgery. So I'm not gonna go into the full personal details because there are things that I'm gonna save for myself. Like I don't need the internet isn't entitled to like my entire medical history but I did wanna kind of follow up because this is not how I saw this going. Even though I follow so many people on Twitter, so many plus sized people who are constantly shamed for their weight by doctors and I should have just set a boundary and been like, I don't feel comfortable talking about my weight. It's a sensitive topic for me but she continually, continually told me like you need to lose weight in this section right here. You need to lose 20 pounds. I'm literally still processing as she said. So white foods, bad. White foods are bad. Never eat white foods, pasta, rice, bread. Never eat those things because those are bad for you. And I was just like, okay. And I'm just sitting there going, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Just like trying to get through this appointment without crying and basically the entire time she was like, yeah, for your height, your weight is too much. You need to lose at least 20 pounds and I wanna see you back in three months after you've lost 20 pounds. Will not be going back in three months, that's for sure. And I was trying to communicate with her and I got my pap smear and I got my breast exam and she was like, your breasts are fine. You'll get the results from your smear in like three to seven days. I don't think she has bad intentions at all and I'm really trying to give her the benefit of the doubt but it's frustrating when you hear so many fat people and so many plus-size people visit a doctor for a specific issue that they're having or symptoms that they're having and the doctor's like, well, lose weight first. So I really just feel like I wasted my time. I mean, it didn't cost me any money, which is nice but it's just frustrating because I feel like my balloon has been deflated. I honestly don't even know if I'm gonna include this in the vlog because sometimes I feel like the more I open myself up and give more personal details, the more people use that against me, which is sad because I know that there are a lot, the majority of incredible people that care about me and my life and my health and my happiness but there are those people, you know, the information gets into the wrong hands and people use that against you. They'll try to twist your words or use your vulnerability against you. So that sucks. I'm feeling conflicted. Like I really thought that this was gonna be a helpful thing. She basically diagnosed me with some type of Rhea, not diarrhea, but like heavy, heavy periods basically but I told her about my hair. Like I've got bodily hair. I've got extreme clotting, extreme heaviness. Like to the point where sometimes I need to just go sit on the toilet and that just didn't seem to concern her at all whatsoever, which is kind of weird to me. So anyways, it just felt like she was, her main concern was like, well, you're fat so you need to lose weight instead of being like, let's get to the root of what's going on that's been going on since long before you started gaining weight, which I tried to explain. I was like, this has been a thing for like 10 years. It's gotten really bad in the last few but I've only gained weight in the last like two years. I'm mostly just sad, like I'm just sad because my weight is a very sensitive topic for me and it's something that I've been struggling with for the last few years. My body image isn't fantastic at the moment. I'm not gonna lie to you. Like I'm not in a super love your bod type of phase of life. I'm in a more neutral phase, which is good but I'm vulnerable and I feel like this is the first time that I've experienced a professional telling me that I need to lose weight and it doesn't feel good. Like it feels embarrassing. It feels like I feel like ashamed in a way. And I'm by the way, the dead average size of the American woman. So every single woman who goes in and talks about their vaginal health or every single person who goes in and is talking about their vaginal health is being told to lose weight if they're my size. Fat people experience this every single day and it's just something that like, I'm sure a lot of you unfortunately who are watching this video have experienced a similar thing and it just sucks. It doesn't feel great. I've heard people talk about it on Twitter. I've seen it on Instagram. I've seen some really awful stories. There was one girl who went to a doctor and she had been complaining that she can't keep any food down. She feels extremely sick every time she eats and a doctor said, well, would that be such a bad thing? And then she went and got another opinion and she had cancer. So I'm not saying I have cancer and it's just frustrating when so much fat phobia exists in the medical world. And I never thought I would