Endometriosis: Painful Periods Are Not Normal ft. Hilary Pawlik

(Fair warning: Emily's mouth was fully uncensored this episode — blame the tech gremlins. Also, our earrings nearly derailed the whole thing. You'll hear it. We kept it in.)This week, Emily's co-host Courtney Holland is out due to an emergency — but honestly, today's guest doesn't need a wingman. Hilary Morris Pawlik has been Emily's ride-or-die since the eighth grade, and she shows up today to talk about something that affects 1 in 10 women and yet somehow remains one of the most underdiagnosed, underfunded, and dismissed conditions in medicine: endometriosis.Hilary is a professional dancer, award-winning choreographer, and co-director of Artist Entrance Dance Company in Los Angeles. She's performed with The Hollywood Pinup Girls and the Mental Head Circus vaudeville show, and she's basically done everything short of the Iditarod. But today, she's here to tell a different kind of story — the one about years of painful periods, fertility struggles, a missed diagnosis, a baseball-sized cyst, sepsis, and an emergency surgery that revealed her organs had started fusing together.What they cover:What endometriosis actually is (and why so many women — and their doctors — have no idea)The surprisingly wide range of symptoms, from painful periods to shortness of breath, leg pain, and GI issuesMedical gaslighting: being told you're not in "enough" pain to have endoIVF, a uterine septum, and the winding road to becoming a momGoing from "watch and wait" to hospitalized with sepsis — while her husband was in ThailandThe surgeon who quite literally saved her life (Dr. Richard Freeman at the Disney Cancer Center in Burbank)Why your regular OB/GYN may not be equipped to handle this — and where to find a specialistThe Huberman Lab episode with Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi that every woman should listen toA Long Island research study actively enrolling women who haven't been diagnosed yet — and why that mattersThe hormonal birth control decision Hilary resisted and then reversed — and why she's so glad she didCommunity, support groups, and why both Emily and Hilary swear by themIf you have a uterus, know someone who does, or you're just a decent human who believes women deserve better healthcare — this episode is for you.📎 Resources mentioned:🎙️ Huberman Lab — "Female Hormone Health, PCOS, Endometriosis, Fertility & Breast Cancer" ft. Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMzfGZnaPN8🔬 ROSE Research Study (Northwell Health / Feinstein Institutes) — endometriosis research enrolling participants: https://feinstein.northwell.edu/institutes-researchers/institute-molecular-medicine/robert-s-boas-center-for-genomics-and-human-genetics/rose-research-outsmarts-endometriosis📲 Find Hilary on Instagram: @hilarypawlik💌 Have a story about a plan that went sideways? We want to hear it. Reach out to us at [email protected] or www.thatwasnttheplan.com📲 Find us on Instagram | TikTok | YouTube — search @thatwasnttheplan_podcast🎧 If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend who needs to hear it. It genuinely helps us grow the show and reach more people.And as always — whatever plan you had? We're glad you're here anyway. 🥂Support the show