The Musician Centric Podcast
Two professional violists, Liz O'Hara and Stephanie Knutsen, explore diverse perspectives in the music field through conversations together and with friends. Whether gaining fresh insights from industry innovators or laughing their way through a show like Mozart in the Jungle, Liz and Steph hope to inspire musicians, particularly freelancers, to feel a sense of agency in their lives.
**Note: This podcast was formerly titled the ViolaCentric podcast**
The Musician Centric Podcast
Rest and Reset: How a health emergency shed new light on our journey
Stories? Questions? Thoughts? TEXT us here!
What happens when your body sends you warnings that something is seriously wrong? Join us as we recount Liz's unexpected journey through debilitating health challenges, including severe migraines and a frightening ER visit. After numerous consultations and tests, Liz was diagnosed with Addison's disease, an autoimmune disorder affecting cortisol production. We discuss the emotional and physical hurdles faced during this time, the impact on her career, and the immense relief that comes with a definitive diagnosis and effective treatment. This episode is a raw and honest conversation about the importance of listening to your body and the twists and turns life can take.
We also tackle the often frustrating reality of getting medical professionals to take women's health concerns seriously. Sharing personal stories of perseverance and eventual validation, we highlight the importance of advocating for one's health and the benefits of functional medicine. Our discussion takes an intriguing turn with a surprise encounter with Alban from the Buzzcast podcast, which led us to explore Buzzsprout's new feature...TEXT US ABOVE☝️!!
Steph reflects on her memorable trip to California for a unique class, and we encourage listeners to embrace their multifaceted identities and step out of their comfort zones this summer! What are you excited about this summer? TEXT US ABOVE 👆!
Interested in starting your own podcast? We can't recommend our host Buzzsprout enough! Click here for an introductory offer from them!
Welcome to the Musician Centric Podcast. We are two freelance violists living and laughing our way through conversations that explore what it means to be a professional musician in today's world. I'm Steph.
Speaker 2:And I'm Liz, and we're so glad you've joined us. Let's dive in. It feels good to be sitting here.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know, I was like how does this work? Will my mic still work?
Speaker 2:You know how when you unplug something, it takes your computer a minute to realize what I had to re-log in to all of the things and remember, because, yeah, friends, it's been a minute since we've done this. Yeah, we missed it we really did, so we're wrapping up this season this way, right?
Speaker 1:yes, this is completely unplanned. Update you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nothing's nothing's planned at all off the cuff, other than we had the opportunity to sit down and actually do this, which is saying a lot actually. Yeah, yeah. So where do we even begin with the last several weeks?
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess I would say that we had every intention of producing a full season with a full 12 guests and all that. And you know, sometimes life gets in the way Sure does, and you have to be flexible. Yes, yeah. Especially to accommodate your friends, and you know what life throws at you. You can't, yeah, you can't predict.
Speaker 2:I think it's kind of wild to think about what was the date of our release with Miriam oh gosh it was like mid April, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was at the end of April Well the thing is we had plans for other guests and then, as you said and I really appreciate you kind of teeing it up that way, my friend sometimes unexpected things happen and I yeah, I just had no idea that I was kind of headed for this sort of crash. I don't think I've been really talking about some of the health struggles I've been having. I know we've talked a lot about, like, our personal lives in various ways, but I had been struggling for a long time with just declining energy levels, strength. There were all sorts of things that really are kind of becoming even more apparent now, of course.
Speaker 2:But the long story short is that towards the end of April I was starting to feel really, really, really bad. I've probably talked about my migraines before, but I was getting them like every day, every other day, and they were getting worse and I will not go into all the details of all of the different avenues. I was trying to get some answers. I was calling different doctors and started seeing a functional medicine doctor, which I do have to say, because that is what ended up getting me the answers I needed.
Speaker 2:Was paying out of the insurance system to get them, which is another conversation, maybe a guest down the road, yeah, but I landed in the emergency room at the beginning of May and I it took a lot For those of you out there who are who consider themselves to physically kind of tough through things I had to have a real conversation with myself to even take myself to the ER because I just kept saying in my head, no, no, no, just go to bed, just go to bed, you'll be fine. But it turns out that I very likely would not have been fine if I had just gone to bed. So I went in and I had alarmingly low levels of sodium, which is the thing that was making me feel worse and worse, acutely. But after that I really called off all my work. I stopped working for close to three weeks. I actually subbed my students out for a couple weeks to one of my former students who was home from college, which was really great.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Billy. And I just I mean, it was like a no brainer I just had to focus on figuring out what was wrong and getting better. And I'm very happy and grateful and relieved to say that I have an official diagnosis. I have something called Addison's disease, which is an autoimmune disorder, and for those of you who don't know, because it is as it turns out, it's quite rare. Okay, sidebar, Can we talk about this? It's special, just like you.
