My Frustration

My frustration, unexpected painful arm pit lumps.

Cancer = serious your frustration = valid invisible symptoms = ignored visible symptoms = taken seriously.

When something hormonal shows up on the outside — a lump, a swelling, a cyst — the medical system reacts.

Fast appointments. Concern. Kindness. Checks. Reassurance.

But all the hormonal things that stay inside — the ND menopause chaos, the pain, the inflammation, the exhaustion — those get ignored. Invisible symptoms don’t trigger urgency. Invisible symptoms don’t get kindness. Invisible symptoms don’t get believed.

So yes, the lumps will probably be nothing. I’ve had mammograms. I’ve had checks. I know the drill.

But the doctor’s kindness today made me unexpectedly upset. Because I wished all the other things could be seen too. All the things that don’t show up on scans. All the things that don’t bleed or swell or scream for attention.

Hormones are a cancer test. Not medically — emotionally. Because the minute something hormonal becomes visible, suddenly I matter. Suddenly I’m believed. Suddenly I’m seen.

And the frustration is that everything else — the ND, the menopause, the invisible symptoms — stays unseen. Unbelieved. Unurgent. Until my body produces something dramatic.

Footnote

And just to be clear — I’m not mocking cancer or its seriousness. I’m angry because PMDD, hormonal imbalance, ND symptoms exploding in perimenopause, all the invisible things — they simply can’t be seen. And when they can’t be seen, they don’t get urgency, they don’t get kindness, and they don’t get believed.

“Because I’m ND and menopausal, I don’t present with illness in the usual way. I rarely get a temperature. I rarely show the classic signs. My body hides viruses until they overwhelm me. Veoza stops the false overheating signals, but it can’t stop a real infection. So my early warning signs are things like broken sleep, nightmares, lymph nodes rising, and sudden fatigue swings — not the symptoms doctors expect. This is why I often misinterpret illness as menopause, and why I crash so hard when something finally takes me down.”

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