My lips formed a small, tight ‘o’ shape as I felt the air on the tip of my tongue. Two breaths in. Slow, calm, not to fill my stomach too much. Then, pinching them together, just slightly opening. One, two, breaths out.
Any movement, any large swaths of breath felt like a javelin into whatever organs were screaming beneath my belly button.
I remember seeing a meme once that read, “envisioning my death anytime I have a sharp pain in my abdomen” plastered on top of some white guy keeled over in a blue polo, gripping his stomach. That pain, almost always, was gas.
Let’s get the embarrassing stuff out of the way, because — for some reason — gas and poop (and constipation) are shameful topics. Then again, ladies don’t poop. Right?
So, let’s say in theory that ladies did, in fact, poop.
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As I was laid up in my bed with no way of moving without sending sharp pain through my body, and with an abdomen swollen inches past any menstrual period range, the thought, “Is this just really bad constipation?” Absolutely crossed my mind.
So, I waited. Hours went by in pain as it slowly got worse. I attempted to pass some hopeful, embarrassing, poop.
Because there was no way in hell I was rolling up to the emergency room on a Thursday night for the doctor to tell me to eat more fiber.
But the pain got worse. Breathing felt impossible without knives and I was a fall risk with every step.
Tears started to collect from how much I could tolerate.
I had never cried from pain. Well, there were times when I was a kid that I scratched myself up and wailed from it all, but this was different. Not from a place of fear and crying for help, but instead, my body had taken enough.
Before, people would tell me of crying from being in so much pain, and I couldn’t picture it. Part of me wondered if it was a personality trait combined with a level of pain tolerance. Another part of me wondered if I was a bit of a sociopath for not being able to picture other people’s pain.
The reality is, however, I just hadn’t been subjected to that much torture until now.
When I finally had enough and made my way to the emergency room, I was almost immediately admitted and given a bed.
Twelve hours of tests. MRI’s, ultrasounds, some pain medication that we found out later doesn’t work as well because of the medication I take. That, actually, really sucked.
But the female doctor overseeing my care at the time tried to figure out what was going on. And while they found that I actually, as it turns out, was constipated, she didn’t think that was the sole cause.
Neither did I.
On the twelfth hour, I had a new doctor take over. Handsome, tall, shiny white coat and shinier white teeth that he definitely paid for.
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“Well, I guess you’re just full of poop,” he said to me, letting out a laugh.
My body chuckled along with me, but my mind wandered in confusion. Shame, embarrassment filled my chest as he told me I was being discharged.
According to this doctor, my pain wasn’t just gas and (a lack of) bowel movements, it was also hilarious.
So, I went home, and I told no one why I was admitted to the ER. Hidden away, I would just file that night in with “I’d rather not talk about it.”
Because, looking in the eyes of the Caramel-skinned doctor as he grinned ear to ear at the idea of me coming to the ER over constipation — I felt like a fool for ever acknowledging my pain in the first place.
Was I overreacting? Were the tears some kind of performance, like a child crying out for their parent?
Two days later, though, I received a follow-up call.
After reviewing my tests a little closer, a female doctor noticed that my ovaries were filled with blood.
I had an ovarian cyst rupture.
At some point, I became the man in the meme — keeled over, gripping my stomach, wondering if this was it. Everything but the blue polo and the bad haircut.
And I had my answer. Ovarian cyst.
I wasn’t crazy. Oh, man, how I can say that again and again. I wasn’t crazy for going to the emergency room.
My pain, my tears, were real. They were as justified as the knives pressing into my organs with every count of breath.
One, two.
But this man — this proud, well-postured, gleaming man had laughed in my face and, literally, told me I was full of shit.
My story isn’t uncommon. In 2024, 45% of female patients who went to the doctor complaining about pelvic pain were told to “relax more.”
Because women, you know, we just overreact.
Medicine and science are a man’s field. Really, most everything has been a man’s field for so long up until recently. But the study of the human body has, for ages, been done so from the lens of male anatomy.
And so when I showed up to the hospital, wondering if I had waited long enough to prove that my pain was worthy of the visit —when I had finally turned my face red enough from tears — I didn’t deserve the shock of a man brushing off my fear and agony as a need for more fiber.
Really, I should have seen it coming.
With the current administration diving headfirst into a manly man’s culture again, the idea of women being at the forefront of medical studies feels like an ask that would be laughed at with the same degree when I was discharged in the first place.
But, then again, I hope with enough voices that one day we can create change. Because one day, that may be my daughter crying in agony as a man tells her to just calm down.
And while every woman has been told, at some point, “You’re so resilient,” I hope for a day that we don’t have to be. Maybe, instead, we can just be heard.