Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Happy Hour #126: A Toast To Your Health
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stephone
- 0:07Speaker 1: never told you a production of iHeartRadio and welcome to
- 0:20Speaker 1: another happy hour. Kind of an unhappy hour, but you
- 0:24Speaker 1: know it's on the line. It's on the line. We'll
- 0:26Speaker 1: say that as always with these, if you choose to drink,
- 0:30Speaker 1: please do so responsibly. Or whatever you're doing, do you
- 0:33Speaker 1: do so responsibly. Samantha, watch how you're sitting on.
- 0:38Speaker 2: Oh, I am still in My teeth are the worst,
- 0:41Speaker 2: and having teeth procedures are the worst. So water, just
- 0:44Speaker 2: straight water, H two, your favorite?
- 0:47Speaker 1: It is my favorite, nice chilled water. Oh my gosh,
- 0:50Speaker 1: I love it.
- 0:51Speaker 2: I'm missing my bubbles right now a lot, though. I
- 0:53Speaker 2: will say that.
- 0:54Speaker 1: That's yeah, I understand, and I feel I feel for you, Samantha,
- 1:01Speaker 1: I am sipping on wow. Okay, so first let's do
- 1:07Speaker 1: a content warning. This one is kind of an unhappy hour.
- 1:10Speaker 1: We're sort of following up on our episode we did
- 1:13Speaker 1: about disability check in because I just realized a lot
- 1:16Speaker 1: of you have written in about that recently and I
- 1:20Speaker 1: wanted to talk about that. And I don't know if
- 1:23Speaker 1: I'm like the only person who does this, but it
- 1:25Speaker 1: is the anniversary of my dad's death, and every time
- 1:29Speaker 1: that comes around, I drink vodka. Because that's the last
- 1:33Speaker 1: thing we talked about, even though he wasn't a big drinker,
- 1:36Speaker 1: that he was talking about his experience at a local
- 1:39Speaker 1: restaurant that is still there after the Peachtree road Race,
- 1:44Speaker 1: which is an Atlanta tradition, and it was just a
- 1:48Speaker 1: funny story. You shared it with me, and that's the
- 1:49Speaker 1: last thing we talked about. But the funny part about
- 1:52Speaker 1: this is I forgot that I had bubbled up some
- 1:58Speaker 1: of the flavored water that we got and not regular water,
- 2:02Speaker 1: so it was a taste. I wasn't anticipating. It's not bad,
- 2:05Speaker 1: but I was kind of like, what is this deliver? Yeah, yeah, yep,
- 2:11Speaker 1: but it's nice. It's refreshing. It's very hot here, so
- 2:14Speaker 1: it's nice. So yes, I just wanted to do I
- 2:18Speaker 1: think we should come back into a whole episode on this.
- 2:21Speaker 1: We've talked about it in previous episodes, for sure, but
- 2:24Speaker 1: it's just we have heard from a lot of you
- 2:26Speaker 1: about it lately, and that's sort of this whole thing
- 2:29Speaker 1: about women, particularly not being believed in medical settings, whether
- 2:36Speaker 1: that is like actually at a hospital or with a
- 2:39Speaker 1: doctor or just with other people who aren't that, because
- 2:45Speaker 1: we've gotten some messages about things like minopause or PMS
- 2:53Speaker 1: where some of you have reported very frustratingly that you're
- 2:57Speaker 1: basically told there's live with it, like that's too bad,
- 3:02Speaker 1: and you telling the doctor or whoever you know, this
- 3:08Speaker 1: is impacting my life, like I can't function and you're
- 3:11Speaker 1: telling me there's nothing else you can do and just
- 3:13Speaker 1: live with it, and that going on for years, like
- 3:16Speaker 1: having to just deal with that for years sometimes like
- 3:19Speaker 1: over ten years, and just having to fight this fight
- 3:23Speaker 1: and being dismissed. And I think that it is telling
- 3:29Speaker 1: that we've had multiple emails specifically about these issues that
- 3:34Speaker 1: impact more women are people who can get pregnant around
- 3:37Speaker 1: like menopause and PMS, and that being a thing where
- 3:40Speaker 1: they're like, no, that's too bad, so sad, and you
- 3:46Speaker 1: and I have had that before. We've talked about before.
