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They Called My Mom Fat. It Absolutely Wasn't That. · You're Not Too Much

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Get her to the hospital. And the first doctor who came in
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said, do you know you have a big old murmur? Which is
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literally how he said it. And she was like, what? No. And he's like,
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yeah, you have a heart murmur. And she's like, what? And
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then he said, this sounds like heart failure to me. Like,
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how long have you been treated for heart failure? And she said, I haven't been
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treated for heart failure. This doctor sat with
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my mother and talked through every single complaint she had, emergent
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or otherwise, she talked through every
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concern we had. We talked through every bad experience. We talked through all the
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things that, that I felt were being mismanaged, that I felt weren't being
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managed. She explained stuff to me that nobody has explained to me.
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Boop. Hi everybody, I'm Lauren Howard.
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Welcome to Different Not Broken, which is our
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podcast on exactly that, that there are a lot of people in this world walking
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around feeling broken, and the reality is you're just different. And that's fine.
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Before I get into this, I just wanna say, I work in healthcare. I see
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good healthcare every day. I see exceptional healthcare every
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day. I work with incredible doctors. I work with clinicians who
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blow me away with their intelligence and their skill. I tease them all the time
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because that's like, of course I do, that's just me. But I love
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the doctors I work with. I love the nurse practitioners I work with. I'm fortunate
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that I get to work with them every day, and I see amazing healthcare being
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delivered literally every day.
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And so I know it's out there. I know it's possible. I know
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there are people who benefit from it. But I also know
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that some of the things I've seen lately, and I say this as a
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person who knows healthcare inside and out, who knows what to look
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for, who speaks medical jargon, who can keep up in conversations
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about medical issues. I say this as
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a person who is not new to this. The
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shit care that has come out of people
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who know better recently just has
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me so frustrated. And
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anybody who knows me knows that if I end up in a situation where something's
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completely broken, I want to fix it. My brain immediately goes to, how
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could we have done this better? How could this have been communicated better? What
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product is missing to fix this problem? And the
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totality of the number of things that had to go wrong
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to end up here or to end up with what happened is so
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huge. It is an entire system
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that I can't fix by myself. I don't even know that 1,000 of us working
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hard could fix it. I don't know that a million of us working hard could
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fix it. Our healthcare system is so
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mired in its own nonsense. That I don't know
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how to fix it. I think some of it will be improved
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by people aging out, like just doctors
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retiring who need to retire. But then that
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sounds like a solution, right? We're gonna get these providers who have
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kind of antiquated ways of thinking out of our processes,
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but we don't have doctors to replace them. Our primary care shortage is
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so huge. Our specialist shortage is huge. But people are going into
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medical school specialized now, or into residency specialized now.
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We don't have as much option to put people into primary care
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or general practice or internal medicine to become primary care. It's just
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not the way our system works anymore. And so the primary care deficit that we
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already have is huge. And then the one that follows as we go through the
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retirements of the next 10 years, worse. It sounds
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great that people are gonna retire. We're settling for insufficient care,
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but is insufficient care better than no care? I don't have an answer for that,
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but it is like a, a huge question that keeps coming up.
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Anyway, anybody who has been around me in any
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way in the last several months knows that my mom
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has been sick and there's been a number of hospitalizations and she's back in the
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hospital again, which sucks, but I don't like when she's in the
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hospital. But I am less anxious when
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she's in the hospital because it means there's somebody with her. It means that she's
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not home alone. I don't have to worry about having somebody with her all the
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time. And also it means she's getting medical care that she needs. They don't keep
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you in the hospital academically. If you're in the hospital, you need to be in
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the hospital. So she's there, but I'm really angry about the
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reason that she's there. I'm glad she's there now and I'm glad they're addressing it
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now, but her experience is so
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typical, so common of what
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we have seen so many times with
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women in healthcare, just women getting healthcare. And
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it truly took a bunch of women to
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straighten it out or to at least get her on the right path. I am
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not the most observant person. Minor changes in
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people's like looks, I don't usually notice.
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I certainly don't usually call them out, but 6 months ago,
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I noticed that my mom just didn't look right. She looked different. She was
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carrying weight in places where she had never carried weight before. It looked like she
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had gained a bunch of weight. I wasn't sure why. It didn't make any sense
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to me because that has not been a problem in recent years.
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And it was enough that I was concerned. I wasn't concerned that she had gained
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weight. People gain weight. I was concerned that she had gained weight in places where
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she had never gained weight before. And she looked different.
