“My mother is a strong woman who NEVER complains about pain. Yet, there she was, writhing. Our doctor pulled up her records and angrily listed off her history of meds out loud. ‘Why did you take these?!’ He interrogated her. He wouldn’t give her an IV drip or her blood pressure meds. Her body was never physically checked. Instead, he tried to ‘out’ her as a drug abuser in front of her family!”
‘NOTHING is wrong with her. She just wants narcotics!’ My mom was in the throes of kidney failure.’: Woman ‘shocked’ by hospital malpractice, urges ‘it is your right to request a new doctor’
‘You cannot get the flu from the flu vaccine. Ever. No matter what anyone’s told you.’: Certified medical professional urges us to ‘save one another,’ breaks down flu shot myths and facts
“I’ve put a grandfather on a ventilator who couldn’t breathe. I’ve held a newborn with fever while the doctor does a lumbar puncture. I’ve put the final drape over a mother-of-3’s face after she beat breast cancer, but died of the flu. I did all of this knowing full well it was preventable. We had the ability to save those people as a society, and we failed.”
‘I never got sick as a kid. Until the itching started. Then the horrible, red rash covering my 8-year-old self.’: Touching moment woman realizes her mom was the real ‘cure’ for her Scarlet Fever
“Not even my mom could deny there was actually something wrong with me. She rushed my calamine-soaked body to the doctor. My eyes got as big as sand dollars and my life flashed before my eyes. The only time I had ever heard of a Scarlet Fever diagnosis was on an episode of ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ I didn’t know what to do. So, I did the only thing I could think of in that moment. I cried. My mom slid into the bed next to me.”
‘It was just a cold,’ I was told.’: Mother realizes ‘the world isn’t out to get us’ after suddenly losing baby daughter to bronchiolitis
“She was still groggy and her chest sounded raspy. It was agreed it was almost certainly bronchiolitis. This was completely routine and very common. The hospital consultant came in. But before he’d even had done much checking at all, Carrie became distressed. And then she arrested. And then she died. Just like that. And our lives broke.”
‘None of this would be happening if my dad didn’t die.’: Widow feels guilt that teenage daughter is ‘absolutely right,’ learns to ‘forgive herself’ for not ‘saving’ husband from terminal cancer
“I had an argument with my teenage daughter. Through her tears, she said the one thing I have been dreading. I knew it was coming, but when she said it, it still took me to my knees. I was speechless. But you know what? She’s right. She is absolutely right. It’s not the same after her father’s death.”
‘My husband wrote, ‘Cancer is a gift.’ I scowled. Widowed at 35 with 3 adopted boys, I was angry as hell.’: Woman’s journey to new life thanks to 200-year-old haunted house
“BAM! He dies of freaking brain cancer. Yeah, I was pissed. What in the heck was I going to do with the rest of my life? I bought a 200-year-old house on a whim. People in town told me stories of her ghosts. You’re the lady who bought that crazy old house, right?’ Yep, that’s me.”
‘I was told to ‘Man up.’ Did they honestly think I was just a drug seeker? ‘I can’t keep feeding you with medication,’ my doctors said. ‘The pain will eventually just go away.’ Was I going mad?’
“It started when I was 17, during my last year in high school. One day it struck, and it hasn’t left since. I went dizzy, I felt sick, I was confused. My head was pounding like a freight train. I just wanted to be a normal teenager.”
‘But you don’t look sick.’ My mom said, ‘There is no way, the chances are so low, it would be very rare.’ She was right. The risk is less than one percent, but I fell into that percentage.’
“They get sad and say, ‘but you’re so young!’ You never truly know what people are going through. I had family members tell me, ‘We’re sorry for not visiting, but it was too hard to see you go through this.’ Or that seeing me would make it ‘all too real.’ It is real.”
‘I thought, ‘How is THIS nothing to worry about?’ The walls were closing in. Everything turned black and I couldn’t move my body. ‘It’s common for college students to be under a lot of stress.’
“I decided to request one specific blood test; one that was much harder to receive than it should have been. I had to basically force my doctor to test me. One week later, I was finally given the answer I had been longing so badly for.”
‘Then I received this email. ‘Hi there, My dad has been fighting cancer. Dad is getting weaker by the day. We have to do this as soon as possible.’
“I couldn’t keep it together to talk on the phone. This is a very difficult and dark time, but I know how you feel about love. We are throwing this plan together really fast. We don’t know how long we have.”
