Padma Lakshmi opens the MIT Center for Gynepathology Research

The room was packed. We had received an invitation to sit in the special seating section and to attend the ‘after party’. Lily and I waited, in the third row, front and center.  Padma Lakshmi would be walking though those doors, stage left, momentarily. We’ve watched her on Bravo’s Top Chef for 6 seasons now.  Always so beautifully dressed, with her smile, knowing that she was ready to challenge the next set of top chef’s almost beyond their culinary limits. And for all but one, past that breaking point where they hit that wall and fell short of their gastronomic dreams.

Padma Lakshmi was at MIT for the official launch of the MIT Center for Gynepathology Research. This research center, the child of Professor Linda Griffith, is the first interdisciplinary academic research institute which brings together biologists, clinicians, and engineers with the goal of understanding the basic biology, physiology, and pathophysiology of the female reproductive tract.

Professor Linda Griffith began the afternoon by introducing Susan E. Whitehead, Lifetime Member of the MIT Corporation and Vice Chairman of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Ms. Whitehead remarked on the bold research initiative embodied in the center. Dr. Tamer Seckin, President and Founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America (EFA), followed her and introduced Padma Lakshmi.

There she was, tall, beautiful, poised, radiant, and very much pregnant. Ms. Lakshmi began to share the account of her personal struggle and eventual diagnosis with endometriosis. This disease slowly wrestled control of her life and body away from her.  She recalled of how she suffered alone with this recurring, debilitating disease, learning to tolerate excruciating pain.  Scheduling her life around the monthly assaults by this unbearable condition. Living every day with this incapacitating disease, one which until recently had no name or meaning to her. Her pain was apparent in her heart felt rendering of how she had suffered through misdiagnosis and unnecessary medical procedures before a friend referred her to Dr. Seckin. Padma told of the relief she felt hearing Dr. Seckin’s words.  He understood what she was going through.  His life’s work has been dedicated to understanding the molecular underpinnings of this debilitating disease.  Now, almost three years later, Padma tells of how she has regained control of her life and her body.

Through out her talk, Padma emphasized how the lack of awareness and education regarding endometriosis had shaped the medical diagnosis, treatment and response to her disease. She spoke of how social taboos deterred her from asking the right questions and demanding answers regarding her body and her physical state. She also described how the people who were closest in her life at times misunderstood or played down her symptoms, leaving her doubting her ability to properly describe her symptoms to others. It was not until Padma met Dr. Seckin that she finally understood the impact that endometriosis had had on her life.

What can you do as a woman, a partner, a loved one, for someone who is suffering with endometriosis? Education and information are the best tools to help you understand and identify the symptoms of this disease. Awareness of your body is key.  For those of us who care for our close ones, understanding and believing that when they complain, the pain and the discomfort they feel is real.  Do not brush it aside.  For all of us, do not hesitate to obtain a second opinion on a diagnosis.

In her closing remarks, Padma extended her heart felt thanks to Professor Griffith and the other members of the research center for making the MIT Center for Gynepathology Research a reality. For more information regarding endometriosis or other chronic non-cancerous diseases of the female reproductive tract please visit the MIT Center for Gynepathology Research or The Endometriosis Foundation of America.  Also, please read the article that appeared in the Boston Globe on Friday, December 4th.

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