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And so I started calling all of her doctors, and I think
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I've talked about this before. It's been a long process of like fighting to get
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tests done, asking a bunch of questions, literally
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calling her doctors anytime they would get on the phone with me and saying,
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there's a problem here. Can someone intervene? What are we missing? What are we doing?
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Taking her to new doctors. She's probably seen 10 or 12 doctors this year
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alone. And trying to figure out why, getting tests run. I had to call
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in favors to get tests run because, like,
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one of her doctors literally told me that what the diagnosis that
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I thought could be a problem, and I wasn't saying she had it, I was
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just saying, can we test for this? One of the diagnoses that I
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thought she had was really hard to diagnose, so running the labs doesn't do much.
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And I was like, it's hard to diagnose, so you just don't, you just don't
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run the labs? That doesn't, don't you want the labs anyway? Yeah.
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What? That doesn't make sense. And so it's been stuff like that over and
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over. And she's been complaining of weight gain. She's been complaining of
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fatigue. She tells me she just falls asleep all the time, which is, I, I
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mean, like, I can count on one hand the number of times that I remember
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my mom napping growing up. It was never a thing that happened. And she would
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just fall asleep. She was sleeping later. She had very little exercise
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tolerance. She had very little motivation to do things, and she had
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zero appetite, wasn't eating at all, and still gaining weight.
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And I sat with her with multiple doctor's appointments
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where she kept telling them, and I would pipe in and tell them, because sometimes
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she, like, in front of her doctor, she'll downplay things. I don't know why,
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because that's not usually her vibe. Her vibe is usually
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upplay things, so all the eyeballs go on me. But sometimes with her
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doctor, she just doesn't tell them enough about what's going on. And so even I
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would say like, no, I'm watching, this is happening. And I
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can't tell you how many times people told her to just lose weight.
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And I kept saying, okay, but she's not eating. She's
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eating so little and she has GI issues
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and you're telling her to just lose weight, but she's not eating. Well, she needs
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to exercise more. Okay, but she's short of breath. She has
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really low exercise tolerance. She can't even walk like she used to.
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Well, she's getting older. Okay, but this is not a 5-year decline. This is a
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6-month decline. What is going on here? She needs to lose weight.
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That was literally the outcome almost every time we had this conversation. I went to
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my trip over the weekend or last week, had a great time, came back,
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brought my mom lunch a day after I got back and could tell
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like her, she sounded like a freight train when she was breathing. And I said,
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are you having trouble breathing? And she said, yeah, I talked to my doctor
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on Friday. You know, you're bringing me on Monday. Yeah. But I feel like I
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can't breathe. And I said, why are you sitting at home alone when you can't
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breathe? Like, why didn't we go to the hospital? She's like, well, I don't wanna
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go to the hospital. And I was like, well, that's a stupid reason. So I
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ordered a pulse ox machine that, listen, I'll be honest, Walmart
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delivery is clutch. I don't love Walmart, but I just go on my phone
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and tap 2 buttons and literally 19 minutes later I had a
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pulse ox in my hand and I put it on her finger. Wow. Her
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saturation was at 80. Anything below 90 is like a red flag.
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Big problem. Go to the hospital. I called her doctor and he
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said all the right things. He said, well, yeah, I talked to her about this
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on Friday. It sounded like she was having trouble breathing. She said she
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didn't have a pulse ox. And I'm thinking, you didn't tell her to
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go get one? You didn't tell her to just, hey, do you have any
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delivery apps that can deliver a pulse ox to you?
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In a couple minutes, since that's a thing we do in
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2026. Did you just let her sit here without
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checking her oxygen level? Okay, cool. You have a
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patient who called you and told you that she's short of breath and you said,
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try some medicine and I'll see you on Monday without actually
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checking whether she was hypoxic. Okay, whatever. I
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said, yeah, all right, I'm taking her to the emergency room. I took her over
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to the emergency room. She fought me a little bit, but for the most part,
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she just like has to have the outburst. And then once the outburst is done,
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she just does what she's told. She got in the car. I took her, get
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her to the hospital, and the first doctor who came in
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said, do you know you have a big old murmur? Which is
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literally how he said it. And she was like, what? No. And he is like,
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yeah, you have a heart murmur. And she's like, what? And
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then he said, this sounds like heart failure to me. Like,
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how long have you been treated for heart failure? And she said, I haven't been
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treated for heart failure. And he was like, what? Yeah. It's in your chart.
