Why My Medical Crisis Wasn't Taken Seriously

Why my medical crisis wasn’t taken seriously.

- Tressie McMillan Cottom

THE FIRST DREAM FOR MY IMAGINED FUTURE SELF THAT I can recall starts with a sound. I was maybe 5 years old, and I wanted to click-clack. The click-clack of high heels on a shiny, hard floor. I have a briefcase. I am walking purposefully, click-clack-click-clack. That is the entire dream. I dreamed of being competent. I have never felt more incompetent than when I was pregnant. I was about four months along, extremely uncomfortable, and at work when I started bleeding. When you are a black woman, having a body is already complicated for workplace politics. Having a bleeding, distended body is especially egregious. I waited until I filed my copy, by deadline, before calling my husband to pick me up.

That day I sat in the waiting room of my obstetrics office for 30 minutes, after calling ahead and reporting my condition when I arrived. After I had bled through the nice chair in the waiting room, I told my husband to ask them again if perhaps I could be moved to a more private area. The nurse looked alarmed, about the chair, and eventually ushered me back. When the doctor arrived, he explained that I was probably just too fat and that spotting was normal, and he sent me home. Later that night my ass started hurting. I walked. I stretched. I took a hot bath. I called my mother. Finally, I called the nurse. She asked if my back hurt. I said no. It was my butt that hurt. She said it was probably constipation. I should try to go to the bathroom. I tried that for all the next day and part of another. By the end of three days, my butt still hurt and I had not slept more than 15 minutes straight in almost 70 hours.