It’s been many years since I felt the urge to come back here and share anything private. But the other day, something happened that REALLY, REALLY pissed me off and I have to get it off my chest. Today, Tuesday April 29^th, 2025 marks 35 years since my accident, and it’s just icing on the cake considering what happened this past Sunday.

Before I begin, it’s important to note that there is an increased cardiovascular risk from my mom’s side of the family, so we all take heart health seriously.

I was painting at my kitchen table on Sunday afternoon. It was a gorgeous day; the sun was shining, and the weather had been warming up. Erin and I have been breathing new life into the sign that hangs at the entrance to her riding stables. It’s taken nearly a week, and many, many hours to paint. I mostly paint during the day, while she paints at night. But it’s been a fun project, and it looks really good! I was enjoying painting while binge watching the last season of “You” on Netflix when I felt sharp pain in the left side of my chest. My first instinct was that I pulled a muscle. I’m fiddy years old now, so I’ve had my fair share of pinched nerves, or pulled muscles, from so much as taking a shower, or even just breathing or turning the wrong way. I was alone in my house. So, I tried to get up and see if walking around helped loosen it up. I went behind the couch and started stretching, my arms out before me and as my face lowered, Gracie, our chocolate lab, excitedly kissed my face. I told her out loud how much pain I was in. The left side of my chest was sheer pain with each breath, and especially with each movement I made. I was so annoyed. I didn’t want anything to interrupt the beautiful day I was having. And I wanted to get this sign painted and back to the barn. I was so sure it was a pulled muscle…but was it my heart muscle? Uh, that didn’t sound so good. I began googling the difference between a heart attack or a pulled muscle on the left side of your chest. I finally texted my husband, which made it even more real. All I wanted to do was ignore it but it’s just so damned stupid to ignore chest pain in our family. I knew we could run over to urgent care, and they would check it out and hope they weren’t very busy. So, that’s what we did.

I was in a room within seconds of arriving, and the EKG was starting, along with a blood draw to check my troponin level. The (very young) nurse practitioner that was overseeing my care noticed my prosthetic leg and asked me what happened. “I was walking and was hit by a car and lost my leg.”

She quietly responded, “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s ok,” I said, trying to reassure her. She seemed uncomfortable and I wanted to make her feel better. The last doctor that asked me what happened responded with “Ouch!” so this was an improvement. Meanwhile,  as we all waited for the EKG while that awkwardly hung in the air, I was quietly thinking about how the anniversary is sneaking up on me once again and I was trying to calculate how many years it’s been. As I mentioned, it turns out it’s been 35 years. That’s kind of a lot of time to adjust, I would say. Not like it happened recently.

Sidenote : I have A LOT of experience in a hospital/Dr’s office/urgent care setting thanks to my own journey, Erin’s hospital stays, and my mother, who has experienced heart attacks, open heart surgery, stage 4 cancer, TIA’s, and countless doctor’s visits I have frequented. I am often asked if I’m in the medical field when I am advocating for myself or loved ones. I have done a lotttttttt of research over the years, taken a lot of notes, and stood up for my loved ones many times.

Which is why what happened next is one of the most galling things I’ve ever heard.

The EKG was normal. Phew! The blood draw revealed everything was fine. The nurse practitioner breezed back into the room and says, “Your labs look wonderful, this is probably PTSD.”

WHAT?

This wasn’t a mere suggestion; this was a declaration she pulled out of her ass. She stood over me with such authority, as though it couldn’t possibly be anything else.

The first urge was to laugh. The second urge was anger. I honest to God looked down at my chest and looked at my prosthesis and couldn’t marry up the jump from one to the other that occurred in her head, and said to her, “This is not PTSD!” As blue as the sky was outside that room, THIS WAS NOT “PTSD”. She carried on a bit, but she must have seen me checked out and she quickly left the room.

My husband was on the receiving end of my shock over this reckless, unprofessional, and wholly inappropriate “diagnosis”. I was beside myself. He didn’t quite know what to say because it was so absurd. I texted the only person who could possibly understand : Kim. I got out my phone and told her what just happened. Her immediate response was “OMG, that’s ridiculous!” If I’m gonna get all worked up then I will check myself before I wreck myself, lol. Seriously, I needed to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind. I will admit if I’m wrong or blowing it out of proportion. In this case, my friends and my sister were validating me, and I felt a huge relief from that.

I complained to the nurse. I said, I *KNOW* PTSD, and I know anxiety. This is NOT either of those. I’ve also been there for over two hours with nothing to help the pain, despite rating it quite high. It took the nurse listening to me to get the NP to give me an anti-inflammatory, so I finally got some relief with Toradol. Guess what that means? Since it helped, the NP had to admit it was musculoskeletal. I freaking pulled a muscle. Which is what I said all along, but given my family history, I knew I shouldn’t be stupid and have it checked out.

I was discharged, but I waited for the NP to come back into the room. I made it very clear that this was not PTSD and it was very concerning to me that was her conclusion as soon as she saw my leg. “I want to make sure that PTSD is not anywhere in my chart.” She assured me it wouldn’t be.

It is.

“I discussed the potential of a PTSD related cause which patient did not believe was happening.”

Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, you cannot put it back in. It is dangerous to put something into someone’s chart that will affect how they are treated in the future. I’ve seen it countless times in my own family and the bottom line is – you MUST advocate for yourself and your loved ones. If PTSD is introduced into my medical chart, then the assumption is that I have PTSD. Period. People unfortunately suffer from PTSD and usually it is a complex diagnosis done by a mental health professional, and I feel for them. This NP, that I find out graduated in 2022, has no business labeling anyone with a mental health condition that does not exist. I placed a call to the ER Manager yesterday, at the encouragement of my wonderful, supportive, in-agreement-with-me nurse, but I have yet to receive a call back. It’s not to hurt this woman’s career or get her in trouble, but it’s a dangerous precedent for her to make wild assumptions based on a few minutes of our interaction.

Because of HIPAA laws, we have the right to know what’s in our medical record. We can be denied insurance coverage based on what’s in our medical record. We can be treated differently, or worse, receive the wrong treatment based on what’s in our medical records. It’s more than just making an ignorant statement, which it was, to be sure. But Dr’s (or NP’s in this case) hold a power of authority over us, when it should be a collaboration. This NP does not know me. She does not know that my accident happened THIRTY-FIVE years ago, and she certainly doesn’t know how happy and well adjusted I have been for decades. But her education and limited experience certainly gave her the confidence and authority to override MY input, feelings and intuition. Which sucks, because how many times do you hear women say that their symptoms were pawned off on “anxiety” when it was actually something far more serious? I just expected it from a man, not another woman.

Don’t be bullied by doctors, or NP’s. The only power or authority is an illusion. We should be able to challenge those in the medical field with our lived experiences. As they say, don’t compare your 3 brief years in the field with my 35 years of personal experience.

Happy Friggin’ Anniversary. Cheers!