A Doctor Held Me Hostage For Thirty Years
I'm ridding myself of his grasp.
CW: Weight
It is early 1988. I am twenty and a junior in college. The thudding rains that characterize wintertime in Northern California are yielding to spring, and I've had a hacking cough for months.
My college dorm mates persuade me that it's time to go get my cough checked out at the student health center. The joke is that the practitioners there are mediocre, and that even if your arm is broken in half the nurse is gonna ask you when your last period was. So if you've decided to haul yourself into that waiting room, you're there for a really good reason. It's the pre-cell phone era, so we sit there doing nothing and respect each other's tacit request for dignity and anonymity by staring at the ground. I try to muffle my cough.
My name is called. I follow a nurse into a small hallway and we stop at a doorless lounge. My weight is measured and announced aloud, as is my height. I am asked when my last period was. I say I'm not sure because it is irregular and maybe five or six weeks? I am asked why I am there. I describe my cough. Then I cough on purpose to demonstrate the phlegmy sound until am satisfied that I have proved the legitimacy of my concern. I am taken to the room at the end of hallway, the doctor's office. I am told to sit in the chair across from the massive desk. The door shuts.
I sit. I cough. After a few minutes, I'm bored. I press my palms into the seat of the chair and swing my legs back and forth. I look around for evidence of the doctor's capabilities. I scan the diplomas hanging on the wall behind the desk and see schools that I've heard of but that are by no means the best. I squint to read the titles of the books haphazardly strewn on his extensive bookshelves. I stare at the stacks of paperwork on his desk. I look around. I cough some more.
After twenty or thirty minutes, a willowy pale-skinned man in his late forties enters the room. He makes no eye contact with me and says nothing. He clutches a manilla file in his right hand and holds his left hand up in the air, palm facing outward as if his hand is pressed against that of an invisible dance partner who is moving backwards. He makes his way to the desk and sits down. I watch him open the file and begin reviewing its pages. He gets to the last page. Paws back to a previous page. Returns to the final page. Looks up at me. Speaks.
"Do you realize how much WEIGHT you've gained since you got to Stanford?"
I stumble and mumble over some kind of answer, because I don't know the number of pounds I've gained. And I know that the number is not what he is really asking about, that he is really not asking me anything at all, that really, he is telling me how shocked he is by my weight. He seems even perhaps angry.
Time is now of the essence. The doctor does his strange walk back out of his office. I remain seated. In a few minutes he returns and shoves a few pieces of paper at me. I stand to receive them.
"Here," he commands. "This is a 1,200 calorie diet." He goes on to say quite a bit more, but I cannot hear him because my heart is beating very loudly in my head and the room feels cavernous around me. He finishes by asking, "Do you understand what you need to do?" I nod. He turns to go.
"But what about my cough?" My tone of voice suggests that I am needy. Embarrassed.
"Oh," he says, waving both hands as if brushing smoke away. "We'll give you antibiotics for that." He opens the door and walks away.
I am determined to make it down the small hallway, past the full waiting room, and out the front door with my head held high before I cry.
_____
I was 175 pounds and a size 14 that day at the doctor's office. I have never weighed that little since.
From that day on I avoided doctors. I stopped going for regular physicals and got my birth control at Planned Parenthood. When I had an acute need of some kind such as the stabbing pain in my side (diverticulitis), I sought Urgent Care in the form of whatever doctor was on call and who I presumed would be less interested in my weight. On those occasions when I did need to see my primary care physician, such as when I was not ovulating (polycystic ovarian syndrome), I would lose twenty to twenty-five pounds before going in to see her which meant putting off the visit for months.
This has been my pattern for the past thirty-three years. When my doctor recently told me that my blood sugar was at a pre-diabetes level, I avoided going back to see her until I lost weight which is more challenging than ever now that I am peri-menopausal.
_____
As it turns out, today is my 54th birthday (yay!) and I think birthdays are the perfect opportunity to remember that our purpose in this life is to learn and grow until we take our last breath. I wish I could tell you that I've completely sorted all of this shit out. That I've stopped giving one mediocre doctor from 1988 any control over how I lead my life today. That I no longer think of that long ago day when a nurse's first words to me today are "Step on the scale." That my blood pressure does not rise in that moment. He is still there in my mind to remind me.
But, I'm getting there. Getting over him. Removing from my mind the image of his body, the sound of his words, the absence of any dignity offered me as a human being sitting across from him in that moment, his inability to see me as more than some numbers. And there have been other people over the years who have treated me better when I've weighed less, and shared their opinions about my size when I've weighed more. As I think about all of these people, I work hard to stop thinking about them at all. I work hard to stop trying to be the person they need to see. I realize that their judgment has made me avoid the health care that I'm fortunate enough to have. So I'm working on not letting anyone else's opinions of my body impact my RIGHT TO LIVE WELL AND ENJOY LIFE by accessing the care available to me. Even writing this for you is part of my journey to reclaim my body as mine to love and care for.
I want to help others feel more supported on their health and wellness journeys, too. For that reason, I proudly serve on the board of the Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI), founded in Atlanta and now based in Washington D.C., which is our nation's leading non-profit organization for supporting the health of black women and girls.
As I pay more attention to MY health and wellness, my birthday wish for all Black women and girls (and for all humans, really) is that each of us gets the information, resources, care, and support related to our health and wellness that we need. If this cause matters to you personally, politically, or just because you're down to support what I'm up to, please join my 54th Birthday Fundraiser by making a donation of $54 to the Black Women's Health Imperative. You can learn more about their programs here and direct your gift to support whichever area of their work that you find most meaningful.
Wherever your life journey has brought you thus far, please know that I'm here affirming who you are and rooting for you to become an even more healthful and well version of yourself, whatever that may mean to you. As the late poet Mary Oliver put it, this is our "one wild and precious life." Let's take back control of our lives from those whose judgment still holds us hostage.
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*Disclaimer: I am not a physician, psychologist, or counselor, nor am I licensed to offer therapy or medical advice of any kind. What you get from me is a fellow human with a lot of thoughts and opinions based solely on my lived experience. If you are having an emergency or are in crisis please call 911 or the National Suicide Prevention Line (800-273-8255) or text the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
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