Season 5: Ep 1 - Dr. Dinello
Hello and welcome to Right in Front of My Face - the podcast talking about big things right in front of us! Yes! It’s me! I’m back!! Has it been easy to start recording again? NO! Have I been cooking this season in my brain for a year? YES!
So much has happened since season 4 and I feel like I’m entering into a brand new phase of life. My son has made the transition from child to tween, Taylor Swift has become our Queen, we’ve survived Scandoval, two wars have started…and the 2024 presidential election is underway. Life has moved on while this podcast has paused. Oh the lessons I’ve learned in the last year.
The main thing that I’ve embraced this year is the actual passage of time. I turned 45 last May which officially kicks off my journey of being closer to 50 than 40…there’s just no denying that things have changed. I’ve officially entered the middle phase of my life.
I think for a long time I was just in denial that I’d eventually become one of those middle school moms who have checked out of elementary school volunteering - the battle wizened sister who looks at the younger moms at pick-up and thinks, “you amateurs…” But it’s happened. I look at the pre-k parents with a sense of humor only an older mom understands because we know what’s ahead…we know the challenges that await not only the kids, but the moms as they slowly experience transitions which include arthritis, menopause, and yes…your children leaving the nest. As this last year has passed, I am reflecting on time and trying to reconcile how to embrace middle age. Which brings me to the theme of this season.
My friends and I are in endless text strings and conversations about our aging process - we talk about hair removal, politics, divorce, high school placement, how ridiculous youth sports are, and will we have enough money to retire? All the things my parents talked about as I rolled my eyes and put my walkman back on my ears. Well, the tables have turned and now I’m interested in the intensely boring life questions that I now desperately need the answers to. And you know what I’ve discovered? WE ALL HAVE THESE QUESTIONS!!! We all need these answers because there is a lot our parents didn’t tell us about this life phase, a lot of new technology we need to know about, and a generation of kids we can’t understand - our parents didn’t understand us, and now add some smart grandkids to the mix and we’re all lost trying to understand their little post-pandemic problems. I mean, we’re all trying to process our post-pandemic trauma on top of figuring out what kind of insurance we need - it’s a LOT.
My solution was to pull in experts about all sorts of things regarding this phase of life and ask them to share their knowledge with us. About some mundane, and some very exciting, things that we need to know about because that’s where we’re at. I need to know about why I can’t seem to lose weight and why I’m sweating profusely at night. I need to know what lasers I need for my face. I need to know what the deal is with why women feel like they need to apologize all the time. I need to know how to harness my power but that seems hard so how do I do it? This season is all about the little things we need to know as we progress into the prime of our lives. Which brings me to another theme - powerful women. This wasn’t my intention starting this season, but my panel of experts this time around all happen to be female. Maybe that was subconscious as all of my questions are a natural reflection of myself, but I also think it’s a magnet. As I’m discovering my power in my mid-40’s, I’m realizing that the collective wisdom of a woman who has had lived through youth is incredibly valuable. Each generation gets wiser, and this generation I’m a part of has become frustrated with not talking about womanhood - all of it. The menopause of it, the sexism we’ve experienced, the various ways we’ve become mothers, the good, the bad and the ugly. We’re now sharing the beautiful truth of aging - the wisdom of it. I’m drawn to women that have found power and are unafraid using it. And I like that. I want more powerful women guiding us all down the path of life. Female leaders have a unique compassion and ability to educate which is why I’ve found so many smart experts. The commonality is that they aren’t trying to hide their answers - they actually want us to succeed and be better - they want us all to shine and be our best selves. They want us to overcome challenges, dig down and come out on top. These women are wanting society as a whole to be better and they’re doing that by talking about hard things. And I am forever grateful.
So that brings me to Episode 1 of season 5. The episode that inspired the theme. Like many of my friends, Covid aged me. I came out of quarantine with issues going on in my body that were unrecognizable. Not only new issues with my cycle, but mainly with an inexplicable weight gain that would. Not. go. Away. I was ruthlessly tracking calories, working out every day, and the only thing happening was I was driving myself insane. My relationship with food was getting really dicey, so I turned to Functional Medicine because there was nothing traditional medicine had offered me that was working. Enter Dr. Katherine Dinello. Within minutes of meeting this wonderful medical professional, I was in a puddle of tears because she was the first person that had taken the time to really listen to what was going on with me - she heard my concerns that this wasn’t about weight, this was about mental health, and for the first time, she had a plan and some advice that I hadn’t heard. Her approach to medicine is just…different. I’ve had an autoimmune syndrome for my adult life and, this is another podcast, but I’ve always felt that it flares with emotion with an underlying stress response, and dr. Dinello was the first doctor that validated that and gave me hope that there might be a solution. Since then, I’ve referred several of my friends to her and she’s provided relief that traditional medicine hasn’t been capable of. So I wanted to share her with you today. Please listen with an open mind - you may find some of yourself in our conversation.
Dr. Dinello is no longer in washington state, but you can find her on Instagram @katie.dinello for everyday tips. Please check my show notes for links, and please leave me a 5 star review on apple podcasts. YEs - i”m asking for five stars. If you’d like to give feedback, please email me atinfrontofmyface@gmail.com Share these episodes with friends, and follow me @rightinfrontofmyface on IG. Reach out to someone and ask questions because you never know what’s happening right in front of your face.