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She's like, I don't have heart failure. And he goes, I don't know, this kind
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of sounds like heart failure. And she's like, nobody's ever diagnosed me with heart
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failure. So he runs some tests, he leaves. We just happened to get there
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right as shift change was happening. So this new doctor comes in,
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and if I could sum her up in 2 words,
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it would be fucking delight. I want her
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to come be my friend. I want her to come hang out with me.
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I want her to tell me all of the inside tea about all of the
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hospital systems in our area, cuz I know she knows it. She kind of
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told me she does. She needs to be my friend.
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Emergency room doctors, their jobs are to treat 'em and street 'em. Like, you are
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not supposed to be doing a complete medical history. You are not supposed to be
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making referrals to 7,000 different providers unless it's the emergent issue
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or the urgent issue. You should be working
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with the immediate problem in front of you and either sending them home or admitting
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them to a hospital. That's their job. This doctor sat with my
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mother and talked through every single complaint she had,
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emergent or otherwise. She talked through every
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concern we had. We talked through every bad experience. We talked through all the
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things that, that I felt were being mismanaged, that I felt weren't being
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managed. She explained stuff to me that nobody has explained to me.
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My mom has no appetite. She hasn't eaten. She really doesn't eat at
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all for days and days on end and then is gaining weight. And
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she said, this sounds like heart failure. And also you have what's called a
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pleural effusion, which is fluid around the lungs. And if that's
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pressing on your stomach, it's making you feel full,
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and that's why you can't eat. And she went, oh,
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why are you the first person to explain this to me? She was like, I
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don't know. And I asked her, I said, is the pleural effusion new? She said,
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no, it was on the imaging before. I said, so they just didn't
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do anything about it? And she was like, there's, there's sometimes the right thing to
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do is to watch it, but then sometimes the right thing to do is to
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try to get the fluid off. And we definitely need to get the fluid off.
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She said, and sometimes the right thing to do is to drain it, but I
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don't know that they're gonna drain it. So I said to her, so you're
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saying she has heart failure? And she said, yeah, I mean, she's had
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6 studies that confirm heart failure, and
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she was diagnosed with it 6 months ago. And I was like,
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wait, she has never been referred to a cardiologist? I'm here for
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all of this. She's never been referred to a cardiologist. She certainly is not
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on any medication for it because she already takes 18 medications.
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So somebody diagnosed her with heart failure and then nobody treated it? And
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she was trying to be politically savvy and she was like, well, I can't really
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speak to that, but it does look like she was diagnosed with heart failure and
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it does look like it needs to be treated. And I looked at her in
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the face and I said, I just want to be clear about this. She has
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been complaining of weight gain, severe
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fatigue, physical symptoms, poor
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appetite, inability to eat, low exercise
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tolerance. And you're telling me instead of diagnosing or treating
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the heart failure that had already been diagnosed, they just called her
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fat? And she didn't really have much to say to that. And not because— I
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could tell she wanted to, but she was like, we know what to do now.
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She's like, we— I'm confident we know what to do now. And I was like,
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I'm confident too, because heart failure is super treatable. But she's been saying
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this for 6 months, and her— even her doctors who know her
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exceptionally well And who have been her doctors for decades
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just told her to lose weight. And the reality is that her heart is literally
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failing. And I have not been quiet about this. I have been a squeaky wheel
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about this nonstop since it became apparent to me. Women could
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walk into a doctor's office with their arm
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literally falling off, and the doctor would say, have
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you tried diet and exercise? It's really bad.
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And I say that as somebody, one, who knows what to look for, two,
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who has been fighting back against that for several months now just on behalf of
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my mom, not even globally fighting against it, which I also do,
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but three, like, knows how to find more resources. How
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many people out there are going to their doctor— and I know that it's a
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lot— how many people out there are going to their doctor with legitimate complaints and
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just being told that if you diet and exercise, everything will be fine? You're just
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anxious. You're just being neurotic. She has
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actual heart failure. She could have died.
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She already couldn't breathe. She was already not getting oxygen
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because of this thing that everybody Spider-Man memed their way out of
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treating. They all thought that somebody else was doing it.
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Nobody was doing it. We are failing people in our
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healthcare system in ways that I sit upright in the
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middle of the night trying to figure out how to fix, and I just don't
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freaking know how. This person, she has 10 doctors.