- 3:49Speaker 1: When I first got my period, it was so painful
- 3:54Speaker 1: that they sent me to the guyancologists. The first time
- 3:57Speaker 1: I went to the gynecologist, it was fifteen, and I
- 4:01Speaker 1: got my period when I was nine, so that was late,
- 4:03Speaker 1: like after it started. But the pain was so bad
- 4:07Speaker 1: and they basically were like, you're probably pregnant. I was like, no,
- 4:10Speaker 1: I'm not, and then they're like m hm, and that
- 4:12Speaker 1: was sort of the extent of it. They gave me
- 4:13Speaker 1: birth control and sent me on my way, and then
- 4:16Speaker 1: the birth control didn't work, and that was the end
- 4:19Speaker 1: of that, and it just being in this thing. They're like, Okay,
- 4:22Speaker 1: once a month ish, that's what you're gonna do, and
- 4:26Speaker 1: you don't feel comfortable taking it off. I actually specifically
- 4:29Speaker 1: remember the first time I ever saw a woman that
- 4:33Speaker 1: I worked with send an email that said, I'm having
- 4:35Speaker 1: a horrible PMS pain. I can't come in, And I
- 4:38Speaker 1: was so like, you can do that. I didn't think
- 4:45Speaker 1: that was allowed. So I've been thinking about that and
- 4:50Speaker 1: how much we just deal with. But also recently it
- 4:55Speaker 1: seems that there are We've gotten a lot of book
- 4:57Speaker 1: recommendations from you all, especially around endometriosis, and so I
- 5:04Speaker 1: was thinking about that too, and I put them on
- 5:06Speaker 1: our list. I want to read them. But a lot
- 5:09Speaker 1: of their stories are like about endometriosis, but also more
- 5:12Speaker 1: largely about this whole thing about women not being believed
- 5:15Speaker 1: about it being expected you just have to deal with it,
- 5:17Speaker 1: not doing like any research about it. And how painful,
- 5:22Speaker 1: completely painful it is. And then you like go go
- 5:24Speaker 1: in and just be told, well, there's nothing we can
- 5:30Speaker 1: do for you, and how demoralizing that is. And again
- 5:35Speaker 1: some of you said you had personally dealt with or
- 5:39Speaker 1: had seen someone in your life deal with years of that,
- 5:43Speaker 1: years of that before you finally got a diagnosis. And
- 5:46Speaker 1: then just along with what we were talking about in
- 5:50Speaker 1: that disability check in episode, and you and I were
- 5:53Speaker 1: kind of just discussing I've had a lot of experiences
- 5:57Speaker 1: like this too. I've had a lot of going in
- 6:02Speaker 1: and just not being believed or being insulted right to
- 6:08Speaker 1: my face about how I needed, like to lose weight,
- 6:12Speaker 1: it wasn't in shape, stuff like that. Oh boy, I
- 6:15Speaker 1: felt like you're being emotional right now, And I was like,
- 6:19Speaker 1: pretty young kid. Where that left a pretty big impression
- 6:22Speaker 1: on me that, Okay, I can't communicate this without it
- 6:27Speaker 1: being dismissed or judged in that way. And that does
- 6:31Speaker 1: impact whether or not you go in at all, because
- 6:34Speaker 1: we've been discussing our medical issues and I do feel
- 6:39Speaker 1: like if I go in, I have to have like
- 6:40Speaker 1: a proof that something is really wrong right or else
- 6:44Speaker 1: I just don't want to go, right.
- 6:56Speaker 2: I mean, I grew up in a home where you
- 6:59Speaker 2: don't go to the doc unless something is bleeding, broken
- 7:02Speaker 2: or you're vomiting mm hmm. And it's kind of that
- 7:06Speaker 2: kind of mentality for me as well as like you.
