No podcast this week because of my ridiculous hospital stay

I cannot believe I have to say this, but this is not an invitation to give me unsolicited medical advice. Unsolicited advice is inherently criticism and an insult because it presumes, from the outset, that I am too incompetent to get accurate information on my own. STOP.

There won’t be a new podcast episode this week because I just got out of the hospital. I suppose I could not say anything at all, or tell you that I’m sick, but I think it’s important for us to remember that the people behind these screens are human beings, and I find immense value in connecting across our very human stories. So you’re going to get mine.

The last few weeks have been spent spending time with my beloved cousin Stephanie, who developed an aggressive form of metastatic breast cancer. We thought she was either still curable or had significantly more time, but instead she took a rapid downhill slide. My family and I traveled back and forth to her state to see her multiple times. And tragically, last weekend, we made our last trip to attend her funeral.

I will be saying much more about Stephanie, a bright light, a source of much inspiration, and a story in my forthcoming book, in the next few weeks, because I want you all to know that she was here, that she mattered, and that patriarchy took way too much from her, including probably her life.

In the meantime, though, I was a bit relieved to return home Sunday evening to what I hoped would be a bit of normalcy after weeks of death watch, hospice, and grief.

My kids and husband dashed off to school and work Monday morning, and I had high hopes for a productive day. Normalcy, though, found no home in my office.

Things started innocently enough. I interviewed the amazing Gemma Hartley about her forthcoming book, No One Loves an Angry Woman (podcast release date: September 16th). Every Monday, I interview a podcast guest, then edit and schedule the podcast for the week. Before I edited that week’s podcast, I took a break to lift weights.

In the middle of my workout, everything went black. I believe, but can’t be sure, that I briefly fainted. When I became aware again, I was profoundly dizzy—not the syncope kind of dizzy that many of us get when we’re hungry, tired, or our blood pressure is too low. This felt like the room was spinning fast and hard around me, and like I couldn’t walk. I felt incredibly nauseated.

I crawled my way to my chair and drank some water, thinking maybe I overexerted myself somehow. But my heart was beating wildly, way faster than it usually does when exercising, and the dizziness was getting worse. My next thought was that perhaps my blood pressure had gone too high while exercising, so I took my BP: 170/100. This is extraordinarily high for me. My BP is so low that sometimes I pass out for that reason, and healthy normal for me is about 90/50. Of course, I had just been exercising so had no framework for knowing if this was really catastrophically high for me or not, and my time as a medical writer taught me that high blood pressure on its own is never a medical emergency (though high BP with symptoms certainly is).

So I didn’t think I could dismiss this as BP-related. My heart rate was also increasing. I was sweating profusely, too. I called my husband and asked him to come home. A few moments later, when the dizziness intensified further and my left shoulder started hurting, I called 911.

They walked me through a triage process, then ultimately decided to send an ambulance. Thankfully, my husband arrived before the ambulance. We canceled the ambulance and drove to the hospital.

The condensed version of the story after we arrived is that the ER, blessedly, took my symptoms seriously—very unlike the horrific ER visit years ago when my daughter died, during which I had to beg them not to let me die too.

A chest X-ray, neurological exam, bloodwork, observation, and an EKG revealed that the problem was not in my brain or heart. A vestibular exam showed the culprit: BPPV, a highly specific form of vertigo.

I think we’ve all heard the term before. I’m sure I’ve even used it to describe other symptoms of dizziness I felt. As my doctor explained, and research revealed, this vertigo is not the annoying dizziness so many of us experience. It’s an inner ear problem that occurs when the crystals that help you balance in space move into the wrong part of the inner ear.

There are exercises you can do to move them back, and usually the body adjusts within a few days whether or not you move the crystals. My dizziness was vertigo; the rest was my body’s panicked reaction to the vertigo.

So here I am, a day later, dizzy as shit, needing help for basic tasks like cleaning my ducks’ brooder, and trying to challenge myself to do as much as possible, as safely as possible, so that my vestibular system can reacclimate. But a day’s hospitalization means I’m behind on everything, and won’t have a chance to edit a podcast this week. I’ll be back next week.

I could end the story there, but this is me. Daily life is inseparable from political life, because politics influences even these most private and personal of human moments—particularly in the United States, where everything about healthcare has been built around corporate profit motives that treat both doctors and patients as commodities.

So let’s start with the most galling aspect of my visit. As I sat, room spinning in my hospital bed, a woman came in to gather all of my documents. This was an intellectually exhausting process, requiring me to repeatedly answer financial questions, provide contact details, and ensure the hospital could contact me to ensure I pay (or ruin my credit if I don’t). At the end of this discussion, she told me I “needed” to pay $2,600. I knew enough to know that I did not have to pay to be seen, so I told her I’d deal with it later. She was aggressive and demanding, and asked me three times more for payment.

This is not something we should ever do to sick people, and this demand for immediate payment is, I suspect, a great way to get people to walk out and not seek medical care.

Then there were the men.

I’m keenly aware that hospitals are institutions with complex power dynamics. I try to stay on the right side of those dynamics by being as kind as possible to my care providers, and building a connection that encourages them to see me as a human being. I shouldn’t have to do this to get good care, but medicine is increasingly a dehumanizing system. Also, there’s no reason not to build connections with others when you can.

I immediately found myself doing significantly more labor to connect with the small handful of male nurses who cared for me. I would ask them questions about themselves, tell them it was nice to meet them, wish them a good day, all to be met with annoyed silence. It was very much the hospital version of men expecting women to bear the cognitive burden of communication.

I was the one working hard to ensure these men caring for me felt comfortable and important, even as they refused to do any of the same for me.

It was clear that they were not interested in doing more than basic medical care, and that they were certainly not interested in the caregiving the job should automatically entail.

My doctor, a woman, spent more time on nursing tasks—unhooking me from machinery, helping me cover up, helping me get water—than my male nurses did.

While all of my woman care providers promptly introduced themselves and asked for my name, none of the male staff did.

All of the women were warm and friendly. The men seemed inconvenienced and annoyed.

All of the women were concerned with my privacy. The men constantly undermined it by leaving doors and curtains open.

All of the women found ways to try to reassure me. The men did not.

I shouldn’t have to clarify that it’s not all male nurses (or all men in caregiving roles), but I will. I’m speaking instead about a gendered dynamic I observe that very clearly replicates the gendered dynamics we see in every other area of our society.

We’ve heard about male Shipt shoppers refusing to look for things, or not knowing what might be a valid replacement for groceries. We’ve heard that male surgeons are more likely to kill their women patients. So it makes sense that men in nursing would also have a similarly half-assed approach, especially when working with a woman.

Everywhere we go, if we are not a fuckable object currently willing to be fucked, we’re an annoying inconvenience.

Having a body is such an inconvenience, such a chronic embarrassment.

But that’s especially true if that body is female in a patriarchal society.

Here are some of my favorite podcast episodes to tide you over until next week: