About this item
For any woman who has experienced illness, chronic pain, or endometriosis comes an inspiring memoir advocating for recognition of women's health issuesIn the fall of 2010, Abby Norman's strong dancer's body dropped forty pounds and gray hairs began to sprout from her temples. She was repeatedly hospitalized in excruciating pain, but the doctors insisted it was a urinary tract infection and sent her home with antibiotics. Unable to get out of bed, much less attend class, Norman dropped out of college and embarked on what would become a years-long journey to discover what was wrong with her. It wasn't until she took matters into her own hands--securing a job in a hospital and educating herself over lunchtime reading in the medical library--that she found an accurate diagnosis of endometriosis.In Ask Me About My Uterus, Norman describes what it was like to have her pain dismissed, to be told it was all in her head, only to be taken seriously when she was accompanied by a boyfriend who confirmed that her sexual performance was, indeed, compromised. Putting her own trials into a broader historical, sociocultural, and political context, Norman shows that women's bodies have long been the battleground of a never-ending war for power, control, medical knowledge, and truth. It's time to refute the belief that being a woman is a preexisting condition.
About the Author
Abby Norman is a science writer and editor based in New England. Her work has been featured in a number of print and online publications, including The Rumpus, The Independent, Paste Magazine, Medium, Atlas Obscura, Seventeen, Quartz, Cosmopolitan, and Lady Science/The New Inquiry, among others. She made the 2017 Notting Hill Editions' annual Essay Prize longlist and has been interviewed about her work by Glamour Magazine, The New York Times, Bustle, and a number of podcasts, international radio programs, and other media outlets.
She has been a speaker and conference faculty member at several medical conferences, including Stanford University's Medicine X and the Endometriosis Foundation of America, and has received training in a variety of healthcare endeavors, most notably FEMA-certification for HAZMAT operations and health literacy coaching certification through The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. She has also served on technical expert panels at the National Partnership for Women and Families' CORE Network, Yale University, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
She is currently an associate science editor at Futurism and the host of Let Me Google That on Anchor.fm. She lives on the coast of Maine with her dog, Whimsy.
Her debut book, Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women's Pain, is forthcoming from Nation Books March 2018. She's represented by Tisse Takagi in New York City.
