Episode #11 - Brain Tumor Unveiled: Menopause, Vision Loss, and meningioma

In this episode, we dive into a compelling personal journey that began with a simple need for reading glasses but soon revealed a hidden medical mystery. It all started in 2019 when, despite a lifetime of perfect 20/20 vision, our guest noticed subtle yet concerning issues: clumsiness in the kitchen, difficulty reaching for items, and the appearance of a strange head tilt during her Zoom calls. Seeking answers, she visited various optometrists, all of whom attributed her symptoms to aging. Despite trying multiple glasses prescriptions, her symptoms persisted, leaving her feeling dismissed and frustrated.

Unwilling to accept the age-related explanation, she embarked on a long journey for answers. After seeing a chiropractor with no results and fearing something more serious, she enrolled in a perimenopause study led by Dr. Lisa Mosconi, hoping it might shed light on her condition. The study cleared her of cognitive decline, yet her symptoms remained, and she began to fear a neurological cause. Eventually, she secured a visit to a neuro-ophthalmologist, who quickly diagnosed her with fourth nerve palsy—a condition impairing the function of a specific eye muscle. The cause? A tumor pressing on the nerve, which had gone undetected for years.

This episode explores the challenges of advocating for one’s health, especially when dismissed due to age or unfamiliarity with specific symptoms. Join us as we uncover how persistence, self-advocacy, and a bit of luck finally led to an answer.

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Thank you for your interest!

Show Notes:
Chantal Traub:  https://www.chantaltraub.com/

Menopause Coaching:  https://www.chantaltraub.com/menopause-coach

Birthing Workshops:  Pushing Power:  https://www.chantaltraub.com/events

Courses/Classes:  https://www.chantaltraub.com/courses

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/chantal.traub/

Disclaimer:
The information shared on this podcast is for informational purposes only and is based on the opinions and experience of Lori Dorothy and their guests. The content should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or a treatment. Always seek the advice of your healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you heard on this podcast    

Transcript

0:06

Welcome to let's get curious. The podcast for women and mothers seeking connection, support, and inspiration. We are friends, mothers, and therapists. Laurie, a physical therapist and Dorothy, a speech and language therapist. Together. We share our personal stories, including IVF birth experiences and navigating children's learning difficulties. Through our discussions, we uncover profound lessons for personal growth. Join us on this journey of curiosity, compassion and empowerment. Welcome to let's. Get curious

Lori: 0:44

Hello everyone. So we are back once again, and we are so excited to be having Chantal Traub on with us today. She is a seasoned New York City doula, childbirth educator, and menopause coach. In her 20 plus years in practice, she has become internationally well known for her expertise on the pelvic floor and her pushing power workshops. Through her classes, her one on one work, and doula practice, Traub has helped thousands of women birth babies, give birth, and give birth without trauma. In recent years, Traub has expanded her training and practice to serve the health needs of women navigating motherhood, perimenopause, menopause, and beyond. Chantal speaks frequently on the subject of pelvic health. Safe and effective pushing during second stage labor, polyvagal principles for birth and postpartum and menopause and the nervous system. She has been featured on many podcasts, including next question with Katie Couric, the women's health podcast, the birth healing summit, and Lamaze international. She's presented at the Polyvagal Institute Conference in 2022. Chantal's work also includes, publishing books in Pathways to Family Wellness, she also co authored the book, The Pelvic Floor, Everything You Needed to Know Sooner. And she contributed to somatic oriented therapies, embodiment trauma, and polyvagal perspectives. We are so excited Chantal to have you here and you know, this, this intro describes you as a professional, which we're going to dive into a little bit later into the podcast, but Dorothy and I both reached out to you because of your personal menopause story. And that is what we're going to be opening with. I follow you on Instagram, as a professional, and then you're sharing this personal journey that you're walking with kind of pause and I myself going through it. I just, was drawn to that story immediately reached out to you and, you know, here we are to share your story. So I'm going to let you take it over at this point. And again, Dorothy and I welcome you.

Chantal: 3:02

Thank you. Thank you. Well, that's amazing. And I'm so glad that, my story was helpful. One often wonders, should I share private details about my story? Are people really going to be interested? You know, so that it, it struck a nerve and resonated. Um, that's encouraging. And, I so appreciate that you invited me to be here. So I'm excited

Lori: 3:22

Yes, we are, too. We are, too. Yes, so take us, take us back to the beginning, please. How it all, how

Chantal: 3:30

have this? How much time do you have?

Lori: 3:34

As much as that is needed, yes.

