In February 2014, I started gaining weight.
For eight years, I was told it was stress. Or age. Or that I should lose some weight. Fat, but otherwise fine.
It was Cushing’s disease — a tumor on my pituitary gland flooding my body with cortisol. Nobody said the words out loud until 2021.
During those undiagnosed years, I did six IVF retrieval cycles, starting at 41. I had four losses. For the last three cycles, the odds of a live birth I was quoted were 3%. “THREE PERCENT CHANCE!” became our battle cry — whispered, under deeply unflattering lighting, in rooms better suited to an alien autopsy than the beginning of a human life. My daughter was born when I was 44 and a half - a buzzer beater if ever there was one.
Nobody connected the two. That isn’t a footnote to my story. It is my story.
What this is
Achilles Heals is about what happens after — the long, unglamorous work of getting your body back once the emergency is over and everyone assumes you’re fine. Surgery in August 2022. A recovery nobody warned me about. And, as of December 2025, test results suggesting I may not be in remission after all.
I write about the medical system that took seven years to see me, and about everything I’m doing now to reclaim what’s left: the medication, the somatic and shadow work I don’t completely understand yet, the supplements, the idea of exercise I openly resent. I write about parenting the world’s most magical six-year-old while my own body is a moving target. Some of it works. I’ll tell you when it doesn’t.
Who’s writing this
I spent fifteen years leading the founding Boston chapter of a modern-day global microphilanthropy network and building community — with stints as an event planner, a professional organizer in Manhattan, and now as a nonprofit fundraiser for social justice causes and a PTO member in Brookline, Massachusetts. I’m good at making things happen for other people. This newsletter is my attempt to do it for myself, in public, without pretending I’ve figured it out.
What you’ll get
A new piece every month — essays, not advice columns — and sometimes more frequently when bandwidth and inspiration collide. Occasional resource posts on what I actually use and what I wish I’d had before I knew what I needed. Every post goes straight to your inbox.
I write monthly rather than weekly on purpose. My health is unpredictable, and I’d rather make a promise I can actually keep.
Subscribe now — or read the archive first and see if this is for you.
Join the crew
If you’ve been dismissed, misdiagnosed, or told it was stress — welcome: you’re not alone here. The comments are where a lot of the real conversation happens.
