Lori Ann King - Come Back Strong

Dedication

This book is dedicated to women in all stages of hormonal transition who are seeking the peace and serenity that comes from balanced wellness.

Acknowledgments

When I sit down to write, it starts as a quiet, solitary journey, just me and God, probing my heart and experience to find stories from my personal experience that could inspire others to lead lives of true health, love, laughter, and freedom. Along the way, the team of collaborators grow, as more and more people show up to contribute their expertise, until finally, the finished project of my first book is in your hands. The following people were part of my creative circle that allowed Come Back Strong to come to fruition.

My heartfelt thanks to my husband, best friend, and playmate, Jim, who loves me in sickness, health, and menopause. Thank you for supporting, encouraging, and believing in me. Thank you for always pushing me to be a better storyteller. Thank you for calling me out as an author long before I had the courage to whisper my dream to become one. And thank you for your willingness to share the vulnerable parts of our lives so that we could inspire others.

Thank you to my sister, Kathy, for being the biggest cheerleader. I love our early morning phone calls. You inspire me to follow my dreams and live on purpose.

To my mom and dad, thank you for instilling in me a strong work ethic and a belief system that I could be, do, and have anything my heart desires. Thank you for your love and support through all the challenges and victories of life.

Thank you, Dr. Dean Bloch, for treating me with kindness and respect as we worked to balance my hormones and help me feel vibrant and healthy through surgical menopause.

Thank you, Carolyn Rabiner, for your guidance, support, and friendship. You always point me toward balanced wellness, reminding me my body, mind, and spirit know how to heal.

I thank my editor and publishing consultant, Stephanie Gunning, for her guidance and skill to help make my first book a reality.

To Gus Yoo, thank you for the production of the cover design.

Thank you, Ruth, my high school friend and fellow author. You encouraged me from the day you found out I was a writer. Thank you for your faith and support over the years, and for reading my work and offering honest feedback. You believed in me even before you read a word of my work.

Thank you to Susan Vitolo, for sticking with me as my friend and workout partner at times when I wasnt the best version of myself. Your faith and perseverance inspires me and Im grateful for your friendship. Thank you for reading my early work and showing me where Im writing from a place of anger and perhaps need to deal with that to write a better story.

Thank you, Holly, one of my newest friends. I loved you from the day we met. You give me a fresh perspective, always reminding me to include a few surprises and find ways to make serious subjects a little lighter. Thank you especially for homemade peanut butter banana fudgesicles on your front porch.

Thank you to the amazing friends, mentors, healers, guides, visitors, and early readers who have touched my life and believed in me. Thank you to Susan Sly, Camille Lawson, Mark DeCesare, Shari Ackerman, Theresa Lyn Widmann, Michelle Renar, Lori Pociask, Leslie Melvin, Karen Homan, Jocelyn Noelle Boettner, and Lori Hudspeth.

Thank you to Davene and Mark, for creating the Master Key Mastermind Alliance Course. Thank you, Nancy Ottinger and the entire MKMMA team, for your guidance in developing my definite major purpose, better habits, and believing with me in my dreams and in the power to manifest them.

Foreword

Carolyn Rabiner, L.Ac, Dipl. C.H.

With intelligence and penetrating insight, Lori Ann King has given women who are facing, or have already had a hysterectomy and/or oophorectomy, the gift of a much-needed guide to help with the fear and confusion that often accompany this experience. She accomplishes this with candor and humor, freely sharing her own personal experiences and feelings on numerous topics that are common to having these procedures, including many that women are hesitant to discuss with their friends or even their doctors. Loris experience as a health and fitness coach really helps here. The reader will find numerous resources for finding her way back to wholeness.

Lori introduces readers to important new ways of thinking about the experience of hysterectomy and surgical menopause. She deeply explores the plethora of feelings associated with this, from beliefs a woman has held before discovering that she has a problem, and the shock of first learning about what is happening, all the way through the post-surgical phase and recovery Lori provides powerful tools, along with numerous suggestions for further learning, that will help readers to heal more quickly, and indeed, improve their lives in many positive ways.

Lori has a keen understanding of the mind-body component involved in the healing journey. With a clear and engaging style, she includes fascinating new research findings on this emerging science. Her many tips and ideas for how to deeply connect with this aspect of ones being will inspire readers to explore facets of themselves that can kindle healing and transformation. For the reader who is willing to be captain of her own ship, the implications here are nothing less than profound. Arrival at a state as challenging as surgical menopause can be, can also be understood as an urgent call to dig deeply into ones beingto learn to trust ones own instincts. In this way, one can experience life-changing breakthroughs. For example, when Lori wasnt happy with her medication, and had reached a state of exasperation, she found an alternate route to complaining to her doctor. By applying the techniques she outlines in her book, her condition greatly improved, and subsequently she was able to find balance with a lower dose of bioidentical hormones.

This is only one of many triumphs that are detailed in these pages. Lori came back strong, and so can you!

Introduction

THIS IS NOT THE FIRST book I thought Id write. Its not even the second or third that was on the list. The more I wrote, the more I released anger, anxiety, sadness, and overwhelm from my heart and body, and let in more light in the form of forgiveness, peace, joy, and ease. Writing was therapeutic. Almost two years after my hysterectomy, I was still seeking balance. So were other women. I continued to write and publish about my recovery while connecting with women from all over the world who were struggling just like me. My writing took a turn toward awareness, education, and empowerment for women everywhere. Writing became about doing service.

Im not a doctor or a hormone specialist. Im simply a woman who was having an ovarian cyst removed and woke up having had a hysterectomy and in full-onset surgical menopause.

This book explains what I wish I knew ahead of time and what I have since learned. I have heard other women say that they were never the same after hysterectomy. While I believe thats true, menopause can enhance who we are. It intensifies things that are out of balance. If a woman is struggling with her weight, finances, career, purpose, another illness, passion, focus, or drive, surgical menopause will make each of these issues more obvious and extreme. Surgical menopause will rush the symptoms to you all at once.

The foundation of this book is my personal experience and what I did to help myself. I had to recover from more than the removal of an organ and the tiny incisions the surgeon made in my abdomen. As I moved through this transitional time in my life, my body and mind transformed. My hormones changed and it felt like every aspect of my life was out of balance. I sought to heal old wounds and rediscover passions from childhood. It was a time of personal discovery and creative expression. I questioned who I was and who I wanted to be in the future. I found myself putting all areas of my life, from relationships to career, hobbies, and interests, under a microscope for examination.