I realize that I’ve been going in circle for an hour, hoping that I’ll bump into something that unlocks a solution to Anne’s suffering. Maybe there’s something in the refrigerator. Maybe there’s something on the patio. Maybe it’s between the cushions in the couch. Maybe if I walk into our bedroom and sit next to her on the bed. Maybe if I hold her hand. Maybe if I don’t hold her hand. Maybe there’s something in the refrigerator.
She can’t keep down any food, and barely any liquids. I give her some pain meds and she throws them up almost immediately. Maybe if I hold her hand.
“I’m going to try to just go to sleep,” she says. “You don’t need to stay here.”
I stay there anyway, until she appears to be sleeping. Maybe if I don’t hold her hand.
I gently get off our bed and step over both of our dogs, who haven’t moved from Anne’s side of the bed since she got into it. They both look at me, and maybe I’m projecting, but I feel like there is concern in their eyes. “I’m worried, too,” I whisper. I walk through the living room. Maybe it’s between the cushions in the couch.
I try to watch TV, but I can’t pay attention. I try to look at the Internet, but I can’t pay attention. I try to read a book but I can’t pay attention. I look into our bedroom. Anne is on her side, and I stand in the doorway, making sure that I can see her breathe. Because that’s a thing I worry about when I’m not worrying about everything else. I walk out to the game room and drive my car around Los Santos, because I don’t have to pay much attention, and it’s a way to pass the time.
It’s just after midnight when Anne texts me: Water.
“Oh, good,” I think, “she can keep water down.” I set the controller down and walk back into the house.
I can hear her wailing, nearly to the point of screaming, as soon as I open the door. My stomach drops out of my body.
She’s leaning against the bed, head in one hand, the other hand holding her side.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, stupidly. I know what’s wrong.
“It hurts so much,” she gasps. “I … can’t …”
She doesn’t finish telling me what she can’t do, because what she can’t do is everything.
For the next hour, I try to console her. I try to convince her to take the pills she is convinced she will throw up. Through it all, she is crying out in pain so loudly and intensely, I half expect the police to show up at our house.
“I think I need to take you back to the emergency room,” I say.
“I can’t get up,” she says. “Will you call an ambulance?”
She’s in the most pain I have ever seen another human experience in my life, but I know that there are a finite number of ambulances, and there are people for whom one of them could be the difference between life and death.
“I need to get you eighty feet to the car,” I tell her. “Let me carry you, and we’ll get there faster.”
She tries to argue a little bit, but I pick her up and help her out of bed through it. The dogs are alert and looking at her, at me, at each other. “I’m okay,” she gasps to them.
“We’ll be right back,” I say, as we limp past them and across the house. Time does the thing it’s been doing, stretching out and compressing and it feels longer than it should take for us to get into the car. I notice that there’s fog rolling in, glowing orange from the streetlights. I drive us to the hospital through it, faster than I probably should. Anne kicks her legs and cries silently.
When we get to the ER, I park at the door. I run in and get a wheelchair. There are four people in the waiting room, and when I get Anne out of the car and into the waiting room, two of them are gone. I tell the receptionist that Anne has a terrible kidney stone, can’t keep anything down, and I didn’t know what else to do. She pulls up the information we gave a different person in this exact place twenty-four hours earlier and we wait. I feel useless while Anne cries and moans in pain, and I just watch the clock. It’s thirty minutes before we are taken inside. It’s another thirty minutes before a nurse gives Anne morphine. Another thirty minutes before she comes back in and gives Anne more. I realize that time is moving in thirty minute increments. Maybe if I sit on the edge of the gurney next to her.’
A doctor comes in. She looks concerned and I do my best to disappear while she talks to Anne. She listens while Anne recounts the last 48 hours, then she does some simple tests, including this thing where she pushes on Anne’s abdomen and pulls away quickly. Anne screams in pain.
“That isn’t normal for a kidney stone or constipation,” the doctor says. “I’m going to get you an ultrasound, and some more pain medication.” Then, she does something I realize that the two other doctors we’ve seen since this all started didn’t do: she takes a moment and says, “I’m so sorry that you’re in so much pain, and I’m sorry that hurt so much. We’re going to figure out what’s going on with you, and I won’t send you home until we do.”
I realize how unhelpful the two male doctors we saw were, and I allow myself the luxury of being angry at them, if only briefly.
The doctor excuses herself and a nurse comes back in, gives Anne some more pain meds, and makes some notes on her chart. It is around 3:30am. Anne sleeps a little bit, and I sit in the chair next to her gurney. Maybe if I rest my hand on her leg. I wait.
An orderly comes in and helps Anne into a wheelchair. He takes Anne to the ultrasound. I climb into the gurney and try to sleep.
It feels like no time has passed when they’re back and I feel like I haven’t slept at all, even though I must have because I can’t account for the time. Anne tells me that it hurt a lot, and another nurse comes back in, gives her more pain medications. I make a joke about how she’s used more drugs than the Rolling Stones. Did I make that joke before? The last time we were here? I can’t remember. I’m so afraid and so worried and I feel so helpless and I’m so tired. I want to cry but I can’t because it won’t be helpful to anyone.
I wait.
The doctor comes back and tells Anne that the ultrasound shows something called an ovarian torsion. She thinks that a cyst burst, and it was so big when it happened, it literally spun Anne’s ovary around. She tells us that there’s a dark shadow on the CT scan we had the last time we were there, and it’s in stark contrast to her other ovary that’s healthy. She doesn’t say it, but she seems incredulous that neither of the other doctors we saw seemed to notice it. I allow myself another moment of anger, but I keep it to myself.
