Gaslighting

At 29, I considered myself to be fit and almost indestructible. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink and I have a myriad of athletic accomplishments. I’ve run multiple marathons, I’m at a healthy weight, and I train in the gym regularly. All of the above left me feeling completely lost when I started to experience…

About two weeks after a surgical procedure, I began having pain on my left side near my rib cage and towards my back. I assumed I had pulled a muscle due to overcompensating with my upper body post-surgery. The pain became relentless and I began having shortness of breath that I assumed was musculoskeletal pain…

My experience was in the summer of 2021. I woke one Sunday morning feeling shortness of breath, and I continued my day with increasing difficulty breathing. On Monday, I went to an urgent care clinic. They did not do a CT scan, they assumed because I was overweight and out of breath that it was…

I was diagnosed with a DVT and bilateral pulmonary embolism on April 10, 2024. I underwent a biopsy for a uterine cyst in November 2023 and subsequently had my menstrual period for almost 30 days. My gynecologist prescribed me birth control to stop my period. From mid-January until April, I was taking four birth control…

I had an appointment with my PCP on October 5, 2019 for shortness of breath. I could barely walk to my car from his office door. My lower legs were hurting. I was 56 and on no medications. He referred me to a cardiologist. The following day, after my morning coffee, I could hardly walk.…

In April 2023, I had a spontaneous seizure at work. I was taken to the hospital and stayed for 10 days. On day 8, I had a lumbar puncture (also known as a spinal tap) to try and find the cause of the seizure. The following day, I woke up with an intense, sharp, left-sided…

After returning home from a weekend of skiing in Breckenridge, Colorado, I woke up with low back pain and pain in my chest on a Monday morning. I didn’t think much of it because it was normal for me to be sore after exercise, and I’ve always struggled with exercise-induced asthma as a lifelong Colorado…

Wednesday, January 18, 2023, will be a day I will never forget. It started as an ordinary day at home with my two children, Amelia, and Andre. My son Andre, who had just turned 3 a month before, had been sick for about a week. I had already taken him to the pediatrician just three…

In 2006, I was 31 years old, living in my home country of Venezuela, and 20 weeks pregnant with my first baby when I felt a pain like a knot in my left upper thigh. My mom suggested I keep my leg up the rest of the day and I could see my gynecologist in…

On July 31, 2021, after being misdiagnosed and sent home almost a week prior, I finally received a diagnosis that would forever change my life: sub-massive pulmonary emboli and pulmonary infarction. I call it “the back pain that saved my life.” My primary symptom was upper back tightness and discomfort, which I later learned was…