Speaker 1:Liz would never have a disease that anybody else has.
Speaker 2:I gotta be the only one in the room. I mean, come on.
Speaker 1:All right, all right.
Speaker 2:So that's been really interesting because I have a lot of questions. I was very fortunate to have a really quick acting and responsive and actually very attentive endocrinologist who got me the final testing and I tested positive for these antibodies and then I started medication about two weeks ago. Basically, my adrenal glands cannot make stress hormones anymore, I can't make cortisol, and there may be other issues at play as well. But for now that's the main thing we're treating and we all hear of cortisol as the only thing we associate with it is stress and our stress response. But the thing is cortisol does a lot in our bodies.
Speaker 2:It's responsible for a lot of functions, and all of those functions within my body were just starting to go. And it's amazing, absolutely amazing to me that within the two weeks that I've been on this medication, I feel so much more like myself.
Speaker 2:And it's just like such a. You just don't plan for these kinds of things. You just don't. And there are many questions for all of our friends out there in the autoimmune world. Last year, we had a great conversation with Alice Ping, and there are a lot of whys that you just can't answer. Quite frankly, why would your body decide that this was the way it needed to defend itself, ultimately, shutting down a function that you need to survive? But I'm very grateful to have an answer and a reason. I was on a very dedicated search for that for quite some time, boy. It's also really interesting how we gaslight ourselves, though, because you and I have talked about this, haven't we?
Speaker 1:What I bring up next is women so often get dismissed in the medical environment and you think it's something that you're making up in your head. I think we've all been there. You go to a doctor and you're like I'm having this issue and they're like, oh well, that's just this, it'll go away. Like no, you don't understand the way that I live my life and I know when something's wrong. And just the validation of having some answers and the realization that it was not all in your head. And why do we have to search so hard for someone to believe us?
Speaker 2:It's such a good question and it's really interesting because, yeah, in my own experience, the first time I ever flagged with a troubling number was over a year ago. It was over a year ago. I've probably had this issue for years, many years, and it got exacerbated with the immense amount of stress I was under personally the last year and a half, so that's probably why it slid so fast. But it's like, yeah, by the time I could get a diagnosis and I've told you this too, it's been. So that's one of the more stark things to see is just test results come back and everything is flagging. You know, nothing is nothing's responding normally, and you're like, well, I mean, on the one hand, it's good to have evidence that explains a lot.
Speaker 1:See.
Speaker 2:Look, look, my body's literally falling apart. Fix me, oh my gosh. On the other hand, yeah, I really wish it didn't have to take those kinds of drastic measures to get there. And even just the advocating, the constant advocating. I've had conversations with friends in these last several weeks who've talked with me about their own experiences where, from the time I was in the ER until I was diagnosed, it was several weeks. Who knows what could have happened in those weeks where I wasn't getting treatment and I needed it and you just can't. You know. I mean I don't really focus on that because all I can think about now is how great I feel.
Speaker 2:I mean like Stephanie knows I was saying to her yesterday, like I'm enjoying eating food, I'm sleeping normally. I didn't realize. And just to back to your gaslighting point, I just told myself that it was a one specific thing that was in my head and was created by the emotional and mental load I was carrying, and it had nothing to do with physical health, and that my lack of appetite or all of this I just brushed it to the side and just didn't think about it and meanwhile they were all warning signs and I've had them for a long time. I cannot, I can't believe when I think back, like everybody asks me, the last time I felt the way I was feeling now and I'm like it's been years since I felt the way I feel at this moment, which just goes to show that you know, our bodies are intricate things and there's a lot happening in there. If something's off, you know, don't ignore it. Don't ignore it, it's not worth it.
Speaker 1:I can say with certainty. There is something scary too, though, about delving deeper. I think one of the reasons why we tell ourselves these stories that it's nothing serious is that the alternative is to really dig into it and figure it out, and what might you find? And I think that's what makes a lot of people hesitant to go to the doctor. But really, you know the way that you should be feeling. Hopefully, you felt that once in your life, and anything else that you're feeling that's less than that is something that requires you should kind of dig into a little bit Totally.
Speaker 1:Totally. It's easy to put it off, it's easy to convince yourself it's not that big of a deal, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's funny because I would say I definitely I don't even know that I could say I was putting anything off. You know I was searching for answers. I just didn't know where the answers were and I didn't have a response from any medical professional that there was a sense of urgency behind what was going on, until I met with a functional health doctor and that was like the most amazing thing. I just I really give a shout out to the medical professionals who are bravely trying this model out where they are going outside of the insurance system. They are MDs. I worked with an MD. She knows what. She's medically trained, just like everybody you see in your primary care. But they just know that in order to get answers, sometimes they have to search around and the system is not designed for that. Get answers Sometimes they have to search around and the system is not designed for that.
