Tamsen Fadal

Hi Reader, Can I ask you for a favor? The Tamsen Show was just nominated for seven Signal Awards. Seven! I had to read that email twice. When I started this podcast last year, I wanted a place where women's voices actually got heard. Where we could talk about menopause, our relationships, our bodies and everything in between, out loud and without apologizing for it. I honestly didn't know if anyone would listen. You did. You listened, you shared episodes with your friends, and you sent in...

Hi Reader, We have a to-do list for everything. Take off your makeup. Put on your skin cream. Phone off before bed. When was the last time your feet made that list? Mine never did. The first time Dr. Courtney Conley came on the show, I honestly wondered how long two people could talk about feet. Then your questions poured in, and I realized I wasn't the only one who had never given them a second thought. I wasn't a toe spacer person back then, either. I tried them after that conversation, and...

Hi Reader, Breast cancer is something I’ve thought about for most of my adult life. My mom was diagnosed at 44. My stepmom had breast cancer too. I have dense breasts, so I've been getting screened since I was 34, and I get an ultrasound with every mammogram. I thought I was pretty informed. Then I read Beyond the Pink by Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky, a leading medical oncologist, and found out there's a free tool that estimates your lifetime risk of breast cancer. Not one doctor had ever mentioned...

Hi Reader, Have you ever said, "I walked into this room and I don't even know why I'm here," or "The word was right there and then it just... wasn't"? I know I've said it myself more times than I can count, and I hear some version of that from so many of you every week. But here's the one that still gets me: I was live on television, mid-sentence, and the word just would not come out of my mouth. To this day, I still carry notes with me everywhere I go. I never used to need them. This week on...

Hi Reader, I’m still hearing from so many of you after I shared the story of losing my mom when I was young. It’s been 36 years, and I’ve learned that grief doesn’t simply disappear with time. It changes. It shows up in different ways, at different stages of your life, and sometimes in places you don’t expect. Two of my friends are grieving right now - one is losing her father, the other is coming out of a divorce that completely reshaped her life. Watching them, I realized how much of my own...

Hi Reader, I hear some version of this question probably 25 times a week: Am I too late? I've asked it myself, more than once. This week on The Tamsen Show, Captain Carole Hopson said something that stopped me: "The difference between a dream and a goal is a date." Carole wanted to fly since she was four years old. She didn't start training to become an airline pilot until she was 50, after 9/11, after becoming a mother twice, after pushing her own timeline back 15 years to be there for her...

Hi Reader, You know that moment when you go to reach for something on a high shelf and your arm just… doesn’t? Or you can’t put your hand behind someone’s back without wincing? Or your hip feels tight for weeks and you keep blaming the mattress? That was me. For a long time I told myself it would work itself out. It didn’t. Frozen shoulder. One arm stopped matching the other. I finally got the shot I’d been putting off, and only then did things start to loosen. So I talked to Dr. Jason...

Hi Reader, Years ago, I went to my gynecologist because my libido had disappeared and I wanted to talk about testosterone. She told me I needed to see a sexual health therapist first, to explain why I wanted an increased sex drive. I sat there feeling like something was wrong with me. I never went back. I just lived without it. I've never told that story publicly until this week. This week on The Tamsen Show, Cindy Eckert said something that stopped me: "Take me seriously on the basis of my...

Hi Reader, I've only had one migraine in my life. Just one. But it was so debilitating that the entire time, all I could think was, how does anyone live through this over and over again? When I asked you all about migraines and headaches, I wasn't ready for the response. You sent me hundreds of questions - about hormones, aura, dizziness, stroke risk, and whether what you're feeling is even a migraine at all. So I brought in someone who could answer every last one. Dr. Huma Sheikh, a...

Hi Reader, For a lot of my life, I believed the answer was to keep moving. Work harder, say yes, prove myself and always be thinking about what came next. I know I’m not the only woman who learned to live that way. This week on The Tamsen Show, Brooke Burke said something that stopped me: “Slowing down is not falling behind.” Brooke and I have a lot in common. We spent decades in television, where getting older can make you wonder how long you’ll be allowed to stay in the room. We’ve...