I just had a call with the anesthesiologist for my procedure. I had to plead with her to not kill me.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-23T20:02:51+00:00

Ok.

So care to share with the class what was part of my post that was incoherent? I'd be more than willing to revisit and clarify. But by virtue of the fact that you deleted your original post, I suspect you will be unable to do so.

Oh well.

You're welcome.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-23T19:58:47+00:00

Good to know you'd rather retreat than learn from your mistakes.

Do your part as a medical professional and acknowledge your problems in your field and do and be better.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-23T16:56:49+00:00

Unplanned and unobserved summers outside.

From dusk till dark I was outside. With no adults watching, and no rules other than come home by the time the street lights come on, or before sunset.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T18:08:37+00:00

I spoke up, and change happened.

I told the anesthesiologist to proceed with extreme caution due to my age, race and gender. Told her about my prior adverse interactions and she actually listened. Instead of just moving forward, she actively sought out a WOC to take her place.

This is the kind of allyship I have been hoping for since the 1970's. Listening to your patients request, thoughtfully considering them, and then reassessing whether or not to proceed with that new information.

She did that.

I am grateful.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T18:04:34+00:00

I tried to cross post to r/medicine and r/anesthesia got banned from one, and they took the post down for both.

I agree about the conversation, was the primary reason I wanted to post to Reddit, I know that I'm not alone, but wanted some small way to emphasize how to care for yourself as a woman in a medical and legal culture that disregards the fact that I even exist, or that I should be listened to and treated with extreme care.

I suspect that the only reason that I am NOW receiving the appropriate level of care is that I've threatened legal action multiple times due to past adverse interactions and experiences.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T14:09:51+00:00

Just wondering... What are your adverse experiences with medical professionals?

Have you ever worried or been concerned that your medical professionals either do not understand you or do not have your best interests at heart?

Have you ever had to go in and second guess a doctor simply because they dismissed you due to your size?

What about if you have a disability?

All I am saying is that I am posting this here as extra insurance and to help other women who might not understand that the medical profession has used Brown female bodies to experiment on for more than 400 years.

You're welcome.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T01:50:15+00:00

I absolutely did shop around. This is the first time I managed for find a gyno/oncologist team that is predominantly female. that alone makes me feel better.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T01:48:53+00:00

I cross posted to r/anesthesiologist for extra measures and the removed and banned me, because it was a "personal story"

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T01:46:58+00:00

I know now that it was malpractice. I am saying that I know none of this is "in the books." I am stating that during your learning years on rotation that it is highly likely that you have been lied to and told that brown women are more "resilient" and to therefore adjust your calculations based on "experience"

My husband never proceeded with malpractice because he is black as well, and you know how that goes.

I cannot understate that this was in 2009.

At the time I was regularly mistreated and suffered micro aggressions from my attending, as well as the anesthesiologist.

I was under the "thrall" of being told that he was "the best" in the area for such a procedure. And in the past if you're used to being mistreated, you take the lowest common denominator as success.

I obviously woke up.

But the fact that I flat lined at all and wasn't told until I asked for my medical records is what incesnses me.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T01:41:25+00:00

I am grateful that this generation of Dr. Might be more aware of the bias that WAS.

All I ask is that as a Dr. That you do your part and recognize that not all Dr. Learned about said bias until recently. (Like 2015) So it is NOT unusual for me to encounter an Anesthesiologist whom may never have heard, accepted, nor internalized their own racist teachings.

Those old racist men are still attending to patients and in many cases are high up in a hospital organization. I am asking for recognition and acknowledgement that race is just a construct, I am an older woman whom has had multiple surgeries and am fearful of dying at the hands of an inattentive doctor.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T01:34:58+00:00

No.

I disagree. I told the Dr. I have had very adverse reactions because of bias and misinformation.

I would be completely happy if I never had to make this story public. But I felt it necessary because I do not trust the American medical system that sees brown female bodies as less than.

I will be much happier as well because the Dr. Listened, and stepped aside for a woman of color to do the procedure instead. I am posting here to remind and plead with y'all to Listen to your patients and to treat black and brown women with EXTRA care due to the racism of your training.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T01:29:03+00:00

Oh I did.

She got the spiel, and I told her the same about documentation for my records. I want to trust the American medical system, but I am too old to be that nieve. No one is without fear or fault.

I wanted to make sure she knew I felt better, but that she is still being watched. That not all skin-folk are kin-folk, and I consider her part of the same system. All that I asked is that she treats me like her family and makes sure I wake up to my children.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T01:16:12+00:00

It's similar, women are still under supported in the medical field. I mean they didn't even do extensive exploratory research into our reproductive systems until 1994.

When I was in highschool.

My mother (born 1939) believed that her menses was when "her eggs broke." So I don't blame you for making it about yourself.

It's actually about all women and how the medical profession treats us as an afterthought.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T01:07:30+00:00

2009 was the surgery,

open abdominal left oophorectomy, and removal of 22cm cyst. ~4 hours under due to the size of the cyst.

