As part of Lipoedema Awareness Month, we were hoping to bring these inspirational conversations to you and today we have the pleasure of having Marianne Peterson from WA my own hometown home state join us to share a little bit about her story and so Marianne it's great to have you with us Vanessa it's always wonderful to catch up with you but Marianne tell us a little bit more about your story when did you learn about this condition?

Well, I had an accident at work and I twisted my back because if I fell the way I was going to fall, I was going to fall on the handlebars of the scooter.

So I went to the chiropractor.

One of our young teachers said, my dad's a chiropractor, he'll sort you out.

So I went to the chiropractor and he acknowledged that it was a soft tissue he massaged me and then he told me I'm really worried about your legs and I said oh he said yes your ankles your ankles are too big and that can be a lot of different things and I want you to go to your doctor and push to find out what's happening here so I dutifully made the appointment to go to the doctor and Said to the doctor, you know, my ankles are thick and I went to the chiropractor and he rolled his eyes and I said, but he was more concerned about my ankles and told me to come to you.

And he looked at me and he just looked down at my legs and he said, oh, Marianne, you're just like the rest of us.

You're starting to show your middle age spread.

Wow.