- 7:09Speaker 2: And it seemed like a thing of pride too, which
- 7:10Speaker 2: is a whole level yeah, like ableism that doesn't make
- 7:14Speaker 2: sense anyway. It absolutely did not help you because you
- 7:19Speaker 2: can't tell your help. Like my mom almost died because
- 7:23Speaker 2: that kind of attitude. She did go, she wasn't one
- 7:25Speaker 2: of the ones that we've talked about it before. She
- 7:26Speaker 2: did finally go because she's like, this is too much,
- 7:28Speaker 2: and the first two doctors were like, no, it's fine,
- 7:30Speaker 2: it's just stress. And then one doctor was like, oh wait,
- 7:33Speaker 2: you're having jow pain and you have this we need
- 7:36Speaker 2: to take your heart and she's like what, And then
- 7:38Speaker 2: it turned out she had a ninety seven percent blockage
- 7:40Speaker 2: of her main artery, literally called the doctors called the
- 7:43Speaker 2: widow maker because most people die from that type of
- 7:47Speaker 2: type of blockage. But like her initial response was I'm
- 7:50Speaker 2: not going to doctor. I'm fine, I'm stressed too, Okay,
- 7:52Speaker 2: there is something wrong, and that fact that it took
- 7:55Speaker 2: her that long to tell somebody, and then people still
- 7:57Speaker 2: didn't believe her, Like no, no, you need to understand
- 8:00Speaker 2: most women are most likely not going to go unless
- 8:03Speaker 2: absolutely something is bothering them, and whether it's just chronic
- 8:07Speaker 2: pain that needs to be managed that unfortunately people don't
- 8:10Speaker 2: take the time to study and so therefore we don't
- 8:13Speaker 2: have a lot of at least maintenance stuff or healthy
- 8:17Speaker 2: alternatives because there's not enough for research most likely. But
- 8:20Speaker 2: like that kind of level of the fact that most people,
- 8:24Speaker 2: and I will say, in our culture and our level
- 8:26Speaker 2: of like na, na, na, we're okay, We're okay, We're okay,
- 8:29Speaker 2: that whole like if it's you know, if it's bleeding,
- 8:32Speaker 2: cut it off, you're going type of thing, like bands
- 8:35Speaker 2: yourself up and get going. That attitude really is prevalent
- 8:38Speaker 2: because a part of our like boomer parents telling us
- 8:43Speaker 2: this and we're like, yeah, absolutely, that's exactly what it is.
- 8:45Speaker 2: We have to do this, and or like my mother
- 8:48Speaker 2: who wasn't believed until something was absolutely wrong and like
- 8:51Speaker 2: almost too late, and we're like, hey, well, why don't
- 8:54Speaker 2: you listen, And what's the use of us going in
- 8:57Speaker 2: if this is the treatment that we get like we
- 8:59Speaker 2: talked about my dental experience recently really has pushed me away.
- 9:02Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't want to go back because of that.
- 9:06Speaker 2: Like literally her asking me, do you just not care
- 9:09Speaker 2: for your teeth instead of being like, yeah, oh no,
- 9:13Speaker 2: I have enameled dispicialcy because as a child I was malnourished.
- 9:17Speaker 2: I don't thank you to explain, and she kind of
- 9:23Speaker 2: backtracked a little bit. She's like, oh, okay and just
- 9:27Speaker 2: moves on. I'm like, did you not just hear yourself?
- 9:30Speaker 1: Okay? Bool?
- 9:31Speaker 2: I really this is exciting. This is my favorite space.
