 After I finally got my diagnosis of LGSOC at age 27, I called every doctor that either misdiagnosed me or didn't take my symptoms seriously. Though many of them were afraid that I was threatening to sue them, I was not. I was pissed and I wanted them to know it. I was pissed that they didn't take me seriously, that they wasted my time and that they had caused me a level of trauma that I couldn't even process at the time. I wanted them to know about my real diagnosis and warn them to take young people seriously in the future. Many of us in the low-grade community have experienced gaslighting from medical professionals or a surprising lack of access to qualified specialists (or those who will at least admit that they are not the qualified specialist and make an appropriate recommendation). It's easy to blame doctors. I feel like I was in a cycle of bashing doctors and blaming the medical system for my situation when really it was not their fault that I had cancer. It’s maybe not even their fault that they had missed my cancer. I will say, it is their fault that they didn't take me seriously and that they made me feel like I was making symptoms up or that I was being dramatic for pushing for more answers. But I recognize now that I was outside the norm of the patients they usually see. Many months after my diagnosis, a friend from an ovarian cancer support group shared an analogy that she had heard: “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras.” Doctors go to medical school and they learn about all of the common symptoms of common ailments. They're trained to have an ear for specific symptoms to recognize general diseases or conditions. They learn that typically when someone has a set of symptoms or experiences, that's going to lead to a clear diagnosis. If they’re not specialized in a very specific area like gynecologic oncology, requiring a million more years of schooling, they're not necessarily trained to consider what could present beyond the norm. Now again, I'm not saying they shouldn't recognize when they don't know something and make the appropriate recommendations—they should. But this analogy helped me understand where doctors are coming from and it has helped me heal from the horrible experiences leading up to my diagnosis. It’s also motivated me to continue to spread awareness about LGSOC even amongst the medical professionals who we trust with our health. Back to the analogy. Doctors are trained to listen for specific symptoms and attribute them to a common condition. If a doctor hears trotting in the hallway but can’t see anything, most likely it's going to be a horse. Very, very rarely, they might open the door and see a zebra. But without the extra step of looking, the two could sound exactly the same. Most likely, it's going to be a horse and so to treat the widest pool of patients, doctors aim to treat the ailments of the horse. It makes a lot of sense—most of the time it probably is IBS or whatever other condition they attributed our cancer to. It’s so unlikely to be something as serious as cancer. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras. If doctors take the next step to find out more—maybe that’s sending you to another doctor who has special tools that allow them to see into the hallway without a window to notice that the animal doesn’t quite look like a horse--they can consider and then rule out other suspicions. In my opinion, we’re not even zebras. We’re unicorns. Low-grade serous ovarian cancer is even more rare and unlikely to be the cause of the hooves trotting down the hallway, because we’re young and usually otherwise “healthy.” If you know me, you know it’s taken a lot for me to forgive and move on from medical gaslighting and trauma. It’s still hard for me to trust professionals. Thinking about it in a new way has helped give me a different perspective. AuthorEllie Habib is a STAAR Board Member. She was diagnosed with stage 3C LGSOC in January 2021 at age 27.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
October 2024
Categories |
RSS Feed