Chantal: 3:37

yeah, I mean, let's talk a little bit. I mean, we can always go further back, but I could share that. Um, you know, it would be interesting to know, how I became a doula because I've been a doula for 22 years actually before I started shifting my practice. And I was a doula for four and a half years before I had my own kids. So I was mothering the mother, if you will, Before I actually became a mother myself. And I think that was a really important thing is that sometimes we choose the vocations that we do to heal certain things. About ourselves. Like it's interesting, because one of the ways that I became a doula wasn't, I wasn't that I decided, Oh, I'm going to become a doula. Let me go study to be a doula that I'd read somewhere. I had another career, you know, before, I have a, an art background and I used to work on, doing hand props and set design for. for film. But when I moved to New York, I, got was really into yoga. I'd studied yoga out in California and I had become a yoga teacher and I, this is in the mid nineties. So they weren't yoga studios on every block as they are now. And. There were, there was no like prenatal yoga, but I had been teaching yoga, running around the city teaching yoga and I'd had a training in prenatal yoga. And at the time, prenatal yoga, wasn't as a thing as it was now. And while I love teaching my mixed kind of vinyasa classes, I kind of got pigeonholed to, teach prenatal yoga and then also teach other teachers how to teach prenatal yoga. And so it was through my teaching prenatal yoga that some of the moms reached out to me and said, will you be my doula? Because you are so encouraging. You help me feel so comfortable in class. You're, um, you're just so supportive. I'd love to have you at my birth. Which made me think like, Oh, what is this role of a doula? And what are the responsibility? And maybe I'll take the training to deepen my knowledge, to better support my own students in my classes. And while taking the training, it actually resonated with me that, Oh, moms need the support in a hospital, especially in a hospital setting. They need the support to be able to really protect them and support them and encourage them to have, you know, the births that they were hoping for, to have a physiological. And so by the time I had audited my, you know, six births that you need to audit for your training, I had connected with some OB's and midwives and we're getting referrals. And that kind of snowballed my career as a doula. It was one of those things that I was like, Oh, you know what? It resonated with me and through working with, with my clients as a doula, again, I started noticing why aren't we talking about the pelvic floor? The baby has to come through the pelvic floor. I found moms who are having such a hard time coordinating and pushing for many, many hours. And sometimes, Sustained unnecessary damage, which got me really excited about like, Oh, as a childhood educator for almost as long as I've been a doula, we weren't really teaching about the pelvic floor. And so I reached out to pelvic floor therapists like yourself and this is how I kind of got close to so many pelvic floor physical therapists is because I wanted to learn from you and then you wanted to learn from me about birth and there was this amazing relationship that developed where I started studying more about, I would took courses on pelvic floor, specifically for birth. and postpartum in mind. And, I started creating my class on second stage labor, pushing power to better help moms prepare ahead of time for birth and minimize damage. And it,

Lori: 7:12

It's needed. It's

Chantal: 7:13

it's so, yes. Yes.

Dorothy: 7:16

you may see my facial expressions, but let's, I could just, I need to say this. So you're speaking to someone who wishes that she knew you eight and a half years ago when I was in that position and pushed for four hours and went through all sorts of birth trauma. So I'm so glad you're here sharing that story, um, because I needed you

Chantal: 7:36

Yes. Yes. I wish, I wish, I wish you'd found me sooner, but yes, but this is why it's your story. It's your story that pushed me, if you will, to create my class, my class Push Empower, because I want to empower moms like yourselves to know how to prepare ahead of time, what they need to do, how to advocate for themselves, how to ask for what they want ahead of time. So this, your stories. Other stories that I heard and continue to hear that really lights the fire for me to teach these classes. Um, uh, yes, yes. And I continue to teach these classes. I do, I do continue to teach these workshops. And then it was through actually my clients who would reach out to me and say, you helped me so much with my pelvic floor. Could you help my mom with her pelvic floor? And so it was through even my clients who then would reach back. I then perimenopause. It would be pelvic floor stuff, but not always. Sometimes because they, we already had this relationship and they would share, you know, how they were adjusting through this new phase of life. They'd reach out to me or they'd introduce me to their mom's and their mom's friends. Can you help them with that? their issues about postmenopause. So that's, and that I, as a, as an older mom, so I had my kids like in my forties and while I, life was great, I was very fit and I was, you know, I had lots of energy. It was only after I gave birth to my son at 44 that I realized in retrospect, I went from postpartum right into perimenopause. Like my kids were finally sleeping through the night and I wasn't. I was living my life like go, go, go, go, go. Just take on. I had these beliefs that, you know, if you want something done, give it to a busy person. And there'd be like, if someone asked me to do something or present something or create it, I would like, yes. And I would just pile it on. And I really came crashing into peri-menopause force. I could not, could not do what I did in my thirties and forties, early forties now in my late, my mid to late forties. And so I began to kind of think about that, you know, you know, The changes that I needed to make. And the other thing was, it was really about sleep. So my kids were finally sleeping through the night and I wasn't. And, it's kind of opened up that whole door. I was really, really struggling with sleep and I knew I had to make a change. I needed to handle my sleep issues. As I would a cancer actually. I, I became really impassioned with that because my father, has dementia and I know that stress and lack of sleep are one of the biggest causes that lead to cognitive decline. This was built in and so I would kind of. Um, you know, put it on the back burner pretty much until, actually almost as long as almost into my fifties really. And then I got COVID in two 20 and what one of my COVID symptoms, long COVID symptoms was, the COVID insomnia. So I had been thinking about it, I was thinking about my sleep. I knew a lot about sleep hygiene. I had kind of fixed my sleep, but I hadn't set specific boundaries around it as I did. When I got, uh, kind of that sleep issues. So while I had been toying with the idea, I'd shifted my career. I was like, I can't attend all nighters. Like I did in my thirties and early forties, I have to be able to give myself more buffer around that because I could go to two, three births a week, you know, and I'd be fine three all nighters in a row, but it would take me so much longer to recover. in my later 40s. So, I changed my whole practice and it was kind of like I decided by the time I reached 50, I would, um, I had would have shifted, my career to coaching. I had already studied to be a health coach, but I wasn't practicing full time. Like I had done the trainings. I had started seeing some clients. But I couldn't say no to births because if you've ever been a, you know, a doula, there's just really nothing like it. And I had so many repeated clients and you know, the phone's always ringing for doula services. So it was a really hard thing to really start saying no and taking on less. And it was in two 20 after I got COVID where I was like, okay. I cannot keep doing what I was doing. I, um, I, I really need to take that leap. And COVID, the pandemic actually really helped because I found that, folks were more open to telehealth like we'd never been before. So it, it was, it's kind of a cliche to say I pivoted, but it was almost the fire underneath me and getting COVID and long COVID to really make that 360 pivot. and transform most of my practice into telehealth. So that really allowed me to really grow my business as a coach. And the people that I was seeing were people going through perimenopause and menopause. I feel like I left out some things for you about perimenopause, but that was just like how I shifted from,