“I have called the OB/GYN and she’s driving in. We’re going to admit you, and have that ovary removed,” she says. Anne has some questions. I have some questions. I don’t remember what we asked or what her answers were.
We wait, and it doesn’t feel as long as all the previous waits have been. The surgeon arrives and she asks Anne lots of questions. She examines her. She looks at Anne’s CT scan and her ultrasound. I realize just how utterly, totally, profoundly unhelpful the other doctors we saw before this night were. I remember a woman, speaking at a ceremony when Anne was given an award for National Women’s Health Week. She said, “women need to work in medical research, and in applied medicine, because too many men treat women’s bodies like they are just men’s bodies with female parts, but our bodies are fundamentally different and need to be treated that way.”
I know that an ER doctor’s primary responsibility is to keep people alive, and it’s logical that the ones who aren’t in life-threatening danger will get a different level of attention. But when we went to Anne’s primary care doctor he didn’t even ask about anything else, didn’t check her at all, and just gave her six different types of pills. I don’t know why the ER doctor didn’t even ask why one of Anne’s ovaries was a big dark mass, even after all the tests for kidney stones came back negative, but I understand why he tried to manage her pain and turned us over to another doctor to look at her more closely. While I sit in that chair and listen to this new doctor talk with Anne, I can’t excuse or understand the other doctor we saw not even trying to look into whether or not there was a misdiagnosis in the ER. I get angry when I realize that my wife, the most important person in my world, has suffered longer than she should have, because two men didn’t ask themselves if pain originating in part of a woman’s body that is fundamentally different from a man’s body may have something to do with that difference.
But the OB/GYN is kind, and she tells Anne that she’s sorry to meet her under these circumstances. She tells Anne that she can get this ovary out with a quick surgery, and that Anne will be able to go home later this afternoon. I glance at my watch. It’s 7am. I’ve been awake for 24 hours.
The OB tells us that she’s going to do laparoscopy (a word I’ve written so many times in the last ten hours, I should know how to spell but still don’t), which will require general anaesthesia (another word I can’t see to spell, though I’ve written it almost as much). My stomach clenches because I grew up in a medical family, and I know that there are risks associated with anaesthesia. I know that they are small, but they are greater than zero, and I’ve been awake for 24 hours, on about five or six hours of restless sleep, and my rational brain is easily knocked into submission by my emotional brain. I keep my concerns to myself, because expressing them around Anne won’t be helpful. I realize that I’ve been keeping a lot to myself, because to express any of it wouldn’t be helpful. I’ve been holding myself together, delivering what will be, at least to this point in my life, the most convincing performance I’ve ever given.
The orderly comes into the room and we begin the journey to surgery. All the hallways look alike, and the same grey light of early morning that I first saw when all of this started two days ago is filling the windows. I notice that we haven’t seen any other people since we came in. I guess it was a quiet night in the ER, and it’s a quiet morning in the hospital.
We stop outside the operating room. We have forgotten to tell them that Anne is allergic to latex, so they have to clear the OR and wipe everything down, and start over. I apologize, but nobody is bothered (or at least they don’t let on that they’re bothered.) Anne holds my hand and we just look at each other while we wait. I don’t want to think about how something could go wrong — however unlikely that is — and I may have to face life without her, but I’m so tired and so emotionally raw, I can’t not think about it. I don’t mention it to Anne, because it wouldn’t be helpful.
They finish up in the OR, and the surgeon comes over to tell us that she’s ready. The anaesthesiologist (nope, can’t spell that one, either) is a gentle man. He tells us what he’s going to do, asks if there are any questions, and leaves me with a feeling of confidence that everything will be okay. I know there’s no reason not to be confident, that there’s no rational reason not to worry, but I can’t help it.
I kiss Anne. We tell each other that we love each other. I don’t want to hope that it isn’t the last time, but I can’t help it.
“I’ll see you before you know it,” I tell her. When they wheel her toward the OR, I lamely say to the surgeon, “please take good care of my wife.” She tells me that she will. She doesn’t tell me that OF COURSE SHE WILL BECAUSE THAT IS HER JOB. I’m sure it’s not the first time a worried husband has said this to her.
A nurse takes me to the waiting room and tells me that it will be about two hours. I decide that I’m going to go home, feed our dogs, and take a shower. Maybe I’ll try to eat. I’ve been awake for 25 hours.
I almost crash twice on the way home. Maybe it’s not as close as I think it is, but it’s too close. The dogs interrogate me when I come into the house and they look for Anne. I tell them what’s going on because I have to talk to someone and everyone else we know is asleep. I make some food. I take a shower. I make and drink two cups of coffee, and go back to the hospital. I make my way to the waiting room and sit down. I try to watch TV but it’s a blur. I try to close my eyes but when I do, my brain relentlessly plays out the rest of my life without Anne in it. And I don’t just mean the images. I mean the emotion and the loss and the loneliness and the reality that I will be adrift and lost for the rest of my life if anything happens to her. I sit up, open my eyes, and I just walk around the empty room, grateful that there isn’t anyone else there.
Her surgeon comes in and tells me that everything went well. Anne is in recovery and I can see her in about thirty minutes. She shows me pictures from the laparoscope, because Anne asked for them. Anne has more pictures of the inside of her body than a human should have, because she always asks for them. It’s one of the things I love about her. So her surgeon points out how her one ovary is healthy and the one they took out was enlarged my several factors, and almost completely black because it was filling up with blood. She shows me the twist. It’s almost microscopic. “It’s the same kind of pain that a man would experience if he had a testicular torsion,” she tells me. “It’s one of the worst pains a woman can experience.” I thank her several times. I know that I’m repeating myself. I know that I’m delirious. I know that I’m exhausted. I know that I’m not making any sense. I know that I am relieved beyond measure. She shakes my hand, tells me that she wants to see Anne next week for a follow up, and leaves.