be talking about this today. I really didn't. I thought I was gonna be like, okay, they ordered me a blood test or like blah, blah, blah. And I'm gonna go see someone else, but do I now need to look for a clinic that doesn't body shame people? I don't know. I don't really know. I'm not expecting people to like baby me and hold my hand, but it just sucks. It just sucks. And maybe next time I'm gonna be like, yeah, I don't wanna talk about my weight. All right, we're back home. I've had some time to think. I had some time to do a little wobble as the British say. I had my little boo-hoo moment and now I'm fine. But I do wanna end this on the fact that she's fucking lucky I don't have an eating disorder or something more serious going on. And I'm just gonna leave it at that. Really frustrating, but anyways, I'm gonna make a salad because I want to. I love salads. So that's what I'm gonna do. And I'm actually making some stuff for Drew as well because he has different things on his salad, but he's upstairs busy with work and he's getting headaches. So here's what we have going on here. Here we have some lentils. And I'm just, if you're wondering what this brown thing is, it's like the better than bullion paste. So it just helps bring a little bit of flavor to the lentils. So I boil the lentils and basically veggie broth. And then I'm gonna put some tempeh bacon in here and then Drew likes a kind of medium hard boiled egg. So he said once these start boiling, then I take them off the heat and cover them for eight minutes and they should be ready. And then you put them in an ice bath. So let's get going. I want to reiterate as well that I'm okay. I'm just bummed. Like it took the wind out of my sails. But there are a lot of other people who, it would affect them a lot more deeply. And so I'm just building space for those people. Anyways, okay. So here we have the best ingredient for a salad. So delicious. And this is the light life tempeh smoky bacon. It is so freaking good. I'm gonna do like four pieces. And tempeh is essentially like sprouted tofu. And we used to do this on like breakfast sandwiches and things like that. But lately Drew had discovered that it's really delicious on salads. So we've been doing a lot of that. The lentils are boiling. I just tested them. They are nowhere near done. And now the eggs are sitting there for eight minutes off the heat. That's for Drew. So now I'm gonna make mine, which I'm gonna get my spring mix with no cilantro. I also love kale. I love any green, really. I just realized that I don't have my typical dressing. The Annie's, it's like a vegan dressing. I'm devastated about it, but I have this creamy Caesar maybe. And I also have Italian. So we'll see. But okay, spring mix. You'll already know the drill by now. Spring mix on the bottom. Sometimes I do quinoa, but I was too lazy to cook some tempeh seeds, chopped pecans, craisans, always. Crispy onions, croutons, because you gotta have the crunch. I also recently just got some Violaif 100% vegan feta cheese. It's made to taste like feta. I'm very curious about it. So let's see. Smells like feta kind of. I'm also gonna put my little pieces of tempeh bacon. I'm gonna like cut them up kind of small. Do a little bit of this feta. I don't really know how to do it. Do I just like do it like normal feta? Oh no. Oh no. Actually, that's not bad. It's wetter than I expected, but it's actually not terrible. It's just a little more mushy. I'm gonna start with a small amount because I don't actually know what the deal is with this. And then I'm gonna put some hummus because I like a creamy dressing situation. So we're just gonna do a little Italian dressing. Also I have a special treat because yes, I didn't pick up the Topo Chico with lime because I wanted to try it on camera. So many of you in that vlog when I tried Topo Chico said that I need to try the one with the twist of lime. I love this bottle. It's so cute. So cheers. It's pretty good. It's pretty dang good. I'm not huge on like lemon or lime flavored sparkling water. I prefer like the non citrus ones like watermelon, strawberry, et cetera, but very delicious. And so is this salad. So happy. I'm gonna finish this off with some chocolate because I freaking deserve it and food is in good or bad and chocolate is good for me. Okay. So this is the, it's called get back to human almond butter and puffed quinoa dark chocolate. It's a 70% kick out. It's vegan. It is so freaking good. If you like dark chocolate, I think you'd really like it. It's one of those like bougie expensive $20. I think it's like five or $6, which is ridiculous, but it's so good. I wish there was more like puffed quinoa. That was a quote by the way, but damn that's good. So anyways, that's gonna do it for me today. Probably gonna go be existential for a while, but it's okay. I'm fine. Thanks for watching along and we'll see you in the next one. Bye.