In the course of the MeToo movement, we've all heard a lot about consent. To most people, it seems like a such a simple concept. Can I? Do I have permission? Is this ok? Would you like? Yes? We were taught as children to ask these basic questions. Why, as adults, have we forgotten to ask or not take the time to listen to answer. I know I sound like I am going off on on some random tangent but this hits home to me.
Most people who know me understand that I've had some health problems. Once I gave birth to my second son, Ty, I never stopped bleeding. I was always anemic and was treated it with Iron IVs 3x a week when I was pregnant with him. After giving birth, I was given numerous birth controls and IUDs to try to stop the bleeding but nothing worked so I was approved for a partial hysterectomy. That led to it's own spiral of over 50 ovarian cysts in about 18 months. In order to prove ovarian cysts to your insurance company and doctors, you have to go to the E.R. There they give you a transvaginal ultrasound aka shove a wand up your lady bits while they push on the cysts and ovaries. It's very painful and you are alone, in a dark room, with a stranger doing this to you. It's not like the ultrasounds you get to find out the sex of your baby and you are so excited while your husband holds your hand. This is the most lonely feeling and when you don't hear baby heart beats and instead know something is wrong with your body, it's heartbreaking. Then the doctos do pelvic exams and push on your insides, all while you are there by yourself so someone can be with the kids. You pray that someone doesn't tell you bad news while you're by yourself. You want to cross your legs and tell everyone to just leave you alone but you priortize your physical health. Even if the mom guilt guts you. They discharge you, tell you to follow up with your OB/GYN and maybe give you some pain pills. That process went on for years. I've had over 30 transvaginal ultrasounds and even more pelvic exams. I will tell you that in that time, I learned to accept that extra blanket they offer you at the hospital to take with you to that dark room to cry into or use a stress ball while you try to not sob uncontrollably, sometimes unsuccessfully.
This process went on for years. I ended up getting my ovaries removed after even more hormonal treatments did not work. After surgery, I thought I'd finally be able to move on and turn the page on this chapter. I was wrong. More cysts started growing. I went back to the E.R. and got told I was just hormonal, that it was impossible and I was just seeking attention. Cut to many cysts later, my surgeons ended up leaving an ovarian remnant which less than a year later turned into a tumor. I had yet another surgery to remove the remnant and tumor, during a pandemic, 3 days before having to make a decision about whether to send my kids to school or not during Covid. Luckily, it was not cancerous but my body was just not able to heal well since I had 2 kids in online school at home and I couldn't get help from parents. That was my 8th abdminal surgery in 10 years. Oh and I was in menopause at 32! To say that I was broken is an understatement. I was completely shattered. I was smart enough to get myself into therapy before surgery though and I leaned hard into it. Here is where this story connects...
A month after surgery I developed some sort of infection. The cramping was terrible, I was dizzy and tired and my surgeon was out of town. I drove myself to the ER at 5am. They said it was probably a pulled muscle from not resting enough and to just lay in bed for a few days. I laid in bed and the very next morning, I had vaginal blood and discharge and tons of pain. I called them back and was told to go back to the E.R. so being a good patient, I did. Luckily my husband was able to come with me this time. I was panicking in the car. I was actually laughing like the Joker about how I couldn't do it-how ironic and strange it all seemed. I seemed like a crazy person. I was a crazy person. I couldn't do those tests anymore. I couldn't face the possibility of more cysts. I just couldn't. I was a glass vase that had broken and was glued back together with some therapy, just trying to keep it together.
I wasn't doing a good job. I was a crying mess when I walked into the E.R. for the 2nd day in a row. I felt ashamed. I felt nervous. I was trying to fight and flight at the very same time. My mind was a complete mess and it was obvious to anyone. Once back in a room with a sheet seperating me from a stranger, nurses came in and got the IV going while waiting for the Women's Health team to come down. The doctor came in and chatted a bit very clinically and talked about ordering tests. 30 minutes or so later, a man from transport came in and said he was taking me for an ultrasound. No one had told me. I was shocked, I was crying. I had to leave Eric and be alone in that room again. I remember the ultrasound tech was the only person who was worried that day. She told me I didn't have to do it. She told me that my file was filled and she didn't understand what I was even doing there. I knew I was so close to a panic attack but I laid back, opened my legs and just let her do her job while I sobbed. It was terribly painful, especially since I wasn't fully healed from surgery and clearly had an infection. She finished, gave me lots of towels and told me to wait there for transport to take me back to my room. I got up to clean up in the bathroom and I just collapsed on the bathroom floor. The glue wasn't holding. I had a full blown panic attack on that random hospital bathroom floor. Trying to breath in and out through my mask. Finally transport came back and the person helped me to my bed and wheeled me back to my room. I cried to my husband and tried to speak in hush tones so the stranger next door didn't hear.
The nurse walked in with the doctor a bit later and declared they needed to a pelvic exam. My body was literally spasming. I was crying and saying no, that I didn't want to do it and that my body felt terrible. The doctor looked disgusted with me that I couldn't do it. He ordered some pain pills to help and stepped outside my room until I could "collect myself." The nurse came in and injected morphine into my arm while I am still sobbing. She looked at my arm and it was getting bright red and starting to go up my neck. I've never had an allergic reaction to morphine before that day but they had to immediately counteract the allergic reaction with Benadryl. Just picture me-I'm 5'1, a month out from surgery, in tons of pain, not keeping it together, pumped with drugs and saying I don't want to do the pelvic exam. There were 2 nurses, my husband and the doctor in that room, while the couple next door were just a sheet away. They got out the tools for the pelvic exam and I was having a full blown panic attack in front of everyone-my 2nd one in the hospital. The glass vase feel to pieces and I laid there, shattered while having witnesses to this terrible doctor giving me a pelvic exam while I am crying and feaking out. He took swabs and had his fingers in my body while I was crying and saying no.