I walk up to the room where Anne will be recovering. I pull out a reclining chair to try and rest while I wait for her, but my brain is now overtired and caffeinated, so I just look out the window and watch the sun burn off the little bit of lingering fog and haze. I hear movement behind me and turn around to find an orderly pushing Anne into the room. A wave of relief washes over me and I again feel like I’m going to cry. “Good morning,” I say to them both.
“How are you?” He asks.
“Entering my 27th hour since I last got any real rest, but okay, I guess.”
“Hi, puss,” Anne says. She smiles a little bit and I reach out to hold her hand.
“How are you feeling?” I say.
“I’m thirsty.”
I get her some water. A nurse comes in and does nurse stuff. I sit in the chair, and I drift off to sleep for about three hours, forty or so minutes at a time.
The texts begin to arrive, from our friends who are waking up. They’ve read my blog, they’ve seen our posts on Twitter. Everyone offers whatever help they can give us. I’m grateful to all of them, and grateful that Anne, who they all love so much, has chosen me to be the guy she married. I go to the cafeteria and eat hospital food. I come back and sit with Anne while she rests and recovers. She doesn’t hurt, and there’s very little residual gas in her abdomen. She is able to get up and use the bathroom. She is able to walk around. She can eat. She is going to be okay. Around 5pm, they discharge her. We’ve been in the hospital for eighteen hours. I’ve slept for three hours in the last two days.
We get home. Anne’s friends have flowers delivered, and then they have dinner delivered for us both. I’m so tired and so emotionally exhausted, I feel like I’m going to cry from so many different kinds of relief, but I just eat, instead. Anne eats. She walks around the house and farts. I fart back her her when I can. We laugh. She’s going to be okay.
I’m overtired and don’t get into bed until about eleven. Anne is already asleep. Our dogs are on the floor at the foot of the bed. Seamus is snoring. Marlowe is chasing something in her sleep. Watson is on the back of the chair. I turn off the light and slide the covers up. The sheets are cool and soft and the bed is as comfortable as it’s ever been in my life. I hold Anne’s hand while I drift off.
I sleep for almost fourteen hours. I wake up with a headache, but Anne is doing great. She’s in the living room with our pets, watching TV. She tells me that she slept well, and isn’t in any major pain. She’s been able to eat.
I try to have a normal day. I keep checking on her. She’s doing fine, and naps in our bedroom. She lets me hold her hand and sit on the edge of the bed and give her food and stroke her hair.
There are hundreds of comments on my blog that I haven’t had time to read. There are thousands more on social media that I will never be able to reply to. People who don’t know Anne love her, and I know how lucky I am to have her in my life. I’m too tired to go anywhere or do anything, but I have too much boiling around inside of me to do nothing, so I sit down to type it all out, because that’s how I process things.
The weight of the last few days crashes down on me while I write this. I listen to Hamilton. It’s Quiet Uptown, and I cry as hard as I have in recent memory. I was so scared and felt so helpless and I’m so grateful that the most important person in my world is just a few steps away in another room, recovering, trying not to laugh too hard at the Sarah Silverman comedy special she’s watching, because it hurts her stomach when she does.
We have more time.
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Been there with my DH and he with me. We are both so glad Anne is going to be ok. Get some rest.
So glad for the happy ending. So sorry you and Anne had to suffer through this. Peace to you both.
I had exactly this same problem 20 years ago, while I was in the middle of a second date with someone. The OR we went to didn’t even give me painkillers “because it would dull the pain and we wouldn’t know if it suddenly got worse”. Fortunately they all took it seriously, it just took them 9 hours to figure out what the hell was going on.
Tell Anne – my new OT sister – that I felt way better a couple weeks later, and that there’s apparently a seriously slim chance she’ll ever have to go through that again. (Also – Anne, hurts like a mofo, doesn’t it? Fortunately any other pain I’ve ever had in my life – and I include the broken foot that I had to walk home on one new Year’s Eve – pales in comparison, so that means that since we lived through that, we’re Amazons. Wanna come up with a secret handshake?)
Wow,
Just wow. First, I am so very, very, very glad you guys are ok. Man, you had me in tears. You don’t know me, but both you and Anne are such role models in my life and I would be extremely upset. I am so glad for you both that things are ok.
Second, this is why as a woman, I always insist on seeing female doctors. I’m sure the first ones you saw were just doing their job, but there is just something lacking when it comes to a male doctor that I have never experienced with any female doctor I’ve seen. I’m so glad you found one that was there for you in this ordeal.
Keep on keeping on. I know all your friends, family, and fans are sending healing/loving vibes.
So glad Anne is okay. I cried reading both segments, and especially here at the end when you mention crying for Quiet Uptown. That is the only Hamilton song I’ve never heard (all of, even most of), because I lost a (fur)daughter shortly before getting into Hamilton, and still just the thought of it makes me teary. I hope the crying was cathartic, and I wish you both all the best going forward!
Reading this I was feeling extreme empathy and having flashbacks (different gynecological details, but the same feelings of anguish/pain/uncertainty/helplessness/exhaustion). Also, the fact that the little relationship rituals/jokes/gestures are almost the same as my wife and me made for a stronger personal connection to the narrative. Hugs to you both.
