Zibby Mag

By Kelly I. Hitchcock

I’d call it a “mom thing” to ignore the pain in your own body, but I’d ignored my own pain long before I became a mom and learned to call the pediatrician at the first sign of fever in my children. I’d already been through several less-than-helpful gynecologists, whose answers were variations of the line, “Take these birth control pills and I’ll see you next year,” before I asked Dr. Walker a simple question:

“Is this normal?”

She cautioned me against confusing what is common, such as unbearable abdominal pain, with what is normal. Her words rang in my ears last month when I realized I hadn’t been feeling normal for nearly a month, so I put on my Costco mom panties and called Dr. Walker’s office to get her next available appointment.

I knew something was wrong when the receptionist asked me if I was a current patient of hers and put me on hold before the Covid screening questions. She was gone a long time before she came back to say that Dr. Walker would be leaving the practice soon. I kept it together long enough to schedule with another doctor but began ugly crying the second I hung up, which of course my spouse immediately heard.

When I expressed to him how devastated I was that Dr. Walker was leaving (with at least one sob emoji), his response was empathetic — maybe that’s a little generou — but dismissive.

“Life happens. You’ll find another doctor.”

I was furious to the point of scoping out potential burial plots in our backyard but, to be fair, I can’t expect him to understand what it’s like to struggle for years with doctors who don’t take his health concerns seriously.

It wasn’t until I’d failed to conceive for over a year that Dr. Walker diagnosed me: Stage IV endometriosis at age 32. She hugged me and dried my tears as I cried. She cheered for me when I came into her office for my first obstetrical visit. She rounded on me when I was losing my mind two days postpartum with two babies in the NICU. She performed many hours of surgery on my abdomen so I wouldn’t have to live with constant, unbearable pain.

Above all, she never told me:

“It could just be a kidney stone.”

“It’s probably your appendix.”

“Periods hurt sometimes.”

“Sounds like stress to me.”

“It’s all in your head.”

Yes, these are all real things doctors have said to me — not just male doctors, but some women, too, and gynecologists — either because they didn’t take the time to read my chart, or because the whole “endometriosis” thing went in one ear and out the other.

I’m hardly the first woman whose reproductive health concerns were brushed off; delays in diagnosing endometriosis average 6–11 years. And yet, we often fail to hold doctors accountable for dismissing these concerns as hysterical, or for implying that we couldn’t possibly know our own bodies better than they could.

When I invite a plumber into my home to fix the shower drain, I’ve never heard him say: “That’s an interesting theory, but have you considered that the problem could be your roof?” If he did, I certainly wouldn’t pay him.

The ultimate irony is that I could walk into the ER with my arm dangling by the tendon and the first question they’d ask me would still be: “What was the date of your last menstrual period?” And yet, somehow, if I walk into the same ER doubled over with abdominal pain explaining, “This feels like an ovarian cyst rupture; I’ve had five of them before,” my ovaries are the last thing they consider.

Summarily, yes, I will ugly cry and pour one out for Dr. Walker because she was the first doctor who took my symptoms seriously. And husbands, wives, partners — don’t be like the doctors who can’t hear the problem when it’s spoon-fed to them. Believe her. Empathize with her. Tell her how much her pain sucks. Read her chart.