Speaker 2:So, like I said, it cost me money. I had to be well, I mean gosh. Yeah. It's just puts everything into perspective in our lives, because that week after the ER I had my busiest gig week for the rest of the season and I had to cancel everything. So I knew that there was a bank account depletion going to happen. All of us are familiar with how horrible that feels having to miss any gig, let alone the most lucrative week of the rest of your season. And on top of that, I was spending all this money trying to figure out what was wrong and at the same time, frankly, it just didn't matter. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:No, because if you don't have I mean it's trite, but if you don't have your health.
Speaker 2:What's going to happen? Yeah, what's going to happen.
Speaker 1:What good is any money that you're bringing in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's a big thing to work through and to figure out. I am really sorry that we weren't able to finish out our season. That was a real regret, and I'm also just I feel a little sad for missing out on the opportunity to have the kind of energy that I normally have for all of my creative projects, including our podcast. This was a hard year and I've had hard years before, but this was particularly hard and I want to say thank you to my work wife here for sticking it out and stepping in in a lot of ways while I was kind of in this decline for so long, and I'm just really feeling hopeful and optimistic for our future as a podcast and for whatever's ahead for both of us.
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Speaker 1:We have big plans this summer to like go to some conventions and learn some new things and get inspiration. So if all goes as planned, season five will be coming at you in the fall season five.
Speaker 2:I know it's really cool and I feel it's like a good number right. It's like fresh start, it's an anniversary what, what year and what? Are you gonna look it up? Should we do something? I'm gonna look at that. We should do something. Yeah, isn't it like paper or something?
Speaker 1:no, that's like one year.
Speaker 2:Okay good, oh, it's got to be better than paper.
Speaker 1:Then is it copper it is wood, I think how appropriate, as we're street players, I think wait, wait, gifts by year. The knot's gonna. The traditional one is wood, the modern one is silverware and the gemstone is sapphire.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited for that. I also just just am like so thankful to the people who listen. I just think it's so great. Oh my gosh, you guys, thank you for sticking it out with us Every once in a while we meet you in the wild.
Speaker 2:We're friend Molly Sharp and a friend of ours she said oh my gosh, you know, what's so funny is we've been spending all this time together and gigs this and that, and I never put two and two together. Until the other day I was listening to an episode of your podcast and I was like that voice sounds really familiar. I was like, oh well, thanks for listening, that's great. You know, I'm still so proud of the conversations that we did have this year. It's so funny for me because it's like I was kind of in a fog from my normal present self. But when I think about it and when I listen back, I'm like man did we talk to some really cool people with some really great ideas and perspectives and it's just always been such a an inspiring thing in my life since we started it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so don't worry we'll be back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe we'll post updates of stuff we're doing over the summer, just for fun, yeah.
Speaker 1:And oh, there's a new feature you're going to see in the description and it's called text us and you can literally just learning about this I know I'm sorry I didn't update you. It's a new feature from our podcast hosting company, buzzsprout. Who's? I mean? I'll plug them.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, you met. Do you want to tell this story real quick? I feel like, okay, I hope all of you who love us like are bearing with this conversation. We're just. We are literally just. This is how we normally are.
Speaker 1:So and then back to I got this that we get this newsletter, email newsletter from our podcast host, buzzsprout, and they always tell you like what's new in the podcasting world, what new features they're introducing, blah, blah, blah blah. And this one announced that there was going to be a meetup hosted by Buzzsprout in the DC area, which is where we are. And so I texted Liz and I was like say you can go to this thing with me. We need to go because, number one, it's our podcast host and I'm like a fangirl for their podcast.
Speaker 1:Anyway.
Speaker 2:You are a fangirl.
Speaker 1:I'm a fangirl. I just, I don't know, I nerd out about that stuff I love it Anyway.
Speaker 1:Number one, it was hosted by them they're amazing. And number two, they were going to be giving out free passes to the convention which is also happening here in DC in August, which Liz and I are going to Anyway. So we show up, it's a very crowded room, it's very loud and we're ordering drinks at the bar and I hear this voice behind me and I turn around and instantly I recognize Albin from the Buzzcast. Okay, this is deep cut for anybody who does not listen to podcasting. Podcast fans will know what you're talking about Anyway. So I recognized this host by his voice and confirmed that it was him and we had this conversation with him and he was so cool.
Speaker 2:He was cool, he was really fun and it was exciting and he was interested.