It’s embarrassing to cry at work – it happens so rarely that everyone is alarmed that something is wrong and I’m upset. How do I explain that I read the most touching account of a husband’s love for his wife, and how desperate it is to be witness to a beloved’s pain and have no power to help? Beautiful writing, Wil. So touching and heartfelt. I actually felt your nervous energy while she suffered, and the panic-filled emotion during surgery. I’m so sorry you both experienced such terror, but happy that there was a solution and peaceful ending. You packed a plethora of extreme roller-coaster-like feelings in this post, and I’m a little drained. But thankful. Really thankful.
I am so sorry Anne had that pain and that you both had that experience, but I’m glad you have an answer and that she is improving.
I’m so glad to hear that Anne is going to be OK. When I read your thirty-six hours post, I immediately felt that it didn’t seem like a kidney stone. I’ve never had one myself, but I’m certainly no stranger to kidney issues. I have a rare disease called Dense Deposit Disease that causes my own immune system to attack my kidneys which I was diagnosed with at the age of 7. For that reason I am a dialysis patient waiting for kidney transplant number two.
Earlier this fall I had my ovaries and tubes removed due to finding out I am BRCA 2 positive(waiting for a kidney + high risk of cancer = not even messing around, also had mastectomy a month later). Prior to my bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (a new thing to spell!) I had to have an ultrasound done to get the lay of the land. The results showed one ovary was many times larger than it should be, both had cysts, and the largest one had a mass inside. This may explain the periodic pain attacks I would get that would leave me unable to stand, walk, eat, or move. Needless to say the weeks leading up to that surgery were stressful. Because of the ultrasound findings they decided they had to use the da Vinci robot on me. It turned out to be a good choice because I had a lot of scar tissue and adhesion from prior surgery.
Everything turned out great and my pathology was clear but the recovery was terrible. I was also sent home on the same day as well despite the additional dissecting required and loss of blood, or even the difficulty controlling the pain while I was still there. I was given instructions listing what to expect, and what I experienced didn’t match up with that. I’ve had surgery more times than I can count, and that is not an exaggeration. After two days like this, I called the on-call doctor because I was in more pain than could be controlled by the medication they sent me home with. The doctor (not my surgeon) told me “surgery hurts” and completely dismissed what I was describing. I couldn’t walk, eat, sleep or breathe like normal. Finally the next day, my body had enough apparently because suddenly I had a fever. With my disease, fevers are not to me taken lightly so I called the on-call again. Again it was the same doctor. Even after explaining my history, and why this was bad, he told me I could go in for an appointment in the morning. This time I dismissed ‘him’ and went to the ER anyway.
During the ER visit, the X-ray they took showed a gigantic gas bubble left in from the laparoscopy which was the cause of my additional pain coupled with the pain from the adhesion. This doctor actually came to see me and in front of another doctor told me that he was terribly sorry for dismissing me and that he “felt ashamed” that he told me to wait until the morning. GOOD! I hope Anne gets that same satisfaction.
Cheri, I hope you get your kidney. I spent three years on dialysis (with bad complications) before I received the great gift of a transplanted kidney. I do not know if I would have the strength to go back to dialysis.
I have generally been lucky in all my doctors, very fortunate in fact, but in any medical situation, you have to be your own best advocate, and have someone to speak up for you as well.
I read this to my husband, who was there, by my side, when I went in for “outpatient” LAVH procedure, which turned into two nights, three days in the hospital. Shortly after the procedure, I started to feel serious discomfort, to the point I could not walk. I blacked out sitting up as well as while trying to use the restroom. My husband kept telling the nurses something was amiss – that I should not be feeling that much pain. They said it was normal. It was not. 24 hours after my LAVH, post first of two blood transfusions, we learned I had a hematoma, and I went back into surgery that afternoon (1.5 liters of blood, just hanging out in my abdomen). I suppose my point in sharing my story is that while the doctors/nurses might think they know what they are doing, you need to be persistent to make sure they exhausted every avenue. Make sure the hospital where you took Anne is aware that two doctors got the diagnosis wrong. We were fortunate to work with a hospital that recognized the error their nurses made and they handled all of our out-of-pocket expenses associated with my extended stay.
I am truly happy to hear that Anne is recovering well. Ovarian cysts bursting are really no fun. I could not imaging days of that pain (six hours was enough for me).
What a relief! I’m so glad you are both okay and she’s recovering. My best wishes to you. <3
What the other doctors did in failing to diagnose Anne properly is malpractice, and it is infuriating that they did not take her pain seriously. I’m glad she is out of the woods and that the surgery went well, but she shouldn’t have had to go through the 36 hours prior to that.
Hi Wil. Thank you for sharing Anne’s story and yours. I had ovarian cancer in 2013 and a recurrence in 2016/2017. It was the worst pain I have ever endured. I hope they checked Anne’s CA-125 marker. If you have any questions at all, please send me a private message on Facebook: Julie Gordon Yanez. I know you & Anne from the JoCo cruises. Wishing you & Anne all the best!!
Hugs. I’m so glad she’s on the mend.
I really don’t like it when people respond to my serious posts with hugs. However, I was in your shoes for only 5 hours and my daughter had a different outcome. Bottom line is- you and Anne are getting my cross-country, invisible hugs. He’ll, if you’re still coming to Awesome Con in D.C. (and security won’t tackle me), I’ll give you a real life hug. You’ve earned it. ❤
Oh crap. No offense intended to any of your other readers.
So very glad to hear Anne’s on the up now!! You both deserve that.
I’m a female hospital physician, and I take care of people every day dealing with the anxiety, worry, and history of bad experiences that you describe. I try to meet them with an open ear, an open heart and a sharp brain.
