My name is Valerie, and I am 44 years old. I have dealt with severe pelvic pain, bad cramps, heavy bleeding, and painful cysts since I was a teenager. My periods were always longer and heavier than normal. The pain sometimes kept me from going to school or other activities. My mother put me on birth control at 14, hoping to ease the symptoms. As I got older and moved out, having sex was often painful.

I got married in March of 2004. I had my first son, Logan, in March of 2005. I had my second son, Dylan, in October of 2006. In January 2010, I had my last child, Aubrey. She came several weeks early. Her entire pregnancy and delivery were hard and painful. When she came out, she wasn’t breathing or crying. They took her away before I even got a chance to see or hold her. Thankfully, shortly after, they brought her back to me, and all was better. She was a healthy 9 lb. baby girl!

Over the next 18 years, I could feel all of my symptoms get worse and more frequent. The cysts and boils started showing up more often and getting larger. Not only was I getting them on my chin bone and neck, they also started showing up on the inside of my legs. They would get so large that they would rub up against my clothing and burst. One got so bad that I had to be rushed to the E.R. to have it surgically taken out.

As the years went on, I noticed a round lump on the right side of my pelvic area. I found it while I was lying on my back in the tanning bed. It just kept getting bigger. I never went to the doctor. I ignored it. I never take care of myself. I always take care of and put everyone else first.

In March of 2021, I started my workout journey. I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror. I thought I was just getting fat. I had gained a lot of weight. Little did I know at that time, it was so much more.

A few months after starting BeachBody, I became a coach. Again, I wanted to help others with their workout journey.

In mid-2023, I couldn’t take it anymore. My pain was worse than ever, and whatever it was in my stomach kept getting bigger. I couldn’t wear my pants anymore. Everything was swelling. It was hard for me to work. I just wanted to stay curled up in a ball and cry. The pain would leave me paralyzed.

I decided that I needed to go to the doctor. My normal doctor had no clue what was going on, so she sent me to the hospital to have some tests run. Of course, neither test showed anything. I was told that it was just normal period stuff and I was just gaining weight and getting fat.

At the end of 2023, I went back to the doctor. I told her I needed her to find me a doctor who could and would help me.

In February of 2024, I was finally able to get in to see a specialist at a cancer hospital in the next state down. He had me get an MRI since the CT scan showed nothing. He said it would show more details. He could feel it and knew something was there that wasn’t supposed to be. The MRI did give us our answer. I had a tumor on my right ovary. We set a surgery date right away. We didn’t want it to burst.

A week before surgery, I had to go in for routine blood work. The results showed that my iron was too low. Not only was I anemic, I was severely anemic. He told me he wanted my number to be at an 8 or 9 to have surgery. I was barely at a 3.

So, over the next few days, I ended up having 3 blood transfusions. Each one lasted about 4 hours. By the surgery date, I was up to a 7. We proceeded with the surgery.

Surgery was a success. I went in for my checkup. The doctor informed me that what I had was an endometrioma. It weighed about 10 lbs. and was more than 14 inches long. In addition to taking out the mass, he also ended up taking the right ovary and both fallopian tubes. So it was a partial hysterectomy, not a full.

Fast forward to May of 2025. I studied hard and got my CPT (personal trainer license). I got a job at a nearby gym. I started with 4 clients from someone else. As of today, I am up to 29 of my own!

Around March of 2026, I started to feel bad again. (I mean, the symptoms never went away; they were just a bit less.) There have been many stressors in 2026 that have caused flare-ups. I got a divorce, and I lost my mother, to name the 2 worst. Now my endo isn’t calming down. I feel like it is progressively getting worse. The older I get, the more it sucks.

So this is why I wanted to start this page and this blog. I want to help people like me. Some may not have it as bad, and some may have it worse. BUT I want this place to be a place where women can come and see YOU ARE NOT ALONE!