Lori: 12:48

makes a big part of your story of, you know, where we're, where we're going into telling your personal story of how things started to appear to you as you were working with clients. Yes.

Chantal: 12:59

Yeah. So by taking on less births, I was able to put a lot of boundaries around my sleep and I noticed a huge difference from when I was off call and when I was on call. And so I'm the type of person that runs a little sympathetic, so being on call makes me very hypervigilant, so I'd never really get deep sleep. I'd always kind of sleep with one eye open. And I realized like with just with my kind of baseline nervous system personality, if you will, I needed to be off call to really get good sleep. And so I restructured my whole calendar so that I could start beginning to explore, sleep on a much deeper level, if you will.

Lori: 13:40

Yes. Yes. And so as you were working with clients over zoom what were you starting to then notice as we're talking about these changes with menopause and you sharing your, yes, your personal story.

Chantal: 13:53

so the other interesting thing about COVID is that when I actually, I think, I don't know, my husband seems to think it wasn't COVID. It was just timing, but it was when I kind of, So I crossed that bridge from peri to menopause. So it was during 220 around that time that I think I crossed over, into post menopause. And at the same time, there was some interesting things happened. So as I mentioned, I, I kind of did come crashing and burning into peri menopause. That was like the, in my late forties. Um, right at around like 50, 51, I was having a really hard time with being very symptomatic. And that's when I became interested in the nervous system and beginning to understand my nervous system. And when I kind of got a handle on it and was able to kind of reshape it in different ways, I became less symptomatic. However, there is something about stress to kind of pay attention just in the whole menopause journey is that when you're running on go, go, go, go, go under, you know, chronic stress, we tend to, so the, you know, look, the, all the whole thing about menopause is kind of learning to live without, estrogen, really like all our hormones come down, but so our hormones are fluctuating in that perimenopause. So estrogen is going up and down and progesterone is going up and down and testosterone is dropping. But, and so most of the estrogen is in our ovaries. There is some in the adrenal glands. And when we are really living in high stress, the adrenal glands will take, they run out of cortisol and will take those. estrogen and turn it into cortisol. So you actually blowing out all your estrogen reserves when you really need to be building a buffer around it. And that can make you actually more estrogen dominant in the end, it actually makes you deplete. So you become really low in estrogen, but initially there's an estrogen dominance. And that is actually linked to a lot of health issues as well. So it's really important as we are. You know, I, when I'm working with my clients and when they preparing for birth, really, I am doing a lot of postpartum prep. And now I have in mind that I am also teaching for perimenopause. So many of my clients are in their late thirties and forties. And that means for many of them, they are also going straight from postpartum to perimenopause without much reprieve. So having that in mind, even though when you're pregnant, you cannot be thinking, you just don't have it in your head to be thinking about perimenopause. I am with my clients. So Through my education and the preparation, we're creating that buffer system to be able to really rest in postpartum is really important. For myself, I, it was at the time, it was still at the time where it was like, you know, we can do it all. And, you know, there wasn't rest was kind of like overrated. I was giving birth and I was at birth four weeks after my first kid, because My mentor at the time was like, you're going to want some adult stimulation, like, you could be teaching right a few weeks after, but it wasn't so great. And for my son, I had my son later, a couple of years later, and I took a much longer restful period. But when I was going through pregnancy, they weren't what we have today, mat leaves and paternity leaves. It, our culture here isn't so supported. It's more supported now than it used to be.