Thank you for reminding me what it means to a patient and their loved ones when we as physicians take time to connect with our patients on a human level.
Well, shit. This was a harrowing thing to read when loading news feeds. Glad things are headed in the positive direction for both of you. Even a nearly unfeeling AI like myself is pissed at a couple of ER doctors not doing their fucking job. I could laser them both good for you.
So glad you both have more time. Take care.
Anne is going to be fine. You love each other. Life is good.
How terrifying! You have every right to feel angry given your initial ER experience. So glad you went back, and that Anne’s okay. Writing can be so therapeutic, can’t it? Thankful you still have each other.
This is such an important story to share. When I read your first post my very first thought was, “maybe it’s ovarian torsion,” because I have read before that it often goes like this, that women’s pain is not taken as seriously or people don’t know what to look for. Women need to know that this exists so that they can advocate for themselves, because this is one place where medicine is still failing us.
I’m glad she’s ok, and I hope you’ve both gotten all you need of good rest.
Wil, please give my best to Anne. I’ve gone through similar hell, although without the clueless ER docs. My gyn figured out what was going on very early, and we had time to prep me before my surgery. She is in good hands and she will be doing fine! Thank you for sharing the ordeal and when you have both recovered, make sure that the ER docs who ignored her pain read what you wrote and acknowledge their overlooking of the pain. Too often they dismiss it as “period” or “gas” or some other junk.
Best regards,
Spacewriter (cc petersen)
Women doctors – this is why I URGE women to see women physicians AND get 2nd opinions. Best to you and Anne – I love you guys and not in a stalkerish weird way….honest.
Reading this, my picture of the author in 1st person kept flipping back and forth between you and my brother. I kept imagining him going through this and dealing the rollacoaster. And writing about his feelings, something he never does.
I’ve only dipped my toe into JUST A GEEK, but I can see the tone and voice of your writing has grown so, so much since then. Thanks for sharing this.
And I find it weird to picture you drinking coffee since you tended to blog about beer so much.
I am so glad Anne and you are ok! She deserves to have you as her husband, and you to have her as your wife. The Wheaton Legend continues as all of our legends should.
Hello Wil Wheaton. What has happened to your wife has unfortunately happened to many women before; a quick Google search will bring up many results of ovarian torsion being ignored in women. It’s because women are frequently misdiagnosed by a medical system that is based around diagnosising and caring for male physiology and dismissing women. Pain in women is frequently brushed off as emotional outbursts or anxiety. Women are more likely to be sedated with anti-anxiety medication than get pain medication when they feel pain. You SHOULD be angry. Your wife was tortured for days because her pain was dismissed as attention-seeking. This is standard practice for women in the emergency room, and the treatment comes from male and female doctors alike because it’s just the way things are. I beg you to please use your status as a celebrity to bring awareness to this issue. Please say something so that you can help prevent another husband from sitting by helplessly while his wife is in unnecessary agonizing pain. You may not reach the medical community but you have a lot of bright young men who follow your blog who admire you. You can reach them and help them become more aware of the treatment their wives, girlfriends, sisters, and mothers face in medical care. They can be advocates for them. It will make a difference.
Wow, wow, How very frustrating it must have been. I have had a cyst burst, and the pain felt like a lightning bolt inside my body. I can’t even fathom an ovary twisting. I was able to wait until morning and have an ultrasound at my OB Clinic. It was a Male Doctor OB, though and he was very sympathetic. Clearly though, woman’s anatomy was missing from these two ER doctor dudes brains “who knows what it is, just throw more pain meds at it.”
Thank goodness Anne is okay! Good lord!
Thanks for the update! Like you have nothing better to do right 😉 Let no one discourage you from making this public in your blog. My friend (female) had a correctly diagnosed kidney stone which passed without incident. Your vlog on this incident should be edited into an essay and be part of a curriculum on medical diagnostic procedures. Pain is an important tool in diagnosis and treatment. Hope Anne is continuing to improve. Love to you both.
So glad that Anne finally got the treatment she needed and will be ok. You both deserve all the time in the world.
Hi Wil,
I have been reading here for a long time already and this time I felt I had to say something.
What I want to say: Well done! Without knowing her I think Anne does know what a phenomenal husband she has in you. I hope she gets well soon to savour the years still ahead of both of you together.
You have every right to be angry at the docs not having looked at Anne properly. And in a way that story hits home so hard for me, because I recently lost a very close and important friend of nearly 16 years to cancer after over five years of fierce battle, and in my mind I’m playing what-if’s about the grave mistakes some of the doctors made and how I ask myself what would have happened if I had spoken up earlier and at the right time when I had a bad feeling.
You want to trust the doctors, but in the end you know you can’t, because even in the face of grave danger you must know they are human and bound to make mistakes. Some of these are avoidable – such as probably the ones in your story and possibly some of those in the story of my friend – and others not so much.
At the time you realize that, you want to hover over the doctors’ decisions, verify them to the finest degree, question everything, trying to avoid them making mistakes, all the while being in deep worries over that person close to you, tired out and awash with all your own emotions and anxiety.
I have no idea what would have happened if I had been more attentive at some points, whether I could have avoided them making the mistakes by saying something, or whether she would still be alive if I had spoken up.
But in the end, you’re not a doctor. You can take care of her, try to think of good questions for the doctors, and be there for her. You can try to follow what the doctors tell you, try to question it, but as enraging that may be, this is about all you can do. You want to protect her, but you cannot do more than you are capable of.
You did all you could, went over and beyond your limits for Anne, the woman you love. You did great!
