Ok so anyone who really knows me knows I have a feminist streak (which I believe any human with compassion should) and I fucking hate sexism. What you might not know is I'm holding back.
I am treated differently because I am a girl, and young. I KNOW this is fact but I rarely talk about it because I am often shamed for saying so. I never confront a physician for this because the risk of being flagged medically is too great. As I get older and my knowledge has increased I am more confident in my approach and that seems to lessen the impact this has on me but it still happens.
I experienced a fair amount of sexism in school and my careers, not just from men but from women as well, I was prepared for it. I was not prepared to face an even greater amount in my health care system.
The bits that I remember from my accident and the night in the E.R. are peppered with mistreatment. First it was the emergency responders, they assumed I must have been speeding and acting recklessly. I suppose that I could forgive, but they harassed everyone around me, writing tickets and then going through my sisters purse without asking. They had my information at this point and we weren't speeding, it was un-marked road construction and I didn't weigh enough to hold down my bike when I hit it going 25 mph. Just an accident. Also, they arrived going twice that speed right past the spot I had been laying on the ground (thank goodness I wasn't alone or unconscious).
The EMTs were pushy and insisted I take the ambulance instead of waiting for a ride because I had deeply lacerated my knee, broken my collarbone and they were also worried about internal injuries, so I took the ambulance to UNM emergency. When I arrived they wheeled my gurney up next to the receptions desk and left me there, I overheard them talking to a nurse and someone commenting about asshole motorcyclists.
Hours passed and no one moved me or talked to me. I was in agony, my shoulder was on fire and I could feel the dressing on my knee becoming rock hard. I'm assuming it was quite busy but what do I know, I was a bit distracted. When they finally did come around to talk to me I asked them why I haven't been given any pain-killers and they responded that they were worried about internal bleeding and I needed a CT before they could give me anything. It was about 8 hours before I got that CT and no one had cleaned my wounds out yet or even given me a room. At some point between hour 8-11 they finally gave me medication and then took me to get my laceration cleaned and stitched. The wound was so bad they couldn't fully close it and required several dozen stitches. At this point in my delirium I was exhausted and hungry and in so much pain that all I wanted was to get out of there and be in my own bed, I remember getting a tetanus shot and I guess I assumed they had given me some kind of antibiotic too.
Two weeks later I returned for my follow up, my knee was massively swollen and there was hot red swelling up to my thigh, I knew it was bad but I thought it was proportionate to my injury. When the nurses saw me they got angry and rushed me to see the doctor. At this point one of the nurses started lecturing me about not taking my antibiotics... What antibiotics? No one gave me anything. I could have lost my leg.
That was just the beginning and I wrote most of that off as part of the emergency care experience. I was just so relieved to be alive and whole that I didn't care how they had treated me. I also hadn't considered my age or sex to play any role. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't, but that was just the start.
The next six months was a mash-up of doctors and specialists and ALL of them were telling me I was fine. The pain from my injuries changed but never went away and then I began to hurt everywhere. This was my first major injury and I thought that the inactivity and compensating were responsible for my pain. The insomnia was the first clue something was very, very wrong.
When six months went by and I was only getting worse I really started looking for help. I can't even tell you how many times I was outright dismissed, told it was all in my head and I was just depressed, that I was too young to be in chronic pain. I can recall being patted a lot, and clucked at. Told to relax, stop worrying. Sometimes it wasn't condescending it was angry, I was wasting their time and being ridiculous. I even heard the term hysterical once and hypochondriac several more.
On the few occasions my husband came with me some of the doctors would talk to him instead of me. I'd ask a question and they would turn and answer him, tell him what I needed to do or take, or they would ask him what my mental state was.
I vividly recall going into the emergency room once by myself and the receptionist at the front desk looked at me without asking a single question and stated I needed a parent or guardian to be with me. Or the time I got discharged before even seeing a doctor because I had gotten a depression diagnosis (unknown to me) and they don't treat depression at the urgent care. This was when my gallbladder was going bad and I would have attacks. I had gallbladder attacks for 10 yrs before they removed it, scarred and full of stones. Not one doctor ever listened to me when I told them it was internal and had nothing to do with my fibromyalgia, which I said repeatedly and loudly. It was my chiropractor that finally listened and asked his doctor to scan me. All classic signs for gallbladder, which is the second most performed surgery behind hernia repairs. I had one of those too.
When I would complain to my then-husband about the fact that I thought I was being mistreated for being a young woman he only told me to take off my girl-boots and stop trying to make it a girl thing. Which made me feel like I couldn't ever say what I was feeling, and I could never imply it was at all sexist.
The truth is it isn't always, but it does happen. It's even got a name: Yentl syndrome. It is so common for women to be dismissed or delayed in their treatment protocol that it was given a name!
Once I was told when I was worried about the keloid scar I was developing that I shouldn't care about that scar because I had already intentionally scarred myself -referring to my tattoo on my other leg.
No one can tell me they haven't heard the association of fibromyalgia to women whining. That's not just detrimental to our treatment but to diagnosis for men as well. It's sad but it's a fact and every woman who has dealt with fibromyalgia and doctors knows what I am talking about, that alone should be enough to know its a messed-up system.
Everybody is working off an outdated and wildly inaccurate perspective. It's stale socially and scientifically. I shouldn't have to prove my pain and concerns are equal to a mans in order to get the same treatment. It shouldn't even be part of the equation. Why are we even still talking about this shit?