I’m not just a patient. I’m proof.
Diagnosed in August 2025. First surgery March 30, 2026. Every step documented — for the women who never knew their body wasn’t the problem.
I’m a single mom, marketing director, Newfoundland and Saint Bernard mom, house fire survivor, and lifelong athlete who spent years running marathons in compression gear without ever knowing why it helped. I didn’t get my diagnosis from a doctor. I found the word “lipedema” in a Facebook comment section, went down a rabbit hole that night, and never looked back. What followed was years of piecing together my own care — physical therapy, manual lymphatic drainage, dietary changes, compression garments sourced through insurance — while building a platform on TikTok to document what I was learning in real time, because the representation wasn’t there. Especially for arms.
In August 2025, I advocated for my official diagnosis, and what came next was seven months of relentless self-advocacy — insurance, surgeon disputes, a temporary cancellation that nearly broke me, and a photo shoot for the 2026 Broken & Beloved Project that reminded me exactly why I keep going. On March 30, 2026, I had my first surgery on my upper arms. I went in with my eyes open and my community watching. I’m a patient who happens to know how to tell a story — and I built Lipedemama because too many women are still out there blaming their bodies for something that was never their fault.