So please, if you can, just be grateful that she’s getting better now and do not torment yourself about the what-if’s.
There’s a future ahead of you, and I know it’ll be bright with Anne at your side.
With the best wishes for both of you,
Ralf
I’m so sorry Anne had to go through that, but like everyone else, I’m glad that she’s doing better now. The next time I teach medical ethics, I’ll definitely research and discuss situations like this.
However, one small bit in your writing was a gut punch to me. So much so that I felt I had to comment. If this is out of line, feel free to delete but I think it’s an important public service message for everyone.
“I’ve been awake for 25 hours. I almost crash twice on the way home. Maybe it’s not as close as I think it is, but it’s too close.”
Please, please, please don’t drive tired (not just you, Wil, but everyone). With Uber, Lyft, traditional taxis, friends, family, buses, whatever – there are so many options. I’ve done it, and I imagine just about everyone has done it at some point – even those of us who would never even consider drinking and driving often think driving tired isn’t a big deal. But I won’t ever again.
We are just a couple weeks shy of one year since my dad went out to get a carton of eggs but never came home. Someone else was driving tired and struck his car head on. He survived for several days in the ER – scared, unable to breath on his own, as well as both paralyzed and in agonizing pain. But he didn’t make it.
I’m not calling you or anyone out. Like I said, I’ve done it, too. We all have. In our society, it’s not usually considered a big deal despite being as dangerous as drunk driving. But if there are important lessons in this, I would hope at least some people could take this one to heart, also.
I do not have more time with my dad, and my mom has no more time with the love of her life because someone else drove tired. Please – all of you – don’t take that risk. Find another way.
I’m so happy to hear that Anne is okay!
I am so sorry for your two, and so angry, and know that I don’t know you, but it feels so personal to all of us. Because we’ve been there. As women we’ve had to keep a careful eye out to make sure doctors take our reproductive systems into account. Like not walking alone at night or not making eye contact, women have to develop this set of behaviors that keeps us safer, even in the hands of male doctors.
I am so glad your Anne is okay. My heart broke for you. In those moments of cyclic aimless anxiety : “if I do this or don’t do this maybe it will help ” we are all the same. We have all been there, and I’m so so very glad you two are back.
I know first-hand the pain of ovarian torsion and have my own story of unsatisfactory pain management in the ER. I’m so sorry Anne had to wait so long for real help, and am glad she’s now doing better. We absolutely need more people in the medical field who understand women’s bodies and their unique afflictions. You both are in my thoughts, and I wish her a speedy recovery!
I am glad Anne is going to be fine and I am sorry she was in so much pain for so long and that both of you were so scared.
Sadly, most women in the world have a story where her medical/pain complaint has been ignored by doctors because “you just have to suck it up and you can’t be in as much pain as you say” or they just can’t comprehend that women have different symptoms then men.
Btw, a lot of women have a relatively high pin tolerance.
Many Women get diagnosed with and treated for of heart attacks and cancer later then if they would have been men.
Women receive less pain meds then men and women get discharged from ERs faster then men..
The medical society needs to drastically change in how they view women and how they treat women with medical complaints, because there are thousands of Anne and Wills out there, some lucky and some not.
Sending Anne and you positive thoughts
Oh my goodness, what a horrible experience for you both. I’m so glad Anne is okay, and I’m incandescently angry on her behalf that it took so long for her to get the correct treatment.
I hope she continues to make a good recovery, and you two can get some rest time in. Sending my best wishes, from someone who knows what it’s like for serious pain to be minimised because I had the temerity to be ‘sick while female’.
Love and hugs to Anne and yourself. Xxx
So many competing thoughts…
Powerful writing, Wil, reminds me of what goes on in my head.
Anne, I’m at once so happy you’re alright and absolutely livid that you went through all that pain because once again doctors blew off a woman’s needs.
Wil, honey, please take a taxi or a Lyft next time you’re dragged out tired & need to get somewhere. <3
Both of you, please, get mad, stay mad, file the complaints, raise the hell, do not stop because your situation was resolved. Your status means your voices stand a better chance of being heard. Strangers on the internet, laypeople with no medical training, should not have the opportunity to recognize what is wrong before doctors figure it out. I remember thinking, “that sounds like ovarian torsion?”, and going to comment on the previous post, seeing that many others had already said the same thing and let it be, because obviously reading blog comments is not on anybody’s priority list just then.
Women’s pain, women’s illness, is routinely ignored, downplayed, outright dismissed by medical professionals. Usually the men, but not always, so you can’t relax when you see a woman doctor come through the door. I had a failing gallbladder for years that routinely put me in the ER, unable to keep anything down, excruciating pain. I was variously told that it was constipation, gas, a kidney stone, a pulled muscle, etc, kept getting sent home with prescriptions for Tylenol3 and Naproxen that I never filled because they never worked. No one listened until one attack was so bad that my husband had to drive me to the ER, stopping to let me heave on the side of the road 3x over less than ten miles, and he stood there in the waiting room, in triage, in the exam room, telling everyone who came in, “No, she’s really in pain. She isn’t a drug seeker, she doesn’t even like to take tylenol, and she’s the toughest person I know. We are not leaving until you figure out what the hell is wrong with her.” Women need advocates in medical situations, and unfortunately it is ideal that those advocates be men, so that they will be taken seriously. Until that changes, until the creeping awareness that we’re usually not faking or exaggerating or looking for excuses to be fat or just plain drug seekers works its way into what these people get taught in medical school & throughout their training, it’s going to continue to be important for husbands and brothers and guy friends and so on to be willing to plant their feet and refuse to leave until the mystery is unraveled and the solution applied.