Lori: 17:30

Mm

Chantal: 17:30

So I was very much a go, go, go type of person and, and thought, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm fine. I'm doing this. I can do it all. However, there is, there's a sacrifice to be made. So going back to the pandemic and going on zoom, I was having some eye issues, some vision issues, if you will, I would say in 2019. And while I had You know, I had 20 20 vision my whole life. I had no need for glasses ever, and I started realizing that there were certain times of day I couldn't really see exactly properly, and I thought that my being clumsy in the kitchen or, I would be prepping too much. Uh, for dinner and I have to cut myself at the night for, for example, or I would knock things off the counter or if we went out for dinner and I was having a glass of wine, they put the wine down. And as I reached for that, swipe it off the table. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm so clumsy. What the, what is going on? Like, is this perimenopause? And I went to go see a few optometrists. But because I'd never really needed an eye doctor before, I went to, a local Warby Parker's and, they tested my eyes and they were like, you know, maybe you need a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And they prescribed me some glasses. And I'd go back to them when I got them. I was like, it's not really working. They feel too strong. They're not exactly right. So they retest my eyes and they never really tested my eyes together. They tested one eye and then the other eye. And so I would then go to another optometrist and get a second opinion. And then another one. And they would all kind of say to me, listen, lady, like this is the age you're getting old. You just wear the glasses. You have to get used to them. And it would just be like an ageism really.

Lori: 19:18

Yeah, that's why I'm laughing, I'm like, there it is again, part of the age, suck it up, just deal with it, yeah,

Chantal: 19:24

just wear the glasses, lady. Like, don't complain. You have to get used to

Lori: 19:28

was not the case for you, right? Which

Chantal: 19:30

It was not the case for me. No, not at all. And so I would like, not really wear these glasses. I would try them, but I would feel really unsafe. Like, they weren't the right prescription for me. And so I reached out to a friend of mine who had glasses. And, I asked him if, you know, if he could give me a referral for his ophthalmologist because I'd never heard of an ophthalmologist before actually. Cause I was lucky enough not to have any eye, eye issues or vision issues growing up. And he gave me a name and I went to this person and he tested my eyes and he also, he was like, Yeah, it's just age. I think what you have are the beginnings of cataracts and we'll just keep an eye on it and come back and this thing he kind of gave me kind of a little bit of an adopted script and again, those glasses just weren't great, but I went back in a year. He did all these fancy little tests for my eyes and it was like ruled out any glaucoma or any of those kind of diseases. And, um, just like come back in a year, you're too young to do, you know, cataract surgery, but that's just age. You know what it is. So within a period of three years, I was just going back and this was going from 2019 to 20 and 2 21, but the year of 2 21, I noticed while I was teaching on Zoom and seeing all my clients on Zoom, I, had developed this head tilt and I couldn't understand why. My head was like always at an angle. I thought it to be completely weird. And so. I went down the the rabbit hole of going to see, a chiropractor and he, would look at my body and go, yeah, it's probably related to, you know, some childhood adversity or hip. I don't know, you know, your ankle, something like that. Um, and he kept giving me these adjustments, but the head tilt was just getting worse and worse. And, I couldn't understand what was going on, like why I couldn't get my head up straight. It almost looked like I had tautocollis. Like if you've ever seen a newborn with a tautocollis, that's what it looked like. And I would be teaching in person, when I was teaching, my workshops, I would have like all these different kinds of glasses that didn't really work very well. I started losing a little bit of confidence, like being on stage and where I was. But. You know, and my head tilt and what would people think of my head tilt, but I couldn't understand what it was. So I saw a chiropractor for about a year. It didn't help at all. And in, I want to say 2022, I, I had this kind of inkling that, Oh my God, what if I have a brain tumor? Cause I felt like I'm going blind. What the hell is wrong with me? Something's wrong. And it just kind of came into my head. And. You can't go get a scan of your head. It's like, you can't just say, Hey, I have a feeling I can. You rule me out. I mean, unless maybe privately you have like lots of money and you can go and get this, but to just get a referral to see anybody, you know, there was no reason to. And so I had heard of, I had been following Dr. Lisa Moscone, who's does this amazing research on woman's brain. And. Perimenopause menopause. And I had reached out to her, I think in 2021. I can't remember my dates. Maybe you can notice. Um, and it took a while over Covid. She said yes, like absolutely we need people to, participate in this, study and you'd be a great candidate. I'll have my team reach out to you. And while they did reach out to that slow down over the two, over 2 20, 2 21 just because of the Covid pandemic, but I was on their list. And when they interviewed me and I had to make sure that I was still in that perimenopause where I was in that perimenopause, kind of window. So I guess I hadn't totally crossed over, but I was there. So I could participate. And one of the questions I asked is like, I know that I'm going to be offering my brain to science and beginning all these brain scans. If I have a tumor, will you let me know? And they were like, well, we. I won't let you know, but if you have a neurologist, we could reach out to your neurologist. And so that was like, Oh, I need a neurologist. Interesting. So. I got referrals for neurology, but they told me that, no, you don't need a neurologist. You need an up the, up the neurologist. So I started searching for that at the same time that I was doing these scans and I had reached out cause I was like, okay, if it's not a chiropractic thing, Could this be COVID? Like all my vision, vision issues, something to do with lung COVID. So when I reached out to this neuro ophthalmologist, I said, I think I have vision issues due to my COVID exposure. Cause they were seeing some people with vision issues. And here I'm trying to figure this out on my own, but I couldn't get onto an appointment with her for like, there was a year waiting list. So I got on the waiting list. I did the studies with, Lisa Mosconi and then I went through and when we were doing the follow up and they were giving me my results, which was like, I had a great cognitive baseline. It looked like I, they said, you went to the, did you go to university and did you study? I had the typical brain of someone who had gone to university and there was no signs of cognitive decline, you know, at this point, you know, even though we can't tell what's going to happen in your seventies and eighties and so, but it was a great baseline. to start with. And so I said, any tumors? And they were like, no, no tumors. So I was like, Oh, actually that's when I went to the chiropractor. Like, okay, I've got to look at this in a different way. And, I didn't realize that I had double vision at this point. I, I didn't realize that my head was at a tilt because it was compensating for double vision. I didn't realize that at that time. Anyway, I, this was now closer to. Get in and I got a call to say that, you know, like I could get on the list of we're now at six months away from a neuro ophthalmologist. Anyway, I did finally get to see a great ophthalmologist who in two seconds did a test where she tracked my, you know, closed one eye, tracked the right eye, closed the other, tracked the left, and she was like, ah, fourth nerve palsy. Were you in a, you know, were you in an accident? Did you, you know, like I was like, no, no accident. She said, well, and I'd taken all my scans. She said, you've had a lot of scans. Do you want to go get another one? I was like, yeah, absolutely. Cause I had an inkling that she knew something that I didn't. And within days they had discovered from that scan. A tumor kind of the size of a marble sitting on that fourth nerve, basically making it like kind of crippling it. So it became, atrophied and it couldn't, the one and only job of the fourth nerve is to control the superior left oblique muscle to make the eye go up and down and side side. And that muscle couldn't work because the nerve controlling it couldn't function because it had this kind of marble sitting on it. Um, so within days, I got to see a neurosurgeon and, um, when I met him, he, you know, he was this lovely man, and he was like, look, surgery at this point will not save your eyesight. Had you come in like a year ago, two years ago, when you were having subtle symptoms, it might have, the benefits of surgery would have outweighed the risks and we could have saved your vision. But at this point, three years in, we can't save the, the, the nerve won't heal even if you take the tumor out. It's been too long. So he referred me to his colleague who is, uh, who, we discussed radiation. And so I had the gamma knife surgery, which is a very specific radiation to go in and kind of kill the tumor. tumor, which I did, I had got to see my neuro ophthalmologist right at the end of December. And then in a couple of days got to see the neurosurgeon. And so I had to wait over the Christmas holidays. I had to wait until early January to get the opportunity to do the gamma knife surgery. So this is already some time. Is it a year