- 9:35Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And I just have so many memories where
- 9:40Speaker 1: that kind of similar you come in and then are
- 9:44Speaker 1: kind of shamed for coming in or even feel kind
- 9:48Speaker 1: of I had one experience. I still don't know what
- 9:50Speaker 1: to make of this, honestly, but I couldn't move because
- 9:54Speaker 1: of anesthetics. And the guy that was like working on
- 9:57Speaker 1: me was like he said something very strange while I
- 10:03Speaker 1: couldn't move, that was like, you know, you need to
- 10:07Speaker 1: some day some men might try to take advantage of
- 10:10Speaker 1: you and you need to be really vigilant about it.
- 10:14Speaker 1: And it was just so I couldn't move. The moment
- 10:20Speaker 1: like this, I don't know why you're telling to me
- 10:23Speaker 1: this right now, but you are freaking me out.
- 10:27Speaker 2: What have you done? Like what the hell? Man?
- 10:33Speaker 1: It was very scary, and so that's like another you
- 10:36Speaker 1: won't go in. And I had another time where I
- 10:39Speaker 1: ended up feeling very vindicated, which is not necessarily a
- 10:41Speaker 1: healthy thing. But I went in and I was in
- 10:43Speaker 1: such pain and he was like pressing his elbow down
- 10:47Speaker 1: on my stomach to like sill for things. And I
- 10:50Speaker 1: was crying and he was like, just it's fine, like
- 10:54Speaker 1: it's fine, as fine as fine, And it turned out
- 10:55Speaker 1: I had all these cysts like I did have like
- 10:59Speaker 1: a lot.
- 10:59Speaker 2: Of elbow, Like you can't tell anything with an elbow,
- 11:04Speaker 2: that's like taking his foot what.
- 11:06Speaker 1: I don't know, Samantha, But my dad was there, and
- 11:11Speaker 1: it was I felt so embarrassed because this doctor basically
- 11:14Speaker 1: said in front of my dad, like suck it up.
- 11:19Speaker 1: It was just not good. And I've that there's so
- 11:22Speaker 1: many experiences like that that I've heard from all of
- 11:26Speaker 1: you lately, Like so it's it's frustrating, It's it's one
- 11:31Speaker 1: of those things that we talked about so much where
- 11:35Speaker 1: I'm glad, you know, we're talking about it, and we
- 11:38Speaker 1: were finding out we're not the only ones and we're
- 11:40Speaker 1: connecting over that. But it shouldn't be this way. It
- 11:43Speaker 1: shouldn't be that we're getting so many emails where recently
- 11:49Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh wow, yeah.
- 11:53Speaker 2: You would think it would get better. But then we
- 11:56Speaker 2: talked about the fact that the new open fear is
- 11:58Speaker 2: being filmed or and off during like if we were
- 12:02Speaker 2: under or something, seeing actual professionals shaming patients by doing
- 12:09Speaker 2: TikTok videos about I'm like, why even if you've got permission,
- 12:13Speaker 2: why are you filming people? Like I could understand if
- 12:16Speaker 2: you're doing for research purposes with other doctors and it
- 12:21Speaker 2: is a scientific notion of something and you've gotten written
- 12:25Speaker 2: consent like permission, but to shame people during surgery or
- 12:31Speaker 2: make fun of them, or like they have been caught
- 12:35Speaker 2: because the things they do or say and not realizing
- 12:38Speaker 2: that they're being recorded that dude, You're like, like, there's
- 12:43Speaker 2: one thing to play like this, please just be professional?
- 12:46Speaker 2: Can we can?
- 12:48Speaker 3: You?
- 12:48Speaker 2: Can you keep a professional please?
- 12:50Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 12:50Speaker 1: And I no joke. Samantha did not know we were
- 12:53Speaker 1: talking about this today. I just kind of brought it
- 12:56Speaker 1: out and we were talking about this organically before we
- 13:00Speaker 1: even started. And I remember the very first time I
- 13:03Speaker 1: saw these pictures of doctors like taking pictures with people
- 13:08Speaker 1: who were under and making fun of them and all
- 13:10Speaker 1: this stuff, and I was like, this is a new
- 13:12Speaker 1: concern I didn't know I needed to have. But now
- 13:14Speaker 1: I'm even less incentizzed to go in.
