By: Gale Sargeant, PhD

It’s amazing how time can pass so quickly when you distract yourself. I’m a 43-year-old professor of psychology. My job is to train the counselors and therapists who guide and support people through challenges we experience in various stages of our life. The irony of my story is, I almost died because I wasn’t able to pull myself out of a downward spiral of events that I essentially caused myself.

A Series of Bad Events
They say once you have your health, you have everything. Here’s how I almost lost it all.

The first mistake I made is a common one among women who enter college. I was off my parents’ health insurance and didn’t have coverage of my own, nor enough money to pay for my own health care. I allowed 15 years to go by between GYN visits. It wasn’t until I started to develop heavy bleeding during my menstrual cycle, and at the insistence of my mother, that I went to see a doctor.

Much to my surprise, the doctor asked if I was pregnant. Since this was not the case, she told me something was wrong and I needed to see a gynecologist right away. I ended up seeing a nurse practitioner who truly was as cold as ice. She bluntly said, “You need to get a hysterectomy now.” There was no warmth, sympathy or love in her voice or her demeanor. A woman’s uterus is supposed to be the essence of her nature. Thank God I was spiritually planted or I would have lost it. The amazing thing to me is that another woman, let alone a health-care provider, couldn’t see this.

I later went to the GYN, who did an ultrasound and found that I had several fibroids, many of them calcified. She said that if this was just a matter of heavy bleeding and there was no pain involved, then I could wait. Telling me I could wait – without saying how long I could wait – was akin to telling me I could ignore it. Soon after, my internist and GYN moved out of town. This further pushed me away from the health process.

I eventually saw another GYN. She looked at my ultrasound and started to laugh, saying, “I’ve never seen fibroids this big before.” Once again, another health-care professional with ice water running through their veins. This made me even more self-conscious and hesitant to seek care. I never went back to her again.

Dueling Illnesses
Fast-forward to the middle of this year. I flew to Florida to spend some time with my mother. My dad was out of the country for his annual trip to visit his siblings. My mother never took these trips because she didn’t like to travel. A retired nurse and the love of my life, my mother started to get sick. I wasn’t much better off. I had begun to retain water, so much that I could barely walk. Things finally came to a head one evening when my mother fell out of bed and I couldn’t help her. I had to call the paramedics.

During the time my dad was away, my mother went from not feeling well to not walking well to not remembering how to walk. My dad took her to the doctor to see what was happening. It turns out my mother had cancer, and it had already started to spread. She didn’t know how sick she was. Ironically, I didn’t know how sick I was, either.

When I got back to Chicago, I got a new doctor, an African-American GYN who seemed like a breath of fresh air. He understood the systemic problem of black women hesitating to deal with their fibroids. He took the time to explain why my uterus needed to come out, and I agreed that it was time.

During that visit, I suffered a bad fall and had difficulty getting up. At that point, he noticed my shortness of breath and strongly advised that I see an anesthesiologist to get clearance for the surgery. I also realized I was becoming incontinent. The anesthesiologist sent me to the emergency room. They admitted me for four days after determining on top of everything else, I was experiencing congestive heart failure.

The Drama Continues
During my four-day stay in the hospital, I shed 30 pounds of water. When I was discharged, my shortness of breath was gone and it was a week out from my surgery. My brother, who lives in New York, called and said our mother had taken a turn for the worse and I need to fly out right away. I told him I was under strict orders not to fly or I could die on the plane. At this point, my mom couldn’t talk. I didn’t tell my dad of my condition because he was contending with my mom. I felt so alone and isolated from the two people I looked to all my life for strength!

After the surgery, things went well for a couple of days until I noticed bleeding from my bandages. I went to the emergency room and they said it was normal. Two days later, I went back to the doctor. I was still bleeding. Again, they sent me home, insisting it was normal.

Over the next two days, I couldn’t hold down any liquids, and I noticed a brown balloon-like membrane coming through the staples in my stomach. I went to the doctor’s office and was rushed to the hospital in a taxi. I needed emergency surgery.

It turns out that brown protrusion was my small intestine, and I was about to die. After the surgery, the nurse came in and said, “I knew you would be back.” I asked, “Why do you say that?” She said, “Because I saw the sloppy job they did closing you up after your first surgery.” See more about potential hospital mistakes in Preventing hospital-acquired infections. I wondered why she didn’t say something then. Maybe her working environment didn’t lend itself to her being a patient’s advocate.

The Spiral Ends
After weeks of convalescence, with friends by my side, I was finally given clearance to travel. I flew to see my mom. I was able to hold her hand one last time. She died hours later. What kept me together was that my mom was very spiritual and knew that death was a part of life.

In terms of my experience, I look at it as being my fault because I betrayed my own faith in God. I let fear control my actions. Now, I am healing spiritually, for betraying my God, physically, for betraying my body, and emotionally, for losing the love of my life. I hope this story helps readers and their loved ones in this journey called life.

Dr. Gale Sargeant is a professor of Psychology at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology in Chicago Illinois. Dr. Sargeant is one of our psychologists on staff at The Healing Continuum.com.