Lori: 28:01

were, you had mentioned to me it was in 2023 was

Chantal: 28:04

Yeah, yeah, in January. So it's a year and a half almost.

Lori: 28:09

And the meningioma, right? You were diagnosed technically with the meningioma.

Chantal: 28:13

Yes, so I've had that. I've had a few scans since because they wanted to see me every six months. So, I've had a couple of scans since then. So it hasn't grown, but it hasn't shrunk. Oh, but I did want to mention, so when we got that result of the meningioma and this little, uh, kind of the size of the tumor, I reached back to Moscone's team, to say, Hey, but you know, There is a tumor and did you not see it? And the neuroradiologist actually called me and she said, Oh, I went back to your scans and we looked, we don't slice them that way. So that's why we missed it. But there it was like hiding in plain sight. It was there.

Lori: 28:54

my

Chantal: 28:55

It's just, when they look at cognition, they're looking in a different, they slice the MRI scans a different way. So it was, so the frustrating part was like, I feel like I was onto it so many times.

Dorothy: 29:08

hmm,

Chantal: 29:09

but just it got missed and dismissed or just missed so many times that I didn't catch it in time, which is very, very frustrating. And that's what it is.

Lori: 29:21

Yes. So how do you now compensate for that double vision? Cause you still have it, correct?

Chantal: 29:26

have it. Yeah. So it's irreversible. It's not going to go away. Um, it's pretty severe vertical diplopia. So it's very, it's pretty strong double vision. I'm managing with high level prisms. And the interesting thing is when you have a head tilt, as physical therapists, you're going to know the, for a year, kind of my body's been adapting. So this head tilt was subtle, subtle, subtle, subtle, subtle, and then it was very strong. And suddenly, My body kind of went out of whack. I developed a lot of neck pain, a lot of SI pain, and Achilles tendinopathy just started off with tendonitis like a year ago and then went into tendinopathy and I could not get out of it because of the head tilt. So the head tilt actually made me lilt a little when I walked. So I've actually spent on top of everything, just on my own personal journey this year, just Finding new ways to strengthen my body to adjust for the head tilt from the double vision to not throw my whole body kind of into disarray. So it's been a journey. And I feel that now that I can put the pieces of the puzzle together, I have better tools for taking care of myself and my body while I can't go back to what it was. Uh, I now have what I can do to actually. Adapt and cope.

Lori: 30:50

Yes, yes, very much so. Well, and I'm glad that you shared with the vision being affected and then the neck tilt, and just how, you know, the whole body's connected. I mean, this is really, this is just another piece to that where the whole body is connected and it will find ways, to compensate and little by little we find ourselves giving into that. And before you know it, there you are not feeling well or having something major happen, where you have to kind of listen to these little whispers. Along the way, and I know that's something now that you're all, I mean, you're always passionate about this Chantal, but, going through your own personal experience where it's about advocating for yourself in healthcare, right? When you feel something is off, I think we don't want to make a fuss too much or be a problem, but it's like following that gut instinct is so important.

Chantal: 31:42

It's so important and we don't really have a culture that's supportive of women and women of, you know, in the midlife trajectory. Because now going back in my research, meningiomas are often the result of, women tend to have more of these and when they kind of develop over, when you're going through huge hormonal disruptions. And so when one thinks about going back, 2020 hindsight, but this is why I'm so passionate with working with women in midlife to really, tend to their nervous system because, When you live under chronic stress, right? And you, and that affects your adrenal glands that can put you into an estrogen dominant state, which, look, so many people go through perimenopause like, right, so many people and not everyone gets a meningioma. So it's not just one thing, but the layers are there and it comes out in other ways. And so it's just deepened my passion for understanding the nervous system and working with my clients. Uh, with their nervous systems. Because we know that when one lives in constant, fight, flight, under threat, chronic stress, go, go, go, go, go, as women do. I mean, especially here in our culture where we're, we're, we're, You know, we're pretty much awarded for success and status and doing more. And, you know, and so where if we don't actually build in buffers, we can really burn out. We can burn out, we can get injured. You know, it affects us physically and mentally. And I've noticed with my clients, they are more symptomatic in terms of their menopause symptoms when they live in under chronic stress. So we have to learn how to, like stress in itself is okay, but it's the chronic unrelenting stress and then understanding it because we may be wired to be living in more of, um, a state of defense or a state of, uh, more reactionary. And that. You know, there's no fault of our own, but we might have been tuned in a certain way, but when we become aware of it, we can kind of reshape our nervous system to spend more time in, a regulated state or in safety, which is, you know, more regulation.

Lori: 33:56

Yes, which we all need. I mean, you know, we're talking about perimenopause and menopause, but I mean, this is, this is something that we all need is just humans of managing the stress so that we can just not be ill in general. Right. Um, but yeah, so you, you go through this whole experience, you find out that you have this tumor too late to do surgery. You now have all of your coping skills. In place and how is life now as you kind of continue to navigate this?

Chantal: 34:29

Yeah, look, so it's challenging and I think, you know, I'm doing, I am doing well, I think, for the most part.

Lori: 34:37

I think you look amazing. And I mean, yeah, and you're busy. I, we know you're busy as we were trying to schedule our podcasts and you're still doing the birth. So, I mean, you only know your life the best, but I mean, I, you know, I think you're a rock star personally.

Chantal: 34:53

Thank you. Thank you. Well, I'll tell you the interesting thing that happens when you have a disability that no one can see. So I think it's relatable in many ways. I mean, you work with lots of people with like pelvic pain that no one can see. So you're navigating through life. It can be very isolating and lonely, and it can put you a little bit on edge. Like, so for example, what's the double vision? I lost my confidence. You know, I live in New York City. It's a very busy city. You navigate through the city with lots of people, down subway stairs, up and down subway stairs, crowds, and suddenly managing the stairs going down. I mean, I did in, you know, one, one thing that I, I have to be, I had to slow down and be more careful. I actually slipped down the stairs and like, uh, injured my, not bad. I didn't break a bone, thank God. But I got a huge bruise that took a long time to go away because I misjudged, the stairs because of the double vision. So going down, for example, and seen peripherally is a little bit more of a challenge. So I had to rebuild my confidence managing crowds. crossing streets, going down subways, when I teach in spaces, not tripping over my students or things, like being really aware of my environment in a whole different way, and to kind of readjust so that I'm not I'm not anxious and fearful, but to re find my confidence, if you will. So, life became a little bit smaller, and the pandemic was like, Oh, I had these eye issues, there was this pandemic, I would go to a birth, I would come back. I'd go to a client, I'd go back, but I never wanted to go out into crowds, or the theater, or, because it made me too nervous. So I had to kind of learn to get my confidence back with that. And my world became a little bit linear, and so I, my goal was to kind of open it up again. And so I've been working on just being aware of moving in space in a different way to build that confidence back. That's been very important for me because we want to live in this world. We don't want to have to shrink. But it's, it's a challenge to fight those fears. So it was a matter of learning how to move in space in a way that I feel safe again. That's been, something that I've been working on. I mean, my work, look, my life is good. I have a lot to be grateful for, you know, my kids are amazing. My marriage is good. I love my work that I do. I'm so passionate about my work. So I try to focus on those things. Um, you know, and I am grateful for a lot. This has been challenging this. I've had a lot of challenges in my life and I don't want any more. This has been another big one, it's, it's, you know, this is life. You know, it keeps coming at you and one has to build flexibility and resilience. And. We know that, as women, we are capable, we're adaptable, we're strong, and we have to find our way with this. And that's just what I've been trying to do.

Lori: 38:06

Yes. Well, and talk about, your line of work. um, birthing now doing, perimenopause menopause coaching, I mean, you, it's relatable because you're a woman, but now you have this new layer that's even more relatable, and so if we can kind of make that segue into what, you do professionally, and how are you helping women with this transition with the perimenopause and the menopause,

Chantal: 38:31

yes. Yeah. So as you know, cause September was a lot of births, I had a few births this month and then this now October that we're going into, I'm teaching back to back. I'm actually teaching for the Polybagel Institute. So I present for them, but I'm doing a whole woman's health series on the nervous system with motherhood, midlife and, uh, beyond. So, and as well as my own classes on second stage labor and then a few other webinars. So this month is really about teaching. And then I have my handful of clients that I'm seeing. And so, one month that's my coaching clients and birth, and then say another month that's my teaching and my clients. So I'm seeing clients. So I coach clients as they prepare for birth. So I have, families that I'm supporting in for the birth preparation process and through early postpartum. And then I have my perimenopause clients that I see. And so, people come for different reasons. Usually there's a pain point. Someone's not sleeping through the night or they're very stressed out or they're struggling with their weight or, whatever it is that they're coming to me for. And then, It's hot flushes, of course, are one of the biggest ones, those disruptive hot flushes, amongst a whole array of symptoms that people may have. And through my coaching, I really, you know, try to take the approach that while we want a, a few quick wings, we want to hit those pain points, but I don't want to chase those symptoms. We want to optimize all the systems. So when we're coaching for sleep and really transforming that, right, really Beginning to get more helpful, stupid actually helps everything else. Or if someone's coming for me because they're struggling a lot with brain fog and we want to work on cognition and that's the main area that we want to work on. We are also supporting all the other systems sleep and nutrition and managing stress and the right kind of movement for my client for whatever issues that they are having per se. So I do take an all systems approach and I do take, a coaching model where it's client centered and working with my clients. And then we go on this journey so that it's either, anywhere from four to six months, usually are the coaching packages until they feeling, confident and on their feet and then they can have maintenance if they want. But, yeah, so a lot of my clients are going through that peri-menopause of course, post menopause journey.

Lori: 40:57

Yes. Well, and my goodness, I mean, just to be able to, get them on the earlier side is huge. And I'm going through it myself. And I was just talking with another girlfriend who we were all kind of saying the same thing where we're like, you know what? We think it was start, perimenopause was starting before we even knew that it was starting. And in those situations, it's that feeling of overwhelm, increased anxiety. Maybe a little bit more trouble sleeping. It's, but it's very subtle. It's very subtle. It's more on like the mood side than the actual physical symptom side. And so it's easy to pass off as just again, society and stress and we're busy with this and I have this going on. And, you know, we just, we always chalk it up to just being too busy and stress. And, that's just, a point which, I mean, I think I make it in every single one of my menopause podcast is pay attention to to your mood. I really do think that that's an indicator when you just start to feel more buzzy. normal for you, you know, because I I do I look back. I'm like I was starting two years

Chantal: 42:08

it's so interesting that you say it because you know, those whispers are there, those subtleties are there. Pay attention. Sometimes those physical issues don't come until postmenopause. However, we catch an impairment, we start buffering and start creating some space. to really take a look at our lives. I mean, I love the pause in perimenopause because I feel like it actually gives you, if you take that pause and you take restock of your life and my living life according to my values, what are those small things that I'm slow on? Like, oh yeah, I know I need to, I know, I know I need to work on my sleep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll get to that. Or yeah, I know I have to move more, but you know, I'll get to it that, you know, those things that we're slow to change. They, you run out of time when you get to post menopause, that's where it's going to kind of hit you, like the injuries or, the metabolic stuff is going to hit you. So those little whispers are important to take note, and to make those changes or to start thinking about are you the person that you always wanted to be? I know it sounds so cliche, but I think that comes up in perimenopause. It's almost like it's a very creative time because it's suddenly you, you, you just, it's enough. You, you know, you don't want to deal with those toxic relationships. If you haven't learned to say no to things, now's the time to say no and set boundaries. Boundaries, like whether it's work, or relationships, or around your sleep, whatever it is, this is the time. If not, it does catch up with you, kind of like on the other side. And so, I think those, the, the subtleties, and yes, it is related to the hormonal shifts that are happening. And, For me, it's also about how we navigate through life from a nervous system perspective because if we're always pushing, pushing, pushing through, if you're someone pushing through, it just doesn't work anymore the way that it did or could have in your 30s and early 40s.

Lori: 44:10

Very true very true

Dorothy: 44:13

I feel that. I'm at the very very beginning of all of this so I am so grateful to be speaking to the both of you, and just yeah, absorbing all the information. I'm starting to get a little warm. I'm not hot. There are no flashes. I'm just a little warm and yeah, the brain is starting to get foggy. I was setting up my mic this, this afternoon. I was like, Oh good. I'm ready to go. I'm early. This is great. And then one minute before we started recording, I was like, I didn't plug it in. Okay. The brain's a little foggy.