- 13:18Speaker 2: Like this makes me want to go in less and
- 13:20Speaker 2: especially like there are things that I'm like, I wish
- 13:23Speaker 2: I never knew, like the doctors talking about these are
- 13:26Speaker 2: the things that you the doctors won't tell you. I'm like,
- 13:28Speaker 2: please don't tell me. That makes me not want to
- 13:30Speaker 2: go in. I want to be safe. But the same time,
- 13:32Speaker 2: now I'm like shame, Like before I walk in, I'm like, nah, no,
- 13:37Speaker 2: I know that you think bad of all of us,
- 13:39Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what.
- 13:40Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 13:51Speaker 1: And another thing I've I hate and I've had to
- 13:55Speaker 1: struggle with And I talked to my therapists about it
- 13:57Speaker 1: because they have gain weight during the pandemic and I
- 13:59Speaker 1: know that weigh you right at the beginning, like I
- 14:03Speaker 1: that has held me back too, And my therapist told
- 14:06Speaker 1: me there are doctors who you can say like I have.
- 14:11Speaker 1: I've struggled with this before, please do not do this,
- 14:14Speaker 1: and they will.
- 14:16Speaker 2: Actually like I went to somebody recently where they were like,
- 14:20Speaker 2: that's an option, you don't have to And then also
- 14:23Speaker 2: they're like I can walk out of the room and
- 14:25Speaker 2: you can look. I've had that too, So interesting. Yeah,
- 14:29Speaker 2: I've had a couple of vicients where like.
- 14:30Speaker 1: That, which is good. And I just didn't even know
- 14:33Speaker 1: that was a thing. And that's That's another another part
- 14:37Speaker 1: of this that I have been struggling with and that
- 14:40Speaker 1: we were also discussing before.
- 14:42Speaker 3: This is.
- 14:46Speaker 1: In all of our reading of books about disability justice,
- 14:49Speaker 1: disability rights, and our research we've done on it, there
- 14:52Speaker 1: are just so many things where now I look at
- 14:54Speaker 1: it in a different way, and one of them is
- 14:58Speaker 1: phone calls, because I there's a couple reasons why I
- 15:01Speaker 1: don't like phone calls. One of them, I will admit
- 15:03Speaker 1: is I just don't like them, but some of them
- 15:05Speaker 1: are like legitimately I struggle to understand people on phone
- 15:09Speaker 1: calls for physical reasons. And I'll find things that will
- 15:15Speaker 1: say like we only do it on phone call because
- 15:18Speaker 1: of this, and I'm like, well, not everyone can do that.
- 15:21Speaker 1: Not everyone can do that, And just like I feel
- 15:24Speaker 1: like something has opened to me where I'm seeing more
- 15:27Speaker 1: and more all of these but you're not being totally accessible.
- 15:31Speaker 1: And I mean we're a podcasts and I know we
- 15:33Speaker 1: don't have transcripts, so I just want to be clear,
- 15:35Speaker 1: like I understand. But it's just something I'm noticing in
- 15:39Speaker 1: more places, right and trying to be better about my
- 15:43Speaker 1: own life. I did. This sounds so small, but for me,
- 15:47Speaker 1: I was like, ooh, I did ask someone if we
- 15:49Speaker 1: could swap sides so I could hear them better recently. Yeah,
- 15:53Speaker 1: it's like, oh hey, and they, of course they were like, yeah, quickly,
- 15:58Speaker 1: remind me easy, definitely, no problem. Cool. But then I
- 16:05Speaker 1: did want to say a lot of times when I
- 16:10Speaker 1: think of my dad, one of the things I think
- 16:14Speaker 1: of is like in his final years is that when
- 16:18Speaker 1: he went in when he found out he had cancer,
- 16:23Speaker 1: the doctor told him you should have come in earlier,
- 16:27Speaker 1: and he came in every year for preventative stuff, like
- 16:31Speaker 1: every year. And I'm totally for like preventive preventative care
- 16:36Speaker 1: and checking all that stuff. I don't want to make
- 16:37Speaker 1: it sound like I'm not, but that's still kind of
- 16:39Speaker 1: the same thing because he was like, no, I do.
