"Ignored, Unwritten, Unheard"

I saw a failure of my midwives to properly chart my symptoms which didn’t just mean missing paperwork— it meant erasing my reality in real time. I repeatedly voiced that something was wrong. I wasn’t vague or unsure. I described shaking, turning purple, severe and escalating pain, and an overwhelming, instinctive sense that my body was in danger. These are not subtle symptoms. These are not things that should be brushed off or forgotten. They are clear, urgent warning signs that something is critically wrong.

But I don’t believe that my symptoms were properly documented. And when something isn’t charted, it can be easy to pretend it never happened.

Because my symptoms were either minimized, inaccurately recorded, or not charted at all, my medical record tells a story that is not accurate. It paints a picture of a patient who was stable, who wasn’t showing signs of severe infection, who didn’t require urgent intervention. That version of events is not just incomplete—it is misleading. It directly contradicts what I was experiencing in my own body, and what I was desperately trying to communicate.

I trusted my care team to listen to me. I trusted them to take my concerns seriously. Instead, I felt I was dismissed. My cries for help were reduced to something manageable, something non-urgent, something that could wait. But what I was experiencing I believed couldn’t wait.

That delay in recognition and response had catastrophic consequences. By the time I received appropriate care, my condition had progressed to severe sepsis. My body was shutting down. I required emergency surgery to save my life—and that surgery resulted in a hysterectomy in my late twenty’s.

I lost my ability to carry children. That choice was taken from me, not because of an unavoidable medical condition, but because of a failure to listen, a failure to act, and a failure to document.

The lack of proper charting didn’t just impact my care in the moment—it continues to impact me now. It affects how my case is reviewed, how medical professionals interpret what happened, and how accountability is assigned. When critical symptoms are missing from my record, it allows others to question the severity of what I went through. It creates doubt where I see there should be clarity. It protects a system that failed me, instead of the patient who was harmed.

I know what I felt. I know what I said. I know how hard I fought to be heard.

What happened to me was not a mystery. It was not unpredictable. The signs were there, and I spoke them out loud. The problem I see is that they weren’t written down—and in medicine, that can make all the difference.

This wasn’t just a documentation issue. It was a breakdown of care, of communication, