Gaslighting

I am a 24-year-old first-year medical student. On December 18, 2025, I was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism, a life-threatening condition that requires prompt recognition and treatment. That day, I initially presented the emergency department with severe shortness of breath, near-syncope (fainting), and a rapid heart rate (tachycardia). I …

After an eight-mile run in November 2025, I had pain behind my knee/high calf. I thought I may have strained it, but after two days of rest, I could barely walk. I went to urgent care on the third day, knowing something was off. The nurse laughed and yelled at me and said I was…

On December 11, 2024, I went to the emergency room because my entire right arm was swollen. My father told me not to go since I wasn’t in pain and already had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for the next day, but something told me to get it checked out. I truly believed nothing serious was…

After a dilation and curettage (D&C), my doctor tore my cervix. I was given medication to stop the bleeding, but I passed out in the hospital from blood loss five days later. My doctor gave me tranexamic acid (TXA) to control the hemorrhaging. Later that day, I started feeling a burning sensation in my chest.…

In May of this year, I took a short flight, only about two and a half hours one way, and soon after, I noticed a cramping sensation in my right calf. I assumed it was just soreness or dehydration, so I ignored it for a couple of days. When the pain didn’t go away, I…

In February 2025, while at work, I started developing a terrible headache, fever, chills, and body aches. I assumed I was coming down with the flu. I spent a day in bed watching TV and resting. Two days later, the flu-like symptoms subsided, but I developed stiffness and pain in my neck. Within 24 hours,…

Two weeks after a 68-mile bike ride, I couldn’t straighten my leg, and my veins bulged. “It’s just a bruise,” the ER doctor said, looking at my leg. He dismissed it the same way that the sports doctor and physical therapists did. But weeks later, my leg looked blue with spider veins. I sent a…

In 2014, while in podiatry school, I went to the student health center because I was short of breath and was coughing up blood. The nurse practitioner diagnosed me with bronchitis. Less than two weeks later, I learned the truth — I had a saddle pulmonary embolism, which means a large blood clot was blocking…

Five days before everything came to light, I sat in a rheumatologist’s office explaining my concerns. Instead of investigating, she dismissed me, chalking it all up to my Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. My after-visit summary simply said to “wear spandex-type garments,” and there was no more that rheumatology could do for me. I left feeling unheard and…

After two long months of debilitating headaches and vision problems, I was finally diagnosed in July 2025 with a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), a rare and dangerous clot in the veins that drain the brain, at 24 years old. My first ER trip was in May, when I showed up with stabbing head, neck,…