Prepare to be inspired as we explore. The essense of empowerment. Real life stories of triumph and resilience. The tapestry of friendships that shape us and love in all of its forms; from self love to romantic bonds. Join us as we pull back the curtain on what makes a true Queen. Whether you are seeking inspiration, connection or simply a place to belong. You will find that your crown fits perfectly here. Get ready to laugh, cry and grow with us as we navigate life challenges and celebrates its joys. Welcome to your new favorite podcast! Where every listener is royalty and every story is a jewel in our shared crown. Tune in and discover why Den of Queens is set to become your go to destination for empowerment, authenticity and sisterhood. Long live the Queens; it's time to take your throne.
Hey cousins. Hey, you're listening to Den of Queens. I'm your host, Crystal, the one, not the two. Imagine going through years of health issues. Four years to be exact. Finding out you have lymphoma, running back and forth to the cancer center every six months to get regular checkups just to make sure that you don't have active cancer cells. In 2019, finding out that you have a hormonal imbalance called PCOS that is kicking your literal ass. That has you exhausted, that has you fat and out of shape. You can't seem to shake the weight. It's just piling up on you. You don't know what to do. You are just overwhelmed in all aspects. Every time you go to the doctor, your doctor's like, you're morbidly obese. You have to get some of this weight off of you. You're also battling with depression because of all the things life has thrown at you over the last decade. In 2023, your undiagnosed lymphoma is so bad that the lymph nodes in your neck and throat area are so engulfed in swollen that your carotid artery is has so much pressure on it that you are having a hard time regulating your heart rate and you feel like you're going to pass out. So you go to urgent care. It scares the crap out of urgent care doctors that they immediately rush out of the room, which scares the shit out of you, of course. That what they end up doing is shooting you up with steroids to get the lymph nodes to go down in swelling, which of course swells your entire body up even more. And they get your NT and your oncologist to come up with a game plan to then take your tonsils out so they can do a biopsy to determine whether or not you have cancer in your lymph nodes in your neck area. Now, thank God all tests came back negative for cancer. But that doesn't stop the long process of trying to figure out and make sure that all lymph nodes are always coming back non-cancerous every six months and keeping an eye on things. In 2024, you decide to have a simple tubulagation because your partner decides that he doesn't want to have a vasectomy because it takes away from his manhood for whatever reason. So you go in for a simple procedure, like easy peasy, lemon squeezy, no big deal, right? Shitting me. Because immediately after that, you start having all these complications. You don't realize it at the time, but you start, you know, having pain, and you're not realizing that the pain is coming from the tubal. You just think, you know, oh, I'm just overly constipated, and you just kind of blow it off. You don't realize that it's from the tubal until a year or so later. So 2025, you spend in pain and discomfort, you spend it bleeding to death. Two to three weeks out of the month, you are constantly bleeding heavily. You are constantly constipated. You can't shit for two weeks, sometimes three weeks, and you are constantly in pain, crying out for help, not understanding what's going on with your body. You're constantly going to your primary doctor, you're going to your oncologist, you're going to everybody that will see you. You're on, you're going to your gynecologist, just trying to figure out what is going on. Your primary doctor is telling you, oh, eat more fiber, take a laxative. You're taking the laxative, and the laxative is making things even worse because you're still unable to go to the bathroom, even though your insides are feeling like they're going to explode. Then you're constantly tired and exhausted because you're literally bleeding to death. And you don't understand why. Nobody is giving you any answers. You're crying to your partner because you're not yourself anymore. You're not understanding what's going on with your own body, and you're telling them something is wrong. And you think they understand, and you think that they're there for you. Finally, 13, 14 months later, after suffering all of this time, you go to your gano and you're like, we can't do this anymore. We have to finally do some imaging. So they finally determine we're gonna do some imaging. They tell you that you have a fibroid and a ton of cysts. The fibroid is bigger than your uterus, and they've never seen a fibroid this size on anyone's uterus before. They didn't tell you because of the size of the fibroid and all of the cysts, that everything has to come out. Everything. You're losing your ovaries, you're using losing your uterus, you're losing your cervix, you're losing everything. And the reason why you haven't been able to shit right in the last year or so is because the said fibroid that's in there is pressed up against your bowels and causing a massive blockage. But there's your answer. You now have this huge relief to know that you're not losing your mind and that it's fixable. Everything's finally going to be okay and you're going to get back to normal. You're finally going to be stronger than ever for not only yourself, but your family, your spouse, your kids, your friend family, your everybody. So while this entire thing has been going on, you've still been going to work 40 hours a week, you've still been commuting back and forth, you've just still been doing everything that you've needed to do to make sure that your family's been taken care of this entire time while not having much to pour into yourself. So you don't have much to pour into anybody else besides finances. And now it's finally time to get this thing out of you so you can get back to some sense of normacy and you're excited about it. Let's get it done. So the procedure is scheduled. You have your surgery. The surgery is so massive and so intense that when you come out of anesthesia, the pain is unbearable. They cannot get your pain under control. You have to spend extra time in the hospital just to get to a point where you can actually leave. All that being said, they get it under control. You're sent home, you recover, you start to feel better. But with that being said, with everything gone, it sends your hormones into a whirlwind. Not only that, you already have a hormonal imbalance, and now with everything gone, everything gets worse. It sends you into a hormonal whirlwind, then it sends you into a sense of depression. You feel undesired, unwanted, not sexy anymore. You've been losing weight because your doctor's been telling you you're morbidly obese. You've been trying to get to a healthier you because you want to be there for your spouse and your family for as long as you possibly can. But now that you're all healed up from the surgery, you're telling your spouse, we need to spend more time together. He's always busy. And you understand that he's busy because he's trying to make a way for your family as best as he can. You've given him credit. You've told him how much you appreciate everything that he does. You've tried to show him love the best way that you can for all of these months that you've been down and unable to do the things that you normally would do. But somehow, in the midst of it all, he didn't feel loved and appreciated. He felt neglected. Although you did everything that you possibly could do, but there was only so much you could do when you were spent and you had nothing else to give, you had nothing to give yourself. You can't pour out of an empty cup. He didn't feel it. So he decides it's his time to exit. Now, I understand completely sometimes. Life can be life and life can kick our asses. And sometimes, you know, we sign up for more than we could ever imagine could happen. But when you take vows and you decide that this is the one and we're supposed to stick together, and it's through sickness and through health. If the shoe's on the other foot and you're supposed to be there regardless. It was a season, storms don't last forever, and our partners have stuck through worse. What do you think? Now, thank you for tuning in to Den of Queens. Make sure you subscribe and share with my cousins so you can all listen to future episodes of your new favorite podcast.