Wil, I had the opportunity to say hello at Motor City a few weeks back. What there wasn’t time to say is that … watching you say “woops, forgot to take my meds this morning”, reach into a pocket and take them right out in the open, because needing medication to function is never something to be ashamed of… well, I cried. <3 I cried when you talked about invisible illnesses and how society needs to get over itself and accept that not everyone’s disability looks the same, or is visible at all. I cried a lot that weekend, because I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and for the first time I was out in public with a mobility aid, a walker with wheels and a seat because I can’t be on my feet for long periods. I was mentally braced up so hard for the problems I just knew would arise. What if someone calls me a fake? What ifthere’s nasty note on the car from someone who saw me pick up my two year old? What if someone notices that I’m guiding the walker with just my fingertips instead of leaning on it, because I don’t need support to stand or walk, so they think I’m faking a disability to get into the VIP lines? What if someone gets mad because I’m “in the way”? What if what if what if… you know the drill, yes? But it didn’t happen. Not one person even looked at me sideways. Nobody kicked my walker or bumped me “accidentally”. Nobody called me a fake. Nobody avoided making eye contact (or forced it either, I’m also autistic, so that was pretty nifty). People who realized they were blocking me from where I needed to go apologized and got out of the way without so much as a huffy expression. It was amazing, and then to hear you speaking so openly, so comfortably, about life with problems that aren’t readily visible… yeah, there was a lot of crying. Good thing I opted to leave the mascara in the bag that day! So thank you, thank you so much for being you, openly and without shame. <3
All of that, to say this… doctors often don’t listen to women, routinely blow off our concerns, and it straight up costs lives. It’s only June, and I’ve already seen a dozen different news reports of EDS patients (several were young, 20s & 30s) taking their own lives because they can’t bear up under the judgement and the constant grinding pain anymore. The default body in medical school is a 154 pound male, that is the body that textbooks are written about, with little if any mention of the role male vs female vs intersex plays outside of reproductive organs. They’re taught from the jump that women somehow simultaneously have a higher pain tolerance and a greater tendency to exaggerate their symptoms for attention. (If you’re not already aware of it, look up the etymology of the word “hysteria”… this has been going on for literally thousands of years.)
I’m 34, was not formally dx’d with Ehlers-Danlos until I was 27 because “it’s juvenile arthritis, you’ll grow out of it.” (Never did.) Because “you eat too much & don’t exercise enough. I don’t need to see your food journal & exercise logs, I know they’re fake because you’re still fat. Lose weight and you’ll stop hurting.” (Lies.) Because “you have depression & anxiety, here’s a prescription for Prozac. I don’t care that it makes you lethargic and stifles any creative impulses at all, if you don’t comply with your medication I’ll put in your medical record that you’re a drug seeker.” (Yes, that last bit is an actual quote.) Because, because, because. Never mind that at 5’4″ & 240 pounds I’m more flexible than a lot of professional dancers, or that when I was 17 and weighed 135 pounds and could bench press over 180, I was experience every bit of the pain I feel now. Never mind the raft of secondary symptoms. Even now that I have this diagnosis in my record, other doctors don’t believe it, because because because. So I’m still fighting for an appointment with a geneticist. Can’t get insurance to cover mobility aids (I paid for my walker out of pocket and it was worth every penny). No point at all in filing for disability. Can’t get physical therapy with an EDS-knowledgeable therapist to strengthen my muscles so they will do the job that my tendons can’t. Can’t run & play with my children. Can’t have the stage career that I dreamed of (I have a BS in voice performance… EDS stole that future too). Can’t work anymore, because I can’t tolerate being on my feet all day and I’m not willing to live on opioid narcotics just to keep further damaging my joints. Even with a formal diagnosis, I am treated like a lazy, hysterical, drug seeking female because doctors don’t know the difference between being in pain because I’m fat, and being fat because it bloody hurts to move.
I haven’t even bothered seeking a formal dx on the autism. I know I have it (it’s really kind of brutally obvious), and I have enough trouble getting my physical needs accommodated without prejudicing doctors against me with an “internet mental health diagnosis”.
So please… keep on being exactly who you are. Keep talking about invisible illnesses, mental & physical. Keep after doctors who don’t do their effing jobs because a woman is on the gurney instead of a man. Keep speaking out and changing the world. Because you are a wonderful, amazing person who brings light and laughter and growth and change to everything you touch. <3
Egads, there goes my tendency to write comment novels. Info-dumping is FUN! If you get through all of that and aren’t rolling your eyes at me, you’re even more awesome than I thought. XD
((Hugs)) I Choked up. It’s a terrifying thought, to lose the one you love.
First, I’m glad Anne is healing well and that you are, too. Having been where you were I understand quite well what you both went through and I’m very sorry you had to go through it, especially when it was because of the incompetence of the previous physicians.
“I’m so sorry that you’re in so much pain, and I’m sorry that hurt so much. We’re going to figure out what’s going on with you, and I won’t send you home until we do.”
That is so very rare and I’m so happy you finally found one of those few doctors, especially during this whole ordeal.
Having been to the ER far more than anyone should need (because of serious health issues and other things), the above level of care and concern has become so lacking, especially in ER care. Triply-so if you are in pain because it seems most doctors assume you are faking it for painkillers, anymore. Especially if you end up returning because your condition didn’t improve, even when they admit they missed or misdiagnosed a condition.
I hope Anne recovers completely and that you can get some more rest 😉
So glad everything is going well. Take care of each other and god bless.
