eleven fucking years ago
Feb. 18th, 2025 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doodlemancy(content warning: medical abuse, psychological trauma and assault. it's a victory but the trail here was rough)
eleven fucking years ago i went to the doctor complaining of carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms, along with pain from a shoulder injury sustained in a fall. it was February of 2014. i was 22. i was also female, poor, and kinda fat, all cardinal sins in the eye of the healthcare system.
what followed was over a decade of dismissive treatment, shrugs, gaslighting, downplaying and disbelief about my symptoms, an incident where i was put on SSRIs in the assumption that depression was causing my pain, a nervous breakdown because it turns out my particular brain HATES SSRIs a lot, a physical assault by a Family Nurse Practitioner who didn't want to hear any more about my pain, getting sent to physical therapy with so little guidance that they gave up on me after 2 weeks, depression, despair, suicidal thoughts, Doing My Own Research™, haphazard but semi-effective self-treatment, more scattered failed attempts at diagnosis, and finally, in 2024, physical therapy that WORKED. for a while. until the last month or so.
today i got a diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome, a follow-up to last year's vague diagnosis of "tendonitis maybe? CTS maybe? let's try PT". CTS can be corrected with surgery, which is No Big Deal and has a high success rate. i'm waiting on the hospital to call me about it. with any luck, by summer, i might have two hands again, for the first time since 2013. my shoulder will probably fuck with me forever. but i'll have hands.
i am 33. i lost 11 years of my life to this. it's a hell of a lot of time spent crying or trying to rest that was supposed to be spent doing something else. it could have been 1 year. it could have been less than a year. if only anyone had ever listened. weirdly enough, men in my life with CTS got diagnosed and treated immediately!!
it's a complicated feeling to be this close to the possibility of a real recovery after being fucked with for so long.
a curse on every doctor who doesn't listen: may everything that goes wrong with you go undiagnosed. may your sleep never go undisturbed. may every baked good you bring home from the store mold within 24 hours. i wish every bad doctor endless sadness, relentless pain, and a flying heavy object straight to the crotch at pelvis-shattering speed. you are the kind of person hell was dreamed up for.
also my life advice is never fucking trust a GP or FNP. 90% of them are worthless fucking dipshits. i'm sure some of them are fine, but i've never had one that hasn't failed me in the end. always go straight to a specialist if you can.
eleven fucking years ago i went to the doctor complaining of carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms, along with pain from a shoulder injury sustained in a fall. it was February of 2014. i was 22. i was also female, poor, and kinda fat, all cardinal sins in the eye of the healthcare system.
what followed was over a decade of dismissive treatment, shrugs, gaslighting, downplaying and disbelief about my symptoms, an incident where i was put on SSRIs in the assumption that depression was causing my pain, a nervous breakdown because it turns out my particular brain HATES SSRIs a lot, a physical assault by a Family Nurse Practitioner who didn't want to hear any more about my pain, getting sent to physical therapy with so little guidance that they gave up on me after 2 weeks, depression, despair, suicidal thoughts, Doing My Own Research™, haphazard but semi-effective self-treatment, more scattered failed attempts at diagnosis, and finally, in 2024, physical therapy that WORKED. for a while. until the last month or so.
today i got a diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome, a follow-up to last year's vague diagnosis of "tendonitis maybe? CTS maybe? let's try PT". CTS can be corrected with surgery, which is No Big Deal and has a high success rate. i'm waiting on the hospital to call me about it. with any luck, by summer, i might have two hands again, for the first time since 2013. my shoulder will probably fuck with me forever. but i'll have hands.
i am 33. i lost 11 years of my life to this. it's a hell of a lot of time spent crying or trying to rest that was supposed to be spent doing something else. it could have been 1 year. it could have been less than a year. if only anyone had ever listened. weirdly enough, men in my life with CTS got diagnosed and treated immediately!!
it's a complicated feeling to be this close to the possibility of a real recovery after being fucked with for so long.
a curse on every doctor who doesn't listen: may everything that goes wrong with you go undiagnosed. may your sleep never go undisturbed. may every baked good you bring home from the store mold within 24 hours. i wish every bad doctor endless sadness, relentless pain, and a flying heavy object straight to the crotch at pelvis-shattering speed. you are the kind of person hell was dreamed up for.
also my life advice is never fucking trust a GP or FNP. 90% of them are worthless fucking dipshits. i'm sure some of them are fine, but i've never had one that hasn't failed me in the end. always go straight to a specialist if you can.
