Breaking Me Down
You know when you watch TV and see something that happens to a character and you think to yourself, âWOW! I donât know what I would do if that was me.â.Â
Well, Iâve been living that nightmare now for a year and a half now.
Back in 2020 my sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. But during her pregnancy her OB wouldnât listen to her when she said she couldnât carry the baby to full term. My sister has had 2 children prior and she, like every woman, knows her body and knows what her body can and cannot handle. Her OB refused to listen to her and made her carry her baby to almost full term. The reason my sister was so adamant about having the baby earlier was because her previous two children had put a huge strain on her body and heart. She knew that if she carried the baby to full term her body might not be able to handle it. Against my sisters wishes the OB continued to push her to carry the baby further into term which eventually hospitalized my sister. On the day my sister was scheduled to go into the hospital to deliver she asked not to be put under because my sister knew. She just KNEW it wouldnât end well. But again, against her wishes she was put under and ended up coding on the table. They were able to revive and save her and the baby but not without complications. Her coding weakened her heart severely, she was placed in a medically induced coma and her body temp was dropped to preserve her organs. My family is full of nurses and we knew something wasnât right when they told us what happened. Our feelings were confirmed when the anesthesiologist kept coming into her room to check on her. When does THAT ever happen? Iâll answer for you: It doesnât. An anesthesiologist NEVER comes to check on a patient. The surgeon does. We knew they had done something wrong. My sisters body temp was eventually brought back to normal and she was awoken from her coma and she began to get stronger and eventually recovered enough to come home. Little did we know that that was not the end of our troubles.Â
Fast forward to today and now my sister is sitting in Keck USC Medical Hospital in California waiting for a heart transplant. All because medical professionals who took an oath to help whoever, whenever, however they could refused to listen to their patient.Â
This is the systematic racism that black women face on a daily basis. I never thought in a million trillion years that I would personally experience something like this. I literally have only ever seen this type of stuff happen on Greys Anatomy or Trauma in the ER. But today Iâm visiting my sister daily who sits in a hospital hooked up to a machine that pumps blood for her heart because her heart is not strong enough on its own. Iâm watching my sister consider herself a burden because she feels like sheâs changing her whole families life.Â
All because doctors refused to listen to their patient.Â
This is why I will continue to fight for black men and women because if we donât fight for ourselves NO ONE ELSE WILL.Â
