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A review by 10_4tina
Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women's Pain by Abby Norman
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.25
I happened on this one somewhat randomly when browsing my library app. I expected a little more science, more resolution, and solutions. That's not really what this is. This is memoir through and through. The format and the subject matter were sometimes hard to read through, but both factors also made it gripping. The writing feels so personal, like a friend's Marco Polo message. Though the topic was totally different, there were similarities in vibe to Educated by Tara Westover. As someone with chronic pain, medical mysteries, and gynecological troubles, I resonated deeply with Norman's experiences, making it harder, yet more motivating to read. The ending is so real, but disappointing too.
*Warning: There is more sex content in this memoir than I had anticipated. Do with that as you will.
Parts I wanted to underline:
Chapter 2
-"I began to introduce myself as: I used to be Gilda Radner"
-What came first, the illness or the depression? Was being sick making her depressed or was being depressed making her sick?
Chapter 3
-The narrative seem to be that if a woman is both sick and anxious, she is sick because she is anxious not anxious about being sick.
Chapter 5
-normal functions feel abnormal and people experience a constant barrage of unnerving feelings that in reality are just their bodies doing what bodies do
Chapter 6
-Oliver Wendall Holmes (poet and physician)
-"You're either brilliant or the most well-educated hypochondriac I've ever met"
Chapter 7
-If you were to really listen to women who have had ovarian cancer speak, you'd find that it wasn't so much that the disease process was silent, but that they were.
-Pain Tolerance vs. Pain Threshold
-Almost overnight we went through puberty and so did the internet (90's kids)
Chapter 8
-I realized that the hole itself had never been what was keeping me in it; it had been my reluctance to stand up.
-I could either try to live my life the way I'd wanted to where I would continuously fail because I was asking too much of my body or I could design an entirely new life.
-On the other side of hope
Chapter 9
-She was insistent that my need for answers was more than likely what was causing me problems, in her view, I needed a philosophy to help me cope.
Epilogue
-I felt very time worn and I conflated exposure with wisdom and durability with maturity.
*Warning: There is more sex content in this memoir than I had anticipated. Do with that as you will.
Parts I wanted to underline:
Chapter 2
-"I began to introduce myself as: I used to be Gilda Radner"
-What came first, the illness or the depression? Was being sick making her depressed or was being depressed making her sick?
Chapter 3
-The narrative seem to be that if a woman is both sick and anxious, she is sick because she is anxious not anxious about being sick.
Chapter 5
-normal functions feel abnormal and people experience a constant barrage of unnerving feelings that in reality are just their bodies doing what bodies do
Chapter 6
-Oliver Wendall Holmes (poet and physician)
-"You're either brilliant or the most well-educated hypochondriac I've ever met"
Chapter 7
-If you were to really listen to women who have had ovarian cancer speak, you'd find that it wasn't so much that the disease process was silent, but that they were.
-Pain Tolerance vs. Pain Threshold
-Almost overnight we went through puberty and so did the internet (90's kids)
Chapter 8
-I realized that the hole itself had never been what was keeping me in it; it had been my reluctance to stand up.
-I could either try to live my life the way I'd wanted to where I would continuously fail because I was asking too much of my body or I could design an entirely new life.
-On the other side of hope
Chapter 9
-She was insistent that my need for answers was more than likely what was causing me problems, in her view, I needed a philosophy to help me cope.
Epilogue
-I felt very time worn and I conflated exposure with wisdom and durability with maturity.