One of the training courses I provide is about microaggressions.  Microaggressions are those small, everyday jabs at a person based around stereotypes and discriminatory social norms.  “What are you?” “That makes you look skinny.” “Stop being such a drama queen.”  “But like, how do you brush your hair?” Talking about a deaf person in front of them, like they don’t know you’re talking to them.  Raising your voice with someone who has a differing ability that isn’t hearing loss. 

In the case of Allie - assuming a woman is overreacting about what is happening in her body.

I’m preparing to give this particular training at a medical school next week.  Luckily my partner on the ground is someone I greatly admire, and has already started putting in a lot of the legwork.  But that also reminds me of all the undue burden placed upon a Latina, during Covid, which is disproportionately affecting the Latinx and Black communities, with few doctors who speak Spanish...also trying to address systemic discrimination within the hospital.  (Because yes, microaggressions are discrimination.)  She’s creating the entire training plan for the year for her department-guest lectures, book club, small group discussion.  She’s assigned books about medical racism.

I think about the two years it took for Allie to get a diagnosis.  And I also think about the two years it has been since I went to the doctor.  

My last doctor in Seattle was a black woman and the absolute best.  I could talk to her about not being able to wrap my hair because my shoulder hurt.  She never made comments about my weight - just did the tests and made comments about me being healthy.  But I only found her in the beginning of 2018, and I was back in Michigan by the end of the year.

In early 2019 I was due for my now annual breast exam  (When your sister is diagnosed, your annual starts at the same time, so 29 for me.)  The doctor was rude.  She fat-shamed me from the jump, telling me I needed a full physical.  I told her I’d just had one, that I’d signed a release for them to get my medical records, and that all my levels were healthy. “Even your blood sugar?!  Even your cholesterol?!”  Fat people are used to this.  Skinny does not equal healthy.  But damned if we don’t know our own bodies.

She then began telling me how mammograms are useless, and treated me like an idiot for having had them done.  She referred me to the department that would do the scans.  They wanted to enroll me in a study, and sent me a 25-page packet of information.  They wanted Allie to sign a release to give her medical information.  About that same time I had found out my aunt has breast cancer.  I consider what it meant to send her the form.  Allie and I had already had this conversation; my Seattle doctor was on it and had asked for all of Allie’s information, which Allie shared with me.  But my aunt was struggling with her diagnosis, and I couldn’t imagine calling her up out of the blue saying, “Hey, I need to complete 25 pages of an invasive questionnaire just to get my annual check, and I need you to give me all this information too.”

So I just....didn’t do it.  Every time I think about going to the doctor, I feel exhausted.  And in Michigan, you have to “declare” your PCP for your insurance, so it’s an extra step to change.  I have zero intention of going back to the medical care facility I was at (because my experience with the nurse was a whole other terrible mess) so it’s not like I can just show up there and try to get a different doctor.  I’ve heavily relied on telehealth since then, for the acute stuff.  How can I feel safe and confident about my medical care when I can’t trust my doctors?

Yes, not going to the doctor is scary.  But imagine receiving total hostility just for trying to do what they say you’re supposed to do. It isn’t just this doctor.  It’s several terrible interactions after the course of years.  A horrible pap smear with an inept doctor.  An uncomfortable comment about my outfit from a man performing a routine surgery.  A female doctor I’d seen for a couple years making a comment about how Planned Parenthood doctors can’t be trusted.  An APRN never clarified they already knew I didn’t have cancer while I waited 6 weeks for a screening.  No one followed up after the actual screening.  

The only folks who really lose out on this discriminatory system are patients like me, and my friend at the hospital.  Because suddenly, after years of avoiding a place that has only provided bad experiences, BIPOC patients with COVID are showing up in the ER with all the co-occuring conditions that make their fight for recovery that much harder.  Doctors will say it’s our fault.  And so the cycle continues.

The activist in me recognizes the shutdown; you can't fight every battle all at once. But I suppose my charge to myself and others is to take small steps. As much as I don't want to, I'm pledging to find a new doctor and have an annual physical and breast exam by the end of 2020. 

What are you committing to? Drop it in the comments - I feel like I need some community support for this next step.

Oh, and P.S.- all this BS is connected to politics, so VOTE.

Song: “U Don’t Know” By Alison Wonderland