2025: The Year I Learned To Advocate For My Own Health
2025 wasn’t the year I expected. It wasn’t a fresh-start, New Year, new-me kind of feel. It was more like: “Right, I’ve had enough of this shit.”
I was so over it.
Over always being tired.
Over stomach problems that ruled my life.
Over snapping at my family for no reason.
Over feeling like a shitty version of the the person I used to be.
And after finally getting a long-overdue gynae procedure done in December 2024, I drew a line in the sand:
2025 would be the year I started fighting for my health.
The Gynae Saga
Let’s rewind to the beginning of 2024. I’d been pushing for help with perimenopause symptoms that were off the charts - brain fog, night sweats, mood swings, the lot. I’d started HRT, thanks to the Meno Doctor, and things were stabilising a little… until I met a charming (totally being sarcastic here) DHB gynae who told me I couldn’t possibly be perimenopausal because I was “only 42, and still getting my period.” (never mind that those periods had changed horrifically over the last couple of years, and rendered me unable to leave the house for a few days a month)
He insisted I come off HRT before he’d even consider the hysteroscopy and Mirena I’d been referred for.
So I did what he said.
Waited for the “maximum 8 weeks” he promised. Which, the local hospital being as it is, turned into 8 months.
Then I got COVID right before, and had to push it out again…
I finally got a last-minute surgery booking in mid-December 2024 - right in the busiest week of the year work-wise, but I said yes. I was desperate. Thankfully, the procedure was straightforward, and nothing sinister was found. That was a massive relief. They threw a smear test in there while they were at it, just for good measure, so that was another box ticked off (pardon the pun)
And it gave me my first clear goal for the coming year:
Take control of my health. No more waiting. No more being dismissed.
Symptoms… Symptoms Everywhere…
2025 kicked off with a bang. My side pain - around the spleen area - flared up badly. I’d had it on and off since I got glandular fever and hepatitis in 1999, but now it was almost unbearable. Alcohol made it worse. Fatty meals made it worse. Stress made it worse. Some of these I can reduce/remove from life, some, not so much (Spoiler: life is stressful.)
I finally got a doctor at After Hours who listened and ordered an ultrasound, and more blood tests (and multiple poop tests… those are SO fun). The public waitlist was up to six months, so I paid privately and got seen the following week. A few things showed up - nothing alarming - but still no answers, either.
Then came gut issues, swallowing issues, bowel issues - and the quiet voice in my head that repeatedly whispered, maybe it’s cancer. Definitely cancer.
I was referred for a colonoscopy and gastroscopy. First referral? Declined. Second, with additional, more concerning symptoms? Accepted.
Colonoscopy: clear.
Gastroscopy: a sliding hiatus hernia.
Great, but still not the answer to why I was bloated, exhausted, in pain, and quickly losing my mind.
These problems remain unresolved. I see yet another “new” main GP next week. Everytime I go for a visit there’s a new GP, meaning I have to go over and over the same stories every time. So after 3 months on medication given from the Colonoscopy/Gastroscopy appointment, we will see where this leads from here.
September 2025: A Turning Point (Kind Of)
In the midst of all the stomach/bowel issues, those pesky “not-perimenopause symptoms” had now become off the charts. I have never been so DUMB. So tired. So easily confused. Insanely distracted from anything. So quick to anger. So quick to cry or have a massive panic attack. So sensitive to certain foods. The distraction/attention side of things had never been a “thing” before, and it caught me so completely off guard - most days, I felt utterly useless.
In September, after a long and shitty year of health stuff, I got back on HRT, this time with 50mg patches. I repeated the bloods. I started Jardiance to help with my blood sugar (Metformin had been awful), and over the next three months, I lost 4kg. Small wins - but wins nonetheless. I’m feeling like my energy is slowly coming back.
And most importantly:
I found a women’s health GP who actually gives a shit.
She can’t be my primary GP, but I can see her for certain types of appointments, and she’s made a huge difference already. She listens. She validates. She makes a plan and doesn’t make me feel like I’m crazy for asking for help. Thanks to her, I have stepped up the HRT (75mg now), have a plan for “what next” if that doesn’t help, and her husband works in the ADHD space, so if those symptoms do not reduce with the work we are doing, come February/March-ish, my next step is to see him. It’s crazy trying to run my life, let alone a team and a business, like this, and long-term, it can’t work, so I have to fix it.
It’s not a fix. It’s not a cure. But it feels like someone finally threw me a lifeline.
Meanwhile… I Was Also Running a Business and Raising a Family
This is the part people don’t always see.
While I was doing all of this - the chasing, the waiting, the tests, the symptoms - I was still running a business. Still turning up to Zoom calls, delivering strategy, writing content, and guiding clients. Still being a wife. Still being Mum to two teenagers.
And when you're running on empty, that load is heavy.
I forgot things I normally wouldn’t.
I lashed out over small stuff.
I cried in private, a lot.
I had panic attacks over things that didn’t deserve panic attacks.
And I kept thinking: maybe this is just how I am now.
Doing This for Me - and for Them
I’ll be 45 this year. My kids are nearly grown up. And I don’t want them to remember these years as the ones where Mum was always sick, cranky, tired, and crying for no obvious reason.
Yes, I’m doing this for me. Because I deserve to feel good again.
But I’m also doing this for them.
I want them to see a mum/wife who fought for her wellbeing. Who didn’t just survive midlife, but slowly started reclaiming it.
What 2025 Taught Me
You have to advocate for yourself - relentlessly. Don’t sit down and shut up.
Being dismissed over and over chips away at your mental health.
The business-owning, family-juggling midlife woman is expected to carry it all and chase her own answers. It’s fucking hard.
But when you start putting yourself first… things begin to shift.
2025 didn’t give me the breakthrough I hoped for. But it gave me momentum.
I’m still in the middle of it all. Still figuring it out. Still trying. Playing with my diet, seeing what helps and what makes things worse. Moving more, where I have the energy and lack of pain…
But I’m not stuck anymore, I’m moving forward. And that’s huge. There is hope.
Sadly, this blog doesn’t even hint at all the never-ending injury/pain management issues. Let’s save that for another day.
Stay tuned for where this all leads. Still to come early this year is an overdue Mammogram and a Skin Cancer check. Ticking off all those boxes!!