You can't read this until you do the Truffle Shuffle

Author Elisha Dacey
When the truffle shuffle happens to you. (Supplied photo)

Two days away from a major surgery, I’ve been thinking a lot about advocacy.

It’s common advice to those who are dealing with our wonderful yet flawed healthcare system to be their own advocates or to bring someone who can advocate on their behalf. It’s good advice.

Women, especially, being ignored or told their pain is in their head, is a well-documented frustration, one that I haven’t experienced to a large degree, being blessed by having doctors who always believed me when I said something was wrong. (It’s rooted in patriarchy. Surprise! But that’s a whole other column book revolution.)

But still, on Wednesday, I go in for a long-awaited hysterectomy, and I can’t help thinking that I could have shortened this journey by speaking up more.

I always knew this surgery was a possibility due to family history, so when my uterus started to do the truffle shuffle in my belly 10 years ago, I wasn’t surprised.

My doctors and I tried several things before getting to this point. Different medication. Different surgery. Different medication again. Band-aid solutions that would help in the short term, then fail. So, I wish I had insisted on the drastic step in 2015.

But advocating for yourself isn’t easy, even for someone as blabber-mouthy as me. Suggesting something other than what you’re being told still makes me cringe inside, an automatic reflex rooted in our societal norms (cough cough patriarchy cough), and insisting on something is even harder.

It’s fear – fear that by speaking up, I won’t ever get what I need, I’ll be viewed as “difficult” or “hysterical” or “crazy.” It’s not nice to upset people, Elisha, and they’re the experts. Best to do what they say, they’ll come around eventually.

So I tend to swallow my outrage and sense of injustice and go along. (Unless it’s for other people. Then I am a lion and will devour anyone who messes with people I care about.)

And here we come to the parallel – it’s the same for the non-profit sector.

I’ve seen this time and time again in my two years here. So many times, leadership fails to advocate for themselves for many of the same reasons: fear of being labelled difficult, fear of not getting what they need if they do, and fear of losing funding (which is the big one).

Let me be clear: I’ve noticed leadership will advocate hard for their clients. But they tend not to advocate for themselves – for their workers, or for societal change to benefit the whole.

So, I’m hopeful we here at Future of Good can continue to inspire changemakers to speak up not only for others but also for themselves.

Change comes slowly, but we can speed it up by speaking up. I’m reminded of a saying that I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again: Speak up. Even if your voice shakes.

Truffle shuffles can be good things.

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  • Elisha Dacey is a seasoned journalist with more than two decades of experience in the field. She has worked in various newsrooms across Canada, ranging from small-town papers to major outlets like CBC Manitoba and Global News. Dacey began her journalism career in Manitoba and has held roles such as managing editor, senior producer and digital online journalist. Notably, she launched Metro Winnipeg, the city’s only free daily newspaper, which quickly became the second most-read paper in Winnipeg. Recently, Elisha Dacey joined Future of Good and is currently Managing Editor.

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