It's been 6 months since that day. My therapist has been treating me for PTSD. She tells me that my body and mind view that day as a rape. For a long time after, I resented my husband being there and witnessing that without helping me and felt it seep into our marriage. We had a terribly freeing conversation and he knew that I didn't want to do it and felt pushed into it but was being told it was medically necessary. He was naive enough to trust them too. We're doing ok now but it took a lot of work to get there. When the strangers next door left the ER that day, the lady poked her head around the sheet and just looked at me and said, "I'm so sorry. Please feel better." I wasn't good before that day in September and I wish I could tell you I'm good now but I still am not. I found out the next week that the swabs that were so necessary were contaminated and the lab couldn't even run them. Turns out, the doctor who did all of it was the same doctor who told me the year prior that I was just a hormonal woman and he missed the cysts, I just couldn't tell with the mask and chaos. I felt fear when I had to then go follow up with my surgeron a few days later and he had to another pelvic exam. I had to tell the nurse what was happening so she wouldn't leave me alone. I've been having reoccuring infections since then and now when it happens, as much as I know I need to be treated, I just can't do it. I can't face it. I've had to put healing mentally and emotionally above physically. I tell you this story because in the age of re-learning what consent means, no one talks about medical consent. Everyone needs to learn that MeToo isn't just from strangers on the street, it can be from trusted people. I said no. I was not in a right state of mind. I was drugged up and still saying no. What happened that day, surrounded with witnesses, probably happens a lot more than anyone talks about. Everytime I get an infection or simply have a doctor appointment, I am on the edge of a panic attack. I can literally feel the push and pull of my brain wanting to fight and my body wanting to flight. I blamed myself. I blame myself. I deemed myself strong enough but I don't think there's every enough strength to face that. I am working on not hating my body when I look at. I am working on not being afraid of anyone who wears scrubs. I am trying to overcome nightly nightmares of latex gloved hands coming at me. I am working on forgiving myself that I didn't kick him in the face when his fingers were violating me. I did call and report him to the patient advocate. The hospital didn't take it seriously. He probably will go on to do it again but I don't know what else to do. I've only told my family and the medical staff that needs to know about this until now. I just needed it out in the universe, instead of a weight on my shoulders. I am still in the process of overcoming that it's not on me but the aftermath shame spiral anytime someone comes near me is not helping. I wish I was in the next chapter of processing the trauma, instead of still living in it but I am. I still have at least 1 more surgery in order to fix the mistakes of past surgeries.
It's 2021 and it's time we all learn that "no" really means "no." That someone saying they can't or having a panic attack in response to you wanting to do something to them also means no. It doesn't matter who, what, where, how or why. We must give the respect and power back to that word if want to truly co-exist with one another. We are taught these basics as children. Just as your parents taught you "no" to touching a hot oven. Doctors and other medical professionals also need to re-learn the importance of the word no. Ultimately, that doctor did more harm than good. He didn't get a real diagnosis and put me through hell in the process. He didn't see me as a human being. Just because it's easier to read me as my MRN, instead of as Sara Grezlik doesn't mean that's what should be happening. Bring back to empathy to those taking care of us, otherwise, it's not health care. I grew up having the utmost respect for medical staff. I thought that they were always motivated by wanting people to be better, happier and healthier. I've grown out of that simple way of thinking and now analyze a doctor's motivations and character before letting them near me. We are trained to not question and respect doctors and be their amenable patients. I use to walk into doctors offices trying to win them over and to try to show them I would do whatever it takes to be better. It took countless times of hearing others tell me to believe that I didn't make any of the choices that led me to this day medically. I didn't check a box asking for cysts or remnants or infections. Instead, I relied on and trusted others to fix them-even at the cost of who I am, my beliefs, my personality, my trust, my mental health. Not one of those doctors will ever acknowldge they screwed up. No one will pay for their mistakes except me.
I hope if you read this, you aren't relating to me. But if you are relating to it, all I ask is for you to slowly take the steps to be kind to yourself. Start small-take a shower every day, even if it hurts to look at your body. Add other things as you achieve them-walks, find a therapist you like, listen to music that makes you smile and not sad, snuggle your pets, call a friend. I'm still in this stage. I'm adding more and more kind things for myself everyday. I volunteer at the animal shelter because it gives me a sense of purpose. I swim a couple times a week by myself because it's the only excercise my body can handle. I go to therapy twice a week to get out some frustration and learn how to love me again. I make a meal each week that I want to eat-that's hard when you're a mom! I help out at the kid's school because it's a place I can get some control and feel good about making a difference. I do also shower everyday (sometimes twice because it's the only quiet place in my house). Learn to love yourself, flaws and all. But the most important step I've done for me is to make boundaries and to make people follow them. It's not our duty as a patient to be perfect patients. It's their job as your doctor to treat you-how you are, what you can handle, and what you need, not what is easiest for them. They work for you! You pay them!
For the people around you, learn to respect the walls that they made. If you give someone kindness and caring, they will tear those walls down slowly. You have to remember that they built those from experiences and learning how to un-do fear and pain takes time and patience for all involved. You are worth it. Others are worth it. It's time we learn that setting those boundaries is self-care, not being a bitch or difficult. You are not responsible for others' reactions to those boundaries-just maintaining what you need.
Connection is not built off of people-pleasing. Connection happens when you can be honest with someone and they are secure enough in themselves to respect where you are at.-Elizabeth Su