I’ve started writing this story so many times, but keep stopping at different points. I’ve stopped and asked myself: Why am I sharing this? Is it for the drama and attention of a good story? Is it for the lessons to be learned for folks who do and don’t work in healthcare? Is it to put it down and finally move on after years of it feeling like a prickly weed in the garden of my spirit?
My intention today is to tell this story for:
Standing in solidarity with other women who have experienced something similar and had better outcomes
Grieving with women and families who have had similar experiences and worse outcomes
Telling a story that feels intimate, unspoken, but is part of the tapestry of what makes me who I am as a nurse, friend, partner, parent, human, earthling.
So for me, I’m going to put it like this. I’m going to write it, speak it, and see what else springs up. I share this because, I know there are others with stories to share. I don’t know how to share them, but if we each keep talking individually, our voices and stories become a garden or a chorus of lived experiences. Where can we put that so others can glean the lessons, have a sprinkle of understanding in their lives, or just understand that there’s this piece of us we may not know what to do with sometimes.
Here we go!
I’d like to talk now about the hats we wear. Working in healthcare, I find that we tend to wear many hats, and also find it hard to know which one we’re wearing when. I’ll give you some examples, then hone in on one hat story in particular.
Some of the hats I wear, or have worn, include: Parent, Partner/Spouse, Nurse, Neighbor, Friend, Colleague, Student, Teacher, Mentor, Mentee, Sister, Daughter, Cousin, Niece, Granddaughter, Great-Granddaughter, Girl Scout, Girl Scout Leader, Borrower, Lender, Fixer, Carer, and so on.
The one that’s calling to be shared right now is “Patient”.
Working in Healthcare feels like being on one “side” of the patient bed – the caregiver. As a Healthcare Worker (HCW), we are the ones providing the care. Doing the knowing. Performing the interventions. At some point, inevitably, we all will become patients. The same way that we all, eventually, will become compost.
I haven’t had too many experiences as a patient (either for myself or my family), aside from routine or mildly urgent visits like childbirth, checkups, illnesses, or injuries. The experience on my mind right now happened a few years back when I worked for a “faith-based” health system. I put “faith-based” in quotes because I’ve worked for a generically faith-based system and found it to be quite enjoyable and non-intrusive. The “faith-based” system I was employed by in the story I’m about to tell was much more… outspoken…? Invasive? In how they let their “faith(s)” affect healthcare, and much too discrete about how their “faith(s)” impacted patient care decisions.
My Patient Story
Let’s start from here for context:
I had abdominal pain after a big Thanksgiving meal that I hosted, my first independent Turkey Day. I attributed it to eating too much, possibly gall bladder or appendix nonsense, but I just kind of let it go for a while, hoping it would get better. I had a small amount of unusual bleeding that I disregarded as par for the course with an IUD. (For those who don’t know, and IUD – which my husband lovingly referred to as my IED – is an implanted medical device to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Doctor Google can tell you more if you’re interested). As the pain got worse, I considered going to Urgent Care, but being nighttime on a holiday it was unlikely to be open, and likely to be costly. So I waited.
My pain got so severe I couldn’t even move. My pain tolerance is pretty high. (I accidently birthed my third child in the bathroom because I wasn’t quite sure I was in labor until it was too late – a patient story for another day). My husband was concerned and suggested we go to the ER just to get it checked out. Because of my employer, and their health insurance requirements, I went to an “in-network” hospital within the “faith-based” system that I worked for. My husband dropped me off then brought our son to his grandma’s so he could come back and stay with me.
While he was gone, they tested my urine and blood and got me triaged. I was waiting alone in the ER waiting room when the nurse came to get me.
“Did you know you’re pregnant??!” She asked me excitedly?
“Did you know I have an IUD to prevent that?” I countered, feeling a wave of panic come over me.
She just wanted to let me know, and had me go sit back down with a weight heavier than she could possibly imagine throwing at me. She had no idea what that question was asking.
“Did you know you’re pregnant?”
Did you know? I already had 3 kids under 5 years old at the time?
Did you know? I had an IUD because I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted more kids, but I knew I wasn’t ready to be pregnant at that time.
Did you know? A pregnancy with an IUD can be harmless, or life-threatening, depending on the location of the microscopic little collection of cells.
Did you know? An ectopic pregnancy with an IUD is, I quote, as likely as being hit by lightning.
Neat, how lucky for me to have this unique experience, alone, in the ER waiting room, with too much information in my brain, and too many uncertain paths forward.
So I waited, and I cried, and I worried, and I sat.
That’s what it feels like to find out you may or may not be pregnant with a viable or nonviable human life that you were not ready for.
Three Paths Forward
I had three paths in my mind and heart as I sat there.
I’m pregnant and about to have a 4th kid before I thought I was ready. My husband and I have weathered storms before, and I know what he would say (and did): “we’ll get through this, and I support whatever you choose”.
I have the privilege of getting an abortion if I’m really not ready to welcome, love, care for, nurture, support, guide, shelter, feed, etc. another human life for the next 18 - 99 years of its life.
I have an ectopic pregnancy which I know from my healthcare experience and sharing of stories, can be life-threatening to the mom. An ectopic pregnancy is a fertilized egg that lands in the fallopian tube (not meant to grow, stays the size of a tiny straw and bursts when stretched) instead of the uterus (which grows to the size of a watermelon by the end of pregnancy, and is meant to house a growing fetus).
Yikes.
All of those possibilities each carried their own heavy, judgmental, frightening weight.
What comes next is long, but important. If I don’t tell it all together, I’ll feel like I’m missing something crucial that someone else might need to hear in the future. So, I’m taking my time in telling this. You can skip ahead, or stay with me, or leave this here if it’s too heavy. I can already feel the weight coming off of me knowing that it’s out there now.
“Faith-Based” Healthcare from an Impatient Perspective
My husband came back while was still in the waiting room and I sobbed as we waited impatiently together. Eventually they brought me back, I met a provider, and I had an ultrasound. I’m so grateful to the ultrasound tech (sonographer) who gave me the grace of saying “I’m not allowed to say what this is, I can’t diagnose, but…”. What she was telling me, and what I understood too quickly, was that I had a collection of fluid (blood) in my abdomen, next to my fallopian tube. I read between the lines (and later confirmed with my doctor) that I had an ectopic pregnancy. I’ve known other women who’ve had the same, and I know the treatment options, and I also know the potentially life-threatening nature of growing a human in a body straw that’s not meant to grow a human from conception to birth.
Am I making sense?
Are you picking up what I’m putting down?
My life was possibly in danger, and medical interventions exist to treat the underlying (life-threatening) cause of that danger.
The 3 options are as follows (scientifically, in America):
A doctor orders a medication that terminates the pregnancy and allows it to exit the body similar to a menstrual period. Period. The end.
A specialized surgeon cuts open the woman, removes the microscopic collection of potentially viable cells and attempts to reimplant into the uterus where it “belongs”, and, with the power of prayer, hopes that it sticks and develops into a healthy, resource-using member of society.
We wait, and see if it gets worse. AKA: Monitor and do nothing.
Guess what I got to do!
Because I was in a “faith-based” hospital, I got option 3.
I had a Jewish doctor in a Catholic hospital who told me, and I’m not kidding even a little bit, that if I were “anywhere else”, I could have option 1 without even thinking about it. BUT, he couldn’t do that even if he thought it was best for me and I wanted to, because of the… religious imposition of his/our employer.
What.
The.
Fuck.
What… the… fuck?
Under the control of this faith-based health system. Because they couldn’t verify if the ectopic pregnancy was viable (meaning they couldn’t decide if option 2 was even an option, which wasn’t an option for me, but for them).... Nobody asked if I would choose option 2, anyway.
I got option 3. As a privileged white woman in suburban America, I got option 3. I was monitored overnight, not allowed to eat or drink in case my symptoms worsened and I had to have emergent surgery, and I was given inadequate pain meds through my IV by a nurse I saw maybe 4 times that shift. I was alert, healthy-appearing, able to reach for help if I needed it. I looked low-maintenance. I acted low-maintenance. And I sobbed alone in that fucking hospital room and waited until I felt worse or better.
I couldn’t sleep. I was in pain. And the weight of the world still rested on my path forward.
Then came morning: Nothing by mouth. Continue to monitor.
Then came afternoon: Nothing by mouth. Continue to monitor.
Then came evening, and the nurse talked to the doctor. See if she tolerates dinner, then she can be discharged and follow up outpatient.
What?
What?
What?
I shit you not, I was fed dinner and discharged home. With no intervention, no further testing, and no clear path forward.
I worked here. I had to seek care here (if I wanted to “afford” it). Except, I didn’t get care. I got their religious infringement on my body and my choices and my path forward.
Fuck you and your “faith-based” “care”.
A safe path forward
My husband and I decided to consult with providers we trusted at my old healthcare system (where I work again now – again, a story for another day). My current health system is technically faith-based, but I’ve never seen that faith affect patient care decisions in any way. Ever. Period.
So we went back to providers we trust, confirmed the ectopic pregnancy, tried to get it treated in the most cost-effective way possible (outpatient — what a fucking mess — listen to the audio for a few more details), and ended up in a different ER (where my mom was working as a nurse), got diagnosed and treated swiftly, then went home to wait, grieve, and recover.
The following year that faith-based system had a “reduction in force” (a.k.a. – a set of layoffs at the hospitals in the system) and my “position was eliminated”. I lost my job.
And my career journey brought me back to a health system I trust, and a story I can’t help but share today.
THESE are the stories of American “Healthcare”. Spoken or unspoken, they’re there. We are here. We’re better than this.
As we go backwards in history… we are better than this.
That’s how I know where my moral compass points. The path forward may be unclear. But I know what feels right, and what feels like systematic oppression.
Keep your “faith” out of my body. Unless it’s to pray for my wellbeing. Stay out.
Period.
I appreciate you taking the time to hear/read what I’m putting out there. If you like it, or have a story to tell, please leave a comment or “Share” with a friend.
Keep your "faith" out of my body