The Passing Bells (2014)
1.02
Sep 17th (♥58631)
rad-bad-and-dangerous-to-know:
We talk a lot about how doctors consistently dismiss women’s complaints of pain but we rarely if ever talk about how we are socialized to question our own pain. Most of us have had some experience of crippling pain-it very well might be period related- and found ourselves saying to ourselves “maybe it really isn’t that bad, I just think it is.” We are socialized to minimize our own pain, to suck it up and assume someone is in more pain. Bringing this full circle- that socialization makes it doubly egregious that doctors, even female ones, are so dismissive of our reports of pain. It takes a fuck of a lot of pain for a woman to even think that her pain is worth someone else’s time.
Story time! This happened 10 years ago, in 2007, and I still think about it a lot.
When I got appendicitis in Romania, it was the most painful experience of my life. I didn’t even know my body was capable of producing that level of pain on its own, it’s indescribable. My mother didn’t believe me for hours, and said everything from “it’s probably just period cramps” to accusingly yelling “are you pregnant???” I was in so much pain that after hours of doing everything I could think of to make it better and writhing on the floor, at one point convinced someone had poisoned me (which was true, but it was my own body poisoning me), we FINALLY went to the hospital. When I got there, they gave me a sedative through an IV because I couldn’t stop throwing up. I couldn’t even walk. Guess what they told me?
They told me to stop drinking so much soda. If I stopped drinking soda, my stomach would feel better. (I hadn’t drank any soda.) They said I was overreacting to some food choice I had stupidly made and I was fine. Then they discharged me.
Oh by the way, did I mention that all of this was happening in FUCKING ROMANIAN? A language I DO NOT SPEAK. I can’t begin to articulate the level of terror involved during the realization that you are completely at the mercy of the people in front of you, in a third world foreign country, and if they don’t help you, you’re going to die. And through awkward translation, they tell you that they’re willing to risk letting you die because you’re just making a big deal out of nothing and it’s probably your own fault anyway.
They told this to a fifteen year old girl who only needed a simple, routine surgery to live. The doctors at that hospital literally almost killed me. I’m lucky to be alive today.
LUCKILY, while I was going in and out of consciousness (because of the sedative), my mother called my doctor in the US who THANK GODDESS answered her phone in the middle of the night, and she told my mom I probably have appendicitis and convinced her to take me to another hospital.
We got to the second hospital by ambulance and I was quickly diagnosed with appendicitis when a nurse pressed on my appendix and I screamed in agony. They got me into surgery right before it ruptured completely, and everything ended up okay. I was able to walk three days later, and made a full recovery by the next week.
Moral of the story: FUCKING BELIEVE PEOPLE WHEN THEY TELL YOU THEY’RE IN UNBEARABLE PAIN BECAUSE IT’S PROBABLY FUCKING TRUE.
Sep 17th (♥915)
there is so much beauty in road trips tbh like driving past neon lights and looking at the stars and getting out of the car to get gas and snacks at 2am and driving past red rocks and fresh air and seeing the moon while listening to music that makes you feel a certain way idk UGH
Sep 17th (♥194810)
glinda, telling the story of how she and elphaba met each other: …and we were roommates!
ozians, gasping in disbelief: oh my god they were roommates
Sep 17th (♥8933)
Sep 17th (♥7711)
Sep 17th (♥260748)
Sep 17th (♥84202)
u ever wear fingerless gloves and hold a hot drink and immediately feel like a 1900s victorian urchin taking a break from pickpocketing to gratefully accept a meal from the soup kitchen
How did u KNOW
Sep 17th (♥124180)