Chapter Four #2
“I’m Dr. Blanch.” He stood in the doorway, one foot in the room and one foot in the hallway, with the door pulled up to his rounded belly to shield Rylee—clutching her pink napkin shirt closed over her boobs—from anyone passing in the hallway.
“You’re here about a tingling sensation.
Have you considered that this could just be where you are in your cycle?
” Dr. Blanch asked. He retained his position as far away as he could be from Rylee, leaving a hand resting on the doorknob.
Rylee blinked at him. “My cycle?”
“Hormones and anxiety. Have you tried yoga and meditation?” He asked with his furry eyebrows lifted high.
“Yoga?” Rylee pronounced slowly as she shook her head with incredulity. “I have a family history of MS, three generations on my father’s side.” Rylee lifted her spreadsheets and thrust them at the doctor.
“Do you want some medication?” He dropped his eyebrows in confusion.
Rylee leaned forward and focused on the man with a look she used when she needed things done. “For what exactly?” The words were a hard-edged cudgel.
“Anxiety.” He shifted his focus to the nurse.
“Rose, figure out which one she wants, and we’ll put it through.
” He turned back to Rylee. “You should try one of the meditation apps on your phone. Learn to breathe deeper.” His fingers lifted from the doorknob he’d been grasping, and he used the flat of his hand to show Rylee how to breathe in and out.
“You’ll be alright,” he assured her in a warm paternal voice.
And he walked out the door.
Walked right out the door.
Rylee blinked; her mind had gone blank.
The nurse said something, but Rylee just let her jaw go slack. It hung there, gaping in her astonishment. Rylee had felt so good about today, so hopeful. Years of doctors dismissing her concerns were about to be over. “Rylee?” Rose called more firmly.
Rylee turned to the woman and raised a finger. “I swear to god if you ask me which anxiety drug I want, I’m going to get loud and obnoxious.”
“No, ma’am. I’m not.” She pulled her notepad from her pocket and leaned over to write on the same page that held her breath count from earlier.
“I’m giving you the name of a friend of mine who went through nursing school with me.
She’s now a PA for a neurologist. This is the office phone number and the name of the group.
That second name is me. Tell her I gave you the number and that you need to be seen as soon as there’s an opening.
Leave a message on her voicemail. And let her know you were diagnosed with ‘anxiety.’ She’ll make you a priority. ”
“A woman?” Rylee reached out for the slip of paper and turned it to see fat letters printed neatly in blue ink.
“Yes.” Rose slid the pad and pen back into her pocket.
Rylee fluttered the paper. “Thank you.”
“I hope you get the answers you deserve.” She walked to the door and, in a voice Rylee could barely hear, Rose said, “My kids are in daycare next door. That’s why I work here,” then left, slicking the door closed behind her.
Rylee jumped down from the table, balled up the pink paper, and shoved it in the waste bin.
She sat down and started gathering her fleece-lined leggings with fingers that were warming with her anger.
Yes, Rylee understood that doctors knew very little about female bodies.
Researchers were only required to include women in their medical studies since the mid-nineties.
Mice models didn’t include female mice until the NIH mandated it in 2015.
That meant that when the meds were tested on human females in drug trials, they had previously only been tested in male animal studies.
“Here you go, ladies, we have no idea how this will impact your cute little XX chromosomes, but surely not so different from an XY, hey? We’re pretty sure it’ll be good for the guys, and yeah, you never know, you might get some benefit. ”
It was bad to have a female body in today’s global medical landscape.
Only recently had doctors acknowledged that women had nerve endings on their cervix and needed pain meds for surgeries down there. Though, honestly, doctors still needed prodding to issue the prescription.
Yep, in the world of anatomy, women’s bodies were under-researched, and treatment was most likely a blindfolded dart throw.
Everything from agreeing that women felt pain and should be given pain medications to men receiving their diagnosis many years before a woman would—more than two years earlier in cancer diagnoses, almost five years earlier for metabolic diseases.
She got that women were medically second-class citizens. Every woman Rylee knew got it.
But come on! She had a family history. She wasn’t looking for them to pull the answer out of their asses; she was simply asking if they believed her when she said she was experiencing unaccounted for symptoms, and then to follow up with diagnostics.
Still, no. Instead, Rylee had found in her clinical notes that “WW” had been added to her presentation of “clean and appropriately communicative.” Rylee had asked her gyno what it meant when that was written down. Her gyno had scowled, “Who did that?”
“Not you. But others.”
“It means ‘whiney woman’. It means that you went to the appointment complaining for no reason other than you wanted attention.”
“People do that?” Rylee was genuinely confused. She would never put herself through the ice-box offices and indignity of the pink napkin unless she genuinely needed help.
And here she was again, the WW.
Yoga. Yep, that should fix things right up.
Rylee dragged on her tights, reached for her dress, and wrestled it over her head. Slipping her feet into her flats, she grabbed up her phone and purse, then scanned the room to make sure that, in her seething fury, she wasn’t leaving anything behind.
Because she never wanted to see this place again. Ever.