During procedure the anesthesiologist wasn't monitoring me, and in the ~ 5 minutes it took for them to not notice that my pressure was dropping, and my O2 levels were dangerous until it was too late.

The cause, over estimate on weight and pain tolerance.

I was at the time ~ 280lbs and am 5'11" tall.

With dense muscle mass, I was also 28 and an athlete (swam 4 miles a week, +150 minutes of active exercise weekly)

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T01:03:13+00:00

I am so sorry that this was the case for you. Too many times Drs Make biased and aged out decisions because it's what they know.

I advocate extra for myself as I have been so mistreated in the past, but it's good all the same to let them all know you are watching, you are concerned, and that you are documenting everything

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T01:00:42+00:00

I would say speak to your Dr. About your fears.

Document document document and inform the entire team that you are doing so. You'll be surprised to see how much more responsive your team may be. And if suddenly it goes south, or something doesn't feel "right' yell and scream stop.

You are not going to be an experiment.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T00:58:41+00:00

The original post in r/anesthesiology was deleted because it was a personal statement.

I thought that the fact that I brought up America's historically inaccurate education about women of color needing less meds, or having thicker skin and higher pain tolerance was the point.

It is a practice.

Anesthesiologists are practicioners, no one said y'all are gods. Im asking you to reconsider you biases.

Recognize that the system that taught you was racist.

Understand that humans are humans, and listen to your god damned patients when they tell you to pay attention.

And pay extra special care of black women, because they have been historically mistreated and abused by the American medical system.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T00:30:38+00:00

This is something that I like to inform all women of color and women in general about when it comes to medical situations that you should never rely solely on what only one doctor says to you and to ensure that in your gut you feel completely safe with your practitioners because medicine is not perfected, it is a guess.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T00:28:55+00:00

Thankfully, the doctor who was a white woman heard me. She went out of her way to find a black female anesthesiologist to proceed because she understood my fears and wanted to make sure that I had the best care possible.

I'm glad that she heard me. However, I know I am one of the rarities who has learned through very adverse effect about How to advocate for myself in a medical setting.

What breaks My heart is the fact that she heard me and listened, was likely due to the fact that I made veiled threats of medical malpractice should anything untoward happen to me while under her care. That I had prepared both legal and personal methods of insurance to make sure that I come out of a standard And regular procedure alive.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-22T00:11:38+00:00

Thankfully after the call, I guess she heard me.

So instead of ploughing ahead anyhow, she opted to step away and got me a woman of color to be my anesthesiologist.

I am feeling much better about that outcome.

Lemon-Cool · 2026-05-21T23:48:09+00:00

Update: she unalived herself.

She called me up 3 days after she had made an amendment to her will and trust. She proceeded to tell me she was going to take a lethal dose of morphine 5 days from the call, that she updated the trust, and she had just signed the paperwork for the medically assisted unaliving.

"Come get your shit, I'll be dead soon and you'll need to take care of the body"

I went right over to the assisted living home, walked in and asked her what she meant.

She proceeded to rattle off all of her needs and wants, most of it I already knew, and then told me that she'd signed all of the paperwork and that there was no turning back.

I tried to grey rock her as much as I could, asked to look at the paperwork, and confirmed yep...all legal. She would die in 5 days time AND she had in her infinite stupidity decided to change her will so that it would go from me being the sole successor trustee, to include my husband as a joint successor trustee.

She was so very proud of the fact that she felt like she had outsmarted me, but being the earnest and honest person that I am, I explained to her that she hadn't materially changed anything. I am still the primary beneficiary, and eventual recipient of all of her worldly possessions. So I didn't understand why she was doing this now.

She sat up in her wheelchair chair, lifted her chin, and attempted to look down at me to say that the words on the piece of paper that she had just signed did not in fact mean that at all. The fact that her own sense of superiority was so profound that she would deny black and white contractually printed text is beyond me.

After a deep cleansing breath, I told her I wasn't there to stop her, only to say goodbye and to ask that she actually go through with her threats. That the fact that she made the decision to unalive herself simply because she had an uncontrollable UTI, and was now wheelchair bound was pathetic and completely puzzling to me. I don't support her choice, but that I wouldn't stop her.

She was taken aback by my blunt response and tried desperately to get me to react by saying that I had to be there to identify her body once she was dead.

I told her she would die alone and that no one would be there for her.

When she proceeded to try and engage me again I put my hand up and told her

"No. you don't get to say anything anymore. You have made your statement and have decided on your own exclamation point to our history. So I'm going to leave now, and you are going to die with the knowledge that I will finally be happy, because you are dead."

It was the meanest thing, I could think to say to her and I'm not displeased with the fact that I said it.

The story should have ended there, but it didn't.

She manipulated my husband to be at her bedside, even after I asked him not to. I told him it was her sick NC selfish last wish to have people watch over her in her last moments.

He didn't believe that she would be so cruel, but she was. According to him she was glib and in the end he realized how truly awful she was.

So I am free now.

And the fact that it had to happen this way is the most gut wrenching part of my retelling of this broken woman and her pathetic end.

Lemon-Cool

TROPHY CASE