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She has easily seen 10 doctors this year, and
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everybody passed the buck to somebody else, and nobody referred her to a cardiologist.
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How does that happen? And if it's happening to her, how many other
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people is it happening to? Because I know it's happening to a lot. We have
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to do better. She could have died. She could have died, and it would have
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been someone's fault. It would not have been her body's fault. It would have been
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someone's fault. It's just not acceptable. I promise
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that women are more than just fat. It's not surprising, but there was a
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moment about it that was, like, really devastating, because yesterday is when it
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all came together for me. And of course, shit's coming together now
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that there are 2 women doctors who are running the show. There's good data that
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shows that women doctors have better outcomes and have lower mortality
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rates than male doctors by, like, a stretch of a lot. It's not a small
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margin. So 2 women doctors are finally kicking
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asses and taking names and getting things straightened out. But she
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was giving me some of the updates from some of the doctors that she talked
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to and what they said and what they were doing. And yes, it definitely is
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heart failure. And I finally text her later in the day because this felt like
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somebody punched me in the stomach. And I said, do you understand that what they're
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saying is you've had heart failure for
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6 months? Or longer, but we just thought you were fat?
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That's basically what they're saying. That's what is happening. I'm not usually the
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reactive one. I'm usually the one that's like, okay, let's get all the information and
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we'll make an assessment. And I was like, I'm gonna fight somebody.
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And my mom, who usually is the reactive one, like she is literally like a
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ticking time bomb all the time, was like, well, I'm just glad
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that they're figuring it out now. And I was like, do you have heart
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failure and dementia? Like, where— what just happened? She doesn't have dementia,
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but she was like, I'm just glad they're figuring it out. And I was like,
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who is this Zen person who has replaced my
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borderline violent mother? I don't understand what's happening. I'm
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so angry about it. But that, that was actually what— and I said to her,
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I was like, I'm actually really angry about this. And she was like, don't be
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mad, it's a waste of your energy to be mad. I'm like, that, that has
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never been your philosophy before. You have never met a mad that you did not
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have time for. So I don't know what's happening here. But I said back
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to her, I was like, you just don't want me to go hit your primary
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care with my car. And she goes, I also do not want you to do
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that. You don't want me to fight with your internist. She's like, I do
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not want you to fight with my internist. That is correct. Yeah. Welcome
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to the American healthcare system. And now
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we'll go to Alison, who has
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this week's Small Talk. All right. We've got a Small Talk from
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Brianna. And Brianna asks, what does joy
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feel like for you with ADHD? Because for
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me, it's massive and loud and it takes up the whole room and people
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have always told me I'm too much or so extra. Lately,
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I've been wondering if the joy was never the problem, if
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maybe the problem was just people who couldn't hold it. What do you
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think? First, I wanna say I've never actually been diagnosed with ADHD. I've never
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been treated for it. I think. My brain probably has
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read a lot of those tendencies, but I think
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regardless what construct is around where you think your joy comes
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from, like, it doesn't matter where it comes from, it's your joy. People who think
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your joy is too much don't deserve your joy. We live in a world that
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has way too little joy, way too little.
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If you turn on the news, it is constant and unrelenting
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doom and gloom about people who just give zero shits about other
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people. About people who have no
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soul, who are bleeding us
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dry of everything good about our society,
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who operate with no humanity. And joy is humanity
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at its most basic. And so if you have joy to
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share, share it. And if those people don't like it, let them
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go be miserable curmudgeons somewhere else. And let's find somebody
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who loves your joy as much as you do. You are not too much. They're
18:56
not enough. You can't have too much joy unless
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you're like celebrating something awful. Don't
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celebrate something awful. If little things in life bring you intense
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amounts of joy, I am so jealous. I would love to
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have that problem, and you should not darken that
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light for anybody. Find new people. Don't
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tamp down your joy. You have been born with a gift and a way
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of approaching the world that is
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special and magical and joyful. Those people can get bent.
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That's usually my advice. At the end of the day, that's usually my advice. Get
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bent. Those people can get bent. Maybe instead of Small Talk, we
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should call this, like, The Ways That L2 Tells People to Get Bent.
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But those people can get bent. Please go get bent. Be as
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joyful as you have the capacity for and share it widely because
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other people deserve your Enjoy and get bent. Thanks for being here,
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guys. Have a good day. Love you mean it.
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I don't know why that's so satisfying to say, but it really is.