My guest today is Callie Greenberg. Her pain started at thirteen. She did not receive a diagnosis until she was 37.
For decades, despite countless doctor visits and emergency room trips, she endured the pain and sat with questions that deserved answers. It was crazy-making. Because when you’re dismissed long enough, when you’re told by enough people that nothing is wrong with you, you start to believe you’re the crazy one.
Finally, after one more trip to the emergency room, and a years of watching other women be dismissed while she woreked in operating rooms as a medical device sales rep, Callie got her diagnosis: endometriosis. Now, her pain had a name. But that was just a start, What followed was more pain: excision surgery, failed IVF treatments, a hysterectomy, and menopause.
This conversation is about more than medical trauma. Or the shame and grief. It’s about self-advocacy and the small steps that go into rebuilding a life. And it is about the power of what one woman can do when she starts with naming it all—not just for herself, but also for others.
Callie now co-hosts the podcast Girls Room After Dark. She started The Girls Room Project with Jaime Silva. She works with other women one-on-one as a coach. And she shares her story as a keynote speaker. Because Callie decided to turn what she went through into advocacy. She wanted to make sure that other women and girls have the words for what they are experiencing in their bodies—and to find solutions and information that can help.
Thrilled to have Callie join me for Part 3 of “The Quiet Part Out Loud” (four women, four kinds of shame, four ways of working through it). And grateful for the network of women that surrounds the Stories That Sparkle podcast, specifically Katya Eckert at A Domani Sleep (use this link and get 20% off first order) who introduced me to Callie because she knew we would have much to talk about—and boy, was she right. Callie is a straight shooter, something I appreciate, who is willing to say it the way she sees it.
Now, I invite you to get comfortable, sit back, and listen in.
LINKS
All things Callie Greenberg:
Instagram: @Callie_Greenbergand@girlsroomafterdark
Websites: Callie Greenberg and The Girls Room Project
All things Hella Rader:
Every link in one place: linktr.ee/hellarader
Wan to share your story? Open to submissions: hellarader.com/submissions
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Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every other Wednesday.
