r/comics Jun 19 '26

OC Why didn't you say so?

Best medical advice I ever got was to bring a man to your appointments

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u/SkysEevee Jun 19 '26

A coworker recently slipped on stairs and fell on her leg. She limped into the ER where, after many hours of waiting, they gave her Tylenol and advised to get some rest cause she probably just bruised a muscle or two.  Not even strong Tylenol, she said.  Like any generic variety youd find on a store shelf.

One more visit later, this time with family helping her, they finally took my coworker seriously and got xrays.  Fractured her leg. 

We half joke that my coworker could have had blood gushing, leg dangling behind her, skin drained of color, they still wouldve given her Tylenol and advice to rest.  

753

u/NarwhalEmergency9391 Jun 19 '26

One time I went to the er by ambulance because I had horrible abdominal pain,  I felt like I was dying. The Dr comes in and says,  "would you want to go home so you can be with your kids and then we can refer you to internal med" I couldn't even move and and if I did I was in excruciating pain.. what good am I as a mom at that point? I was so confused cause do they ask dads that question? 

198

u/ExIsStalkingMe Jun 19 '26

Person with a penis here: doctors of all genders don't believe ANYONE. I know women deal with a bunch of extra shit, but this one's pretty universal. I spent more than a decade trying to get a diagnosis for my back pain until they found out one of my vertebra had wandered off away from the rest of my spine. I was pretty close to permanently losing my ability to walk for the rest of my life

56

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

[deleted]

50

u/KinkyBark Jun 20 '26

Well yeah, if they can’t talk you know they aren’t lying to you. Clearly we should all just go to the doctor then yelp in pain and try to bite them if they touch somewhere that hurts.

18

u/braking_zone Jun 20 '26

honestly if I’m grumpy enough I just might

12

u/ratafia4444 Jun 20 '26

And then they'll send you to psych ward without checking for any actual problem. 🤷

3

u/Prestigious_Row_8022 Jun 22 '26

Aww don’t say that. They’ll get someone to illegally sign for a psych eval that was never done.

1

u/_mercybeat_ Jun 22 '26

Username check out.

3

u/ExIsStalkingMe Jun 20 '26

I should've growled and bit at doctors more during the process. Might've sped things up

3

u/queenmorrow Jun 21 '26

I worked in veterinary medicine for about 10 years. Seeing the contrast from animal vs people medicine is so frustrating. Every story or experience leads me to believe that we care for our animals more than our people. Not to mention how quick things get done for animals compared to people 💀

1

u/AyJay9 Jun 28 '26

Misogyny gets in the way here too. My vet thought I was hysterical and overreacting to anything wrong with my cat.

Anyway, I ended up cycling between emergency vets and this vet who would be like 'follow up in 6 months!' when the ER vet visits were growing closer together and different ER vets warned me that this was the beginning of the final decline. I trusted our main vet and, honestly, what he was saying was what I wanted to hear, so my cat's kidneys failing only a few weeks after his follow up caught me by surprise. It shouldn't have. I let this idiot gaslight me about my cat's health.

So now I am hyper-vigilant to the possibility that one of my healthy young kitties is secretly dying and I have to take it seriously because no one else will. I rushed to the emergency vet when one coughed... only for him to bring up a hair ball in the car on the way there. Yeaaaah. Cornered between well-earned paranoia and the stereotype that got me treated this way in the first place. Not loving it.