Speaker 1:He was very interested, he was really interested in what we were doing and just super cool. But anyway, that's a long way to say that. We have this new feature that Buzzsprout has made available to us, where you listener can text us using your phone any kind of message. We can't reply, but if you hear something that you're interested in, if you have a suggestion, you just want to say, hi, this is so and so listening from so and so If you have ideas about future guests, you'd love us to feature anything. Literally just say hi, yeah, we won't know it's anonymous unless you write your name. Oh yeah, like we don't even see, like who it is, or we can't reply back or anything.
Speaker 2:What if we get a bunch of mean ones? We?
Speaker 1:can sure shout you out on the next episode.
Speaker 2:I would really love it if we just got a bunch of random highs and we didn't know who it was. That would make me smile a lot actually.
Speaker 1:Send us a lot of highs. Anyway, that's just another way that you can engage with us. If you're on your phone and you're already listening to this, just send us a hi, throw us a crumb. Throw us a crumb. We appreciate you so much, we really do and there's a lot going on in our world, in our classical music world right now that we're kind of wrestling with how to address. So hopefully we're going to find some inspiration on the most productive way to get into that subject material.
Speaker 2:So look forward to that Both, stephanie and I feel it's very important that we don't gloss over or ignore major issues that particularly pertain to women and non-binary musicians in our field. So we're with you and we're going to try to figure out how to best serve our community when those topics come up. I think that's really good. I'm glad you brought that up. I was just thinking, okay, maybe this is a good place to sort of wrap it up.
Speaker 2:I was just thinking about a conversation we had when we were discussing the Creative Success Now book in our book club with our friend Eileen, and in this particular meeting we were talking about the goal setting and it was like the wheel of various things and you were supposed to sort of assign okay, family's really important, friends are really important career, whatever it was, and health was one of them. And at the time this was probably like three months ago, like close to three months ago I was very confused by this because I was like these are all important to me and I don't know what to do, and Stephanie's like well, I think it's temporary, I think you just pick the thing now and then you reevaluate, and I was like, okay, well, then I have to easily answer health, because this was a problem for me at this point. My goal was to get stronger, and I wanted to ask you how you feel about yours. Do you remember?
Speaker 1:I can't remember what I chose.
Speaker 2:It was something along the lines of exploration goals? Yeah, exploration, yes. So how do you feel like you're doing? Because this was before or right around the time you had planned your trip to California, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I have this goal this year of exploring different options for my future, because I feel like I don't know the need to do something different and to explore my other strengths. So I decided to go to California to take this class, to kind of pursue a possible skill that I have, and it's like you've never, I've never done this thing before.
Speaker 1:So cool so yeah so, and it's totally not related to music. There was not another musician there at all, and eventually I will definitely be sharing about what I'm doing but it's too early for that. Yeah, it's early in the process now, but let that be a teaser to you.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it's really been. Perspective is something that we can all benefit from, and sometimes it comes in the form of stepping away from what you're really comfortable in and literally going somewhere else and being like, oh man, all these people here are doing something completely unrelated. They have no idea who I am, what my issues are. I can still exist in that world. I don't know if that makes any sense, but perspective and travel is a great way to do it. Summertime is a great time to do it, because a lot of our seasons are a little more quiet during this time, but I would just encourage you to get some perspective.
Speaker 1:Us freelancers get bogged down in the mire of the day-to-day, the hustle, all of that that comes attached to what we do for work about who we identify, as you identify as a musician, but you are so much more than that, and this is just my reminder to make the most of your summer. Step away and just recognize that you are multifaceted.
Speaker 2:Yep. Oh, perspective is the theme of the conversation here, isn't it? Yeah? It really is, because whether it's something that is forced upon you or it's a choice that you make to take a chance and go do something different and try something new and meet new people. It does it shifts. It just shifts your world in a way. That's yeah, I imagine, for the better Certainly makes all those little problems feel a lot littler. I totally agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's totally sows seeds of creativity. Experiencing new things is a great way to get unstuck.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree more. You know how addicted to travel I am. I know.
Speaker 1:Well, all that being said, we've missed you. We've missed you. We're gonna say see you soon yeah, we'll stay in touch.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and um, text us. Yeah, text us. Have a good summer. Thank you so much for listening today. If you loved this episode, consider writing us a five-star review on apple podcasts, amazon music, spotify or wherever you listen.
Speaker 1:Thanks also to our season sponsor, Potter Violins.
Speaker 2:If you'd like to support the podcast and get access to bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community.
Speaker 1:You can buy all your musician-centric merch, including shirts, water bottles, koozies and a variety of other fun items.
Speaker 2:Our theme music was written and produced by JP Wogeman and is performed by Steph and myself.
Speaker 1:Our episodes are produced by Liz O'Hara and edited by Emily McMahon.
Speaker 2:Thanks again for listening. Let's talk soon.
