About This Episode

So many women hear some version of the same sentence: “That’s just postpartum.” For McKenzie Bovard, a military spouse and mom of two who has lived in seven states, that explanation covered up years of crushing fatigue, painful bloating and hair loss. It took a plasma center turning her away three times and one question from her husband to uncover a golf ball-sized thyroid tumor. On this episode of Invisible Strength, McKenzie shares what she learned about trusting her gut, and why her mantra is now “do less to heal more.”

Key Takeaways

• McKenzie’s symptoms (extreme bloating, exhaustion, losing parts of her eyebrows) were attributed to postpartum changes for years.
• A plasma donation center rejected her blood three times, which pushed her to keep looking for answers.
• A year of tests and four-hour round trips ended when her husband asked a doctor a simple question.
• She calls herself the CEO of her own body: the number one advocate for her own care.
• After surgery and a gastroparesis diagnosis, she found she felt best when she treated her illness “like the flu.”

“This can’t be normal”

McKenzie had a two-year-old and a newborn, and the family was living on a small island in Alaska with very little sunshine. There were plenty of reasons she might feel run down. But what she felt went well beyond tired. “I felt pregnant again,” she said. The bloating came with “excruciating pain,” along with an exhaustion she describes as gravitational. She started losing parts of her eyebrows. “I just don’t get how we could be surviving as a species if this was normal postpartum feeling,” she remembers thinking.

The plasma center that wouldn’t take her blood

Back in the lower 48, McKenzie tried donating plasma to earn a little extra money for the family. Before you donate, the center runs your blood. “They took me in the back room and they’re like, ‘We can’t take your blood,’” she said. At the time she was running marathons and eating a whole-foods diet. It happened three times, and it became one of the clues that something bigger was going on.

“Have you touched my wife?”

After a year of tests, McKenzie and her husband sat with a doctor who was drawing a diagram of what he thought was a pituitary issue. Her husband looked up and asked, “But have you touched my wife?” The doctor put on gloves, tilted her neck back and examined it for the first time. That’s when he felt something. It turned out to be a golf ball-sized thyroid tumor.

Becoming the CEO of your own body

Even with a diagnosis, McKenzie’s road wasn’t over. She talks about surgery, a frightening ER visit afterward, food fear and gastroparesis. Looking back, she says the biggest shift was internal. “You just realize you have to be your own CEO of your body. You have to be the number one advocate for yourself,” she said. “But it takes a lot of bad moments to realize that’s what you have to do.”

Her advice is direct: if you feel in your soul that something isn’t normal, keep looking. “If that doctor pushes you aside and gaslights you, go find another doctor.”

Treating chronic illness like the flu

After trying every wellness trend she could find, McKenzie noticed that her best days came after she’d rested. “I basically started treating my chronic illness like the flu,” she said. That meant gentle walks and stretching instead of intense workouts, and simple, easy-to-digest food. “How would you treat your child if your child told you they didn’t feel well? You wouldn’t ask them to go do a 45-minute HIIT workout.” That’s where her mantra comes from: do less to heal more.

Follow McKenzie at @thrivekenzie.

Free resource: Grab the free RESET workbook mentioned in this episode: https://invigorateyourjourney.com/reset-workbook/