Let me begin this by saying this share isn’t an easy one to tell. I don’t know many women who would feel comfortable in sharing such an experience with the public, but as I want to be someone who helps empower other women, I feel like I need to share. There are too many times when a doctor fails to listen to a woman, and the woman suffers from it. If I can help one woman from suffering needlessly, then I have done my job.
Brief summary of how I ended up here. November of last year, two days before Thanksgiving, I was in a wreck where the other driver ran the red light and t-boned me in my driver side door going at least 40 miles an hour. I was squashed between my door and the middle console of my car. I was rushed to the local hospital with severe pain in my ribs and my hips. I learned there that I had no broken bones but that my spleen and my central mesentery had been injured resulting in pain in my ribs. I also learned that I had a massive growth in my uterus that would likely require me to have a hysterectomy. I remained in the hospital for a couple of days and was released with strict advice to come back if I noticed warning sides with my internal injuries. I saw a doctor later to check on my remaining injuries and ask why my hips were swollen in places where the severe bruising was. I learned that I had at least one large hematoma on the backside of my left hip. I was told these things would heal and that after the beginning of the year I would feel tremendously better. I was also told that Physical Therapy would probably get me back to normal once I was able, I was still very limited in movement as well as physical activity of any kind. Enter in the old fashioned abdominal hysterectomy that I went through in April, I found my limited movement back down to the strictest level of restrictions. For another two months, I wasn’t able to do much. This weighed very heavily on me since before all of this, exercise was the way I helped myself to feel better. I was walking/ jogging 3 miles four times a week and working to increase it because I wanted to do the half marathon the next year. Now it had been 8 months that I had hardly been able to move. Walking half a mile left me in pain. I went to Physical Therapy and the assessment showed that there is something more wrong with me and that therapy wasn’t the right move yet. She was the first person that had really listened to my pain and what I had been through over the last almost year. It was comforting being validated in thinking that something more is wrong with me. She suggested I go to OrthoIndy and recommended I visit Dr. Monesmith. I am now at month 11 of not being able to walk more than a mile without landing in some major pain.
I filled out all my preappointment paperwork. I even marked on there that being in a place that I couldn’t exercise like I had previously, had left me feeling anxious and depressed. This is important.
I entered the office nervous but hopeful. Hoping that I would begin to know why I was in such pain. The staff was nice and I joked around with the nurse even while groining to myself that I had gained another five pounds. Due to taking several x-rays, the doctor knew before stepping in the room that my problem wasn't one with the bones in my hips. At least not the bones there, he entered the room with such a dismissive attitude that even Jason noticed. He had me stand up and asked me where my hips hurt and I proceeded to tell him even with him interrupting me multiple times. The doctor hardly gave me the chance to describe to him the pain that I had been experiencing. He looked at me briefly, disregarding the hematomas as something that would go away even though it's been almost a year. His cavalier attitude almost made it seem as if he thought they were fat pockets vs something that swelled up under the massive bruising and appeared immediately after the wreck. Though he did say he could tell they were swollen and that I was still really inflamed. He asked about Physical Therapy and I told him that I had been to see a Physical Therapist and that the assessment had shown that there seemed to be more of an issue and that I wasn't ready for Physical Therapy yet. He scoffed at that and told me I should probably get a new Physical Therapist. This of course got my edge up even more and I pointedly said that she was the one that recommended your expertise. He then told me what was wrong with me was probably more of muscle injury that would require a Physiatrist instead of himself. He would recommend that I see one of them. In the meantime, he said that I was still quite inflamed from the injuries and that he had a sheet that went over anti-inflammatories. As he showed me this sheet, he made it a point to point to the place in the sheet that spoke of literature that taught about nutrition and obesity. He began to suggest that to me. I stopped him and reminded him that earlier I had said that before all of this I was walking 3 miles a day for exercise, that I had been down quite a lot this last year due to immobility. He literally WALKED away while I was telling him this to go look for something. When he came back, he proceeded to go on a diatribe about the same thing again and point back to the same place on the sheet that spoke about obesity. He spoke about books that were listed there and suggested that I read them. I stopped him midsentence like he had done to me so many times in this very short visit. I told him that wasn’t necessary that I understood all of that. I folded the paper right in front of him and moved to show that I was ready to leave. I don't know what the disconnect was there, that this man that treats injuries to the areas of that body that allow people to move would not realize that after a year of trying to become mobile again and also being severely limited in movement for two months due to a surgery that a person would not help but put on some weight. And that when a person fills out a form that the lack of being able to exercise and move to relieve stress has led them to feeling anxious and depressed at times, that perhaps pointing out over and over that they've gained weight, is not the best practice. When a person goes through what I have, you don’t have to tell her she weighs more than she did before, she knows. She also knows that the pasta and wine that she indulged in perhaps a bit too often wasn’t the best for her but when one of her other comforts is taken from her, food filled that spot. That perhaps if he had taken the time to read through her preappointment documents he would know this. Perhaps as her doctor for that session, whom she paid to see, he had taken the time to listen instead of interrupting and engaging in a conversation with the other male in the room, he would’ve realized that weight was not the issue that lead to this problem that it was more the result of the problem. But that would require having a good bedside manner instead of acting like a jerk because he have received a case that he do not have the remedy for. Perhaps Dr. Eric Monesmith is really good in his field. It is quite possible that he is, due to the fact that the PT, he scoffed at, held him in such high regard. But this was my experience and my experience was that he didn’t have an answer for me. That he knew coming into the room, he didn’t have an answer for me. So his solution to being inadequate was to make me feel like my pain was an overreaction and something I could remedy with the right diet and anti- inflammatories.
This type of diagnoses happens too often with women. If a bad doctor doesn’t have the answer, well it’s your weight and you should try eating better. It’s female hysteria, exercise more. Or here’s pain meds, that should help relieve what you’re feeling. It’s ridiculous and it’s extremely harmful to ignore the patient and assume treatment like you know them. When doctors treat patients like this, sadly they should be called out. If we can help one another with who to avoid and who really helps, it could save one another a great deal of heartache, pain and worse. I hope sharing this helps someone else avoid having this same experience.
