Excerpt:
Scared, hungry, and half tranquilized, I watched while hospital staff wheeled me into the O.R. I was furious at myself for consenting to have surgery I was confident I didn’t need. Yet here I was, lying on a gurney, hooked up to IV tubes, surrounded by hospital personnel, and feeling vulnerable and foolish. I’ll tell you about my operation in a bit—it went fine. This is not a story about tragedy.
But it is a story about how we, as women, manage—and sometimes mismanage—our healthcare. As a group, we’re very conscientious about taking care of ourselves. We choose our doctors carefully, visit them more frequently than men do, try to keep up with all our tests and stay on top of the latest health information. At the same time, we sometimes inadvertently make decisions that can undermine our own health.
For example, sometimes there’s simply no time for a routine checkup. It may be too hard to take time off from work, or there’s no one to watch our kids. We may blame ourselves for getting sick and feel too ashamed and embarrassed to call the doctor, which can only make us feel even worse and more vulnerable. Or we may hesitate to get a second opinion because we don’t want to hurt our primary doctor’s feelings. After all, we don’t want to be thought of as difficult, or worse, rude. We can get so caught up in our fears and our everyday lives that, by failing to seek timely medical care, we do ourselves a disservice. Then, should unanticipated consequences develop, we say to ourselves (as I did), “What in the world was I thinking?”
Each chapter describes one of these decisions and offers women practical advice to help them better navigate the patient-doctor relationship.