- 16:41Speaker 1: I did, and to kind of turn it back on you, like, oh,
- 16:46Speaker 1: if you would come in earlier, then we could have
- 16:50Speaker 1: caught it.
- 16:51Speaker 2: I feel like that's an etiquette no no in general,
- 16:53Speaker 2: when someone has a life threatening disease, Well, if you've
- 16:56Speaker 2: done this something earlier, you may have dude, I would
- 17:01Speaker 2: say that out loud.
- 17:03Speaker 1: It just stuck with me so much because actually my
- 17:05Speaker 1: parents they both did like every year they do physical
- 17:09Speaker 1: if there's anything that comes up, they would go and
- 17:11Speaker 1: do it. My mom still does it, and so I
- 17:14Speaker 1: just remember hearing that. No, it was just like another
- 17:16Speaker 1: thing where it's like, well, even if I do go
- 17:18Speaker 1: in apparently all DAYNT catch it so right. And I
- 17:23Speaker 1: totally understand. I have a lot of friends in the
- 17:25Speaker 1: medical industry, Like I totally understand sometimes you don't get it,
- 17:27Speaker 1: you don't catch it. Human body is complicated. But just
- 17:29Speaker 1: the way that he like phrased it.
- 17:31Speaker 2: That's such a weird way that, especially if.
- 17:34Speaker 1: He has his chart right, like you can see he
- 17:36Speaker 1: gave it.
- 17:38Speaker 2: I really want to like And again, like you said,
- 17:40Speaker 2: we do have friends in a medical profession who are amazing.
- 17:43Speaker 2: They are so good and I can just go to
- 17:45Speaker 2: them without them seeing my personal but like that's just
- 17:49Speaker 2: embarrassing itself. But like there's also to those like this
- 17:52Speaker 2: is still a profession? Is there not a level of
- 17:54Speaker 2: professionalism that is required, like do no harm as part
- 17:58Speaker 2: of the motto. Don't you think say tell someone you
- 18:02Speaker 2: could be alive if you've done this, as if it's
- 18:04Speaker 2: their fault is doing harm? Like does that just being physical?
- 18:11Speaker 2: Are you being very very literal?
- 18:13Speaker 1: I don't understand. Yeah, yeah, it just really stuck with
- 18:18Speaker 1: me and I do, like I literally think about it
- 18:20Speaker 1: every time I think about going to the doctor. So
- 18:27Speaker 1: it's just a lot of stuff to wrestle with, and
- 18:30Speaker 1: I do want to. We had some of those books
- 18:33Speaker 1: that you all suggested around this on our list already,
- 18:38Speaker 1: So I'm excited, Slash. I'm no, I'm gonna be angry,
- 18:45Speaker 1: but just know that we hear you and we are
- 18:49Speaker 1: angry on your behalf and very sorry that this is
- 18:56Speaker 1: the state of things. But well, hopefully, well we'll talk
- 19:03Speaker 1: it out. I don't know, because I know, like we
- 19:08Speaker 1: did an episode on this very thing, I think five
- 19:11Speaker 1: or six years ago, and it seems like it is
- 19:15Speaker 1: not improved. It has not improved, but we are here,
- 19:21Speaker 1: We are here for you listeners. Well, cheers. Yeah, yes,
- 19:29Speaker 1: thank you for joining. As always, if you would like
- 19:34Speaker 1: to reach out to us about any of this stuff,
- 19:36Speaker 1: we do appreciate all of you who have taken the
- 19:38Speaker 1: time to share the time and vulnerability to share your stories.
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- 20:00Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina,
- 20:04Speaker 1: our executive producer Maya, and our contributor Joey. Thank you
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