Lori: 44:47

Yeah, it's, but it is, it's that, that's the tiny whisper, that's the tiny whisper. And then you start to have a little bit more of that. Oh, I, I didn't put the milk away or I didn't do this where before was never, an issue.

Chantal: 44:59

Yeah. Yeah. It's also a very exciting time. I want to say that because like everyone thinks, oh, it's doom and gloom. I found perimenopause also to be incredibly exciting. And I see this with my clients as well, because sometimes if you haven't made the changes that, that you You've always wanted to, it almost is like permission. Like if you want to change careers, or if you decide you want to change location or take that vacation that you never took or, start that business or craft that you always wanted to, or, you know, this is the time where it's suddenly you've kind of come out of your childbearing years and there's the space. There's this kind of new energy. I almost see it like with all those little flashes that are coming. There's the Phoenix is rising out

Lori: 45:45

love that, I love that.

Dorothy: 45:47

that.

Lori: 45:48

That is great, Chantal. But you know, I mean, it is true. There is a new sense of power that I do feel. Within myself, and for myself and just how I'm even navigating the world for my children, where I might not have ever spoke up before for something for me, but I will do it for them. Right. It's like this, it's this combination where you start to see things popping up in the sense of coming into your power and owning your power. Very

Chantal: 46:15

Yeah.

Lori: 46:15

If there are, any women out there listening to this, who want to work with you, how do they go about? Finding you, and working with you, and are you able to see people anywhere? Or is it just in the state of New York? Like, how does all this work?

Chantal: 46:30

As a board certified health and wellness coach, I can, cross States and I can also work internationally. So I have clients like all over the country and all over the world that I work with. If anybody's interested in learning more about my work or reaching out to me, my website is the best. best place to go because there's a way that you can find me through a contact form to email me. I have lots of free resources on my website that people can explore, the different areas that I work with in terms of the different phases and stages of life. So they could explore the website, which is my first and last name. Uh, so it's chantaltrao. com.

Lori: 47:06

Perfect. And I will have all of that. Yes. In, in the show notes.

Chantal: 47:09

Yeah. And I guess if I think because there's so many people are on social media, I also have an Instagram account at Chantal. traub. And so if anybody wants to find me that way, it's another way to kind of explore my work that way as well.

Lori: 47:24

Yes, which I'm, I'm a follower. I, I I've been for, for years. Um, well,

Chantal: 47:29

I'm so touched and honored by that.

Lori: 47:31

yes. Well, when I reached out to you, I had told you that, quick story of how we were in, uh, it was through the pelvic floor world. And we were in this little mini like zoom meetup together and, um, yeah, the pods. And I was just like, Oh, okay. Follow, you know, you, so I've been following you for years. And so that was the thing when I saw this, Story pop up and there I am in menopause. I was like, Oh my gosh, I, I'm going to reach out to her Dorothy and see if she'll say yes, and come on and, share her story. Cause this is what our podcast is all about is just educating, and I think just the woman, the woman connection alone is just so powerful and strong, and we learn the best that way. Um, yeah. But no, we do. We thank you for coming on. And I know, we would love to have you back and we could really go deep into that polyvagal therapy and just dive more into the yummy work that you do. But we would Love to

Chantal: 48:23

I'd be honored to. Yeah. And I want to just say that I love that you do it together because it seems like the two of your, your connection and your relationship is kind of like you co regulators for each other. So I love that, like on your

Lori: 48:37

my gosh!

Chantal: 48:38

life, it's just beautiful to

Lori: 48:40

Okay, how spot on is she, Dee?

Dorothy: 48:42

Oh my gosh, so much

Lori: 48:44

Oh my god, Chanchal, you don't understand. There are so many times, Dorothy and I are like, well, just send a text. I need to process. Can you hold space for me? Who needs a support today? And we hold space for each other. And I find it interesting that you, pick up on that energy, just being over, being over essentially Zoom with us right now.

Chantal: 49:03

And you know, one needs a trusted other person. Absolutely. I think women do moms do, you know, in menopause we do. So, I mean, just how beautiful that is that. And, uh, I, I totally see it. And, um, yeah, it's

Lori: 49:18

Oh, well, thank you. That makes me, it gives me, it gives me the yummy factor

Dorothy: 49:22

Me too.

Lori: 49:25

of that. Oh my goodness. Well, again, Chantal, thank you so, so much. And we, of course, are going to be in touch and have you back on. And to all of our listeners, as always, thank you for tuning in. And please, please share this information. And as we always say, let's get curious. Right, Dee? Let's get

Dorothy: 49:43

We do. Bye.

Lori: 49:44

right. Thank you.

49:45

The information shared on this podcast is for informational purposes only and is based on the opinions and experience of Lori Dorothy and their guests. The content should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice. Diagnosis or a treatment. Always seek the advice of your healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you heard on this podcast