I’m glad to hear that Anne is okay. I’ve been worried about the both of you for the past few days and am thankful that everything is going to be okay. All my love and good vibes to you both. hugs
You calm yourself with Hamilton and watch Sarah Silverman specials…. Man, that’s so liberal. You are totally immersed into the whole liberal lifestyle. Is CNN playing in the background? Are you counting down the hours to the Comey testimony? BTW – You do realize that a Puerto Rican actor playing Alexander Hamilton is as racist as John Wayne was playing Genghis Khan.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
What an odd thing to say. Thanks for the friendly and open forum where we can all express and share our opinions (as long as they’re yours, I guess)
It’s just not really the place for politics, you know?
I think Wil’s response was more about your choice of posts to reply to politically than your actual politics.
Why on earth would you make nasty comments (political or otherwise) on someone’s post about a traumatic event? Wil shared an incredibly painful experience and, in the process, pointed out important flaws in current medical practice and theory. But you choose to question the so-called politics behind his method for self-soothing in a time of crisis? Why? Are you so angry and hurt in your own life that you want to make everyone around you just as miserable? Is this your method of self-soothing? Make yourself feel better at the expense of others?
As I have said before, I am neither liberal nor conservative, republican nor democrat. I am an African American woman and I consider the facts and draw conclusions about worldly happenings myself. I don’t need a political group to make my decisions for me. I think Trump is an elitist buffoon who will set this country back a decade or more and Hillary Clinton is a career politician who’s taken money from (and is beholdened to) way too many nefarious people, countries and organizations to be trusted. I enjoy reading Wil’s posts. I like sci-fi, poker and board games, so a lot of what he writes is right up my alley and I feel no need to post. I am an observer of things and, as my friends would tell you, not one to hold back when I see hypocrisy. Sometimes, Wil’s posts go a little off topic and get VERY political. I have no problem with that. It’s his opinion and its his website….but, most times when Wil gets political, his targets are conservatives, republicans and sometimes Christian conservatives. Again, I have no problem with that EXCEPT when I see hypocrisy. Many times I have read Wil go after Christians who feel strongly about a political issue, sometimes even mocking their belief. (Remember the Prop 8 rants) When I read that Wil is taking solace in listening to the liberal masterpiece Hamilton, a calming play if ever there’s been one, it just sits wrong with me. I don’t see the difference in Christians belief in their religion and liberals belief in their “religion” (global warming for an example) The point I was making with Hamilton is that I doubt Wil would be enamored with that play if it wasn’t the current darling of the lib’s. The other point I made was to the Puerto Rican actor that plays Alexander Hamilton. That REALLY rubs me the wrong way, just as how ridiculous it was for John Wayne to play Genghis Khan, Alec Guiness to play a Chinese person and Natalie Wood to play an American Indian in The Seekers. Wrong is wrong and you can’t change that by politicizing it. If you consider yourself conservative, don’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and FOX News for your marching orders. If you consider yourself liberal, don’t let CNN and MSNBC dictate what and how you believe. Take each situation as it comes, read about it and make your own decisions. If it flies in the face of the group that you most associate with, challenge it with them. Point out their hypocrisy and talk it through with them. I never mind if someone wants to talk something out with me. What I do mind is a comeback like “What the fuck is wrong with you.” First of all, that insinuates my point of view is stupid and that I am not rational. That is a childish and school yard bully way to respond to someone. It’s something Biff would say to Marty McFly. Well Wil, nothing is ‘wrong’ with me. I have a 144 IQ and am quite capable of defending my position as an adult. I know that you are too, but it was insulting to me that you chose not to with your “What the fuck is wrong with you” response to my post.
His post wasn’t about mental health, sweetie. Please seek help for yours.
And Wil, I am so happy that Anne is on the mend. Good thoughts to you both!
Lucinda, if that’s what you picked out from this post, you are the fucking problem. Grow up and lean some empathy
This is your takeaway? His wife was just in the hospital for emergency surgery, and your takeaway is to critique the politics of his methods of decompressing? Of keeping a handle on himself when life is throwing a serious fucking curve ball?
You are messed up, lady.
i experienced something similar a few weeks ago. my husband was taken to the ER by ambulance for what they thought was a stroke. We’re in our 30’s and it was unexpected as something like that can be for a 33 yr old. I got to the ER and they hadn’t put him in the system yet. I kept being told to check back in 10 more minutes. Again, 10 more minutes. After the fourth ten more minutes I just sat in the corner and wept quietly to myself. I was all alone and I realized that, that loneliness would be my life from that point on if the worst had happened. It was the singular more anguish ridden moment in my life. I have lost both my parents, one at a terribly young age, but the thought of moving forward through life without my other half, destroyed me in that moment. I’m glad Anne is better, so is my husband. But I hug him a bit tighter and keep an intense watch over him now.
I’m so glad that Anne is okay, though I hate that she had to endure so much pain. I hope her recovery is speedy.
Wow. Just … wow. Tears to my eyes. And gratitude – for Anne, and for you.
First, I am glad Anne is ok and things are returning to normal for you all.
Second, thank you for sharing this. Seven years ago I had a insensitive and fruitless trip to the ER that resulted in me going back a few hours later via ambulance after passing out at home. My husband was there and that saved my life. He carried the worry and burden all on his own and held it in because it wasn’t going to help me. You have put words to his experience and I hope others get strength from them. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Love her and be loved. <3
the same thing happened to me years ago. the doctors didn’t find it any quicker. I am sorry she has to go through that pain. it was horrendous. glad you are both well 🙂
I’m so glad Anne is doing well, and you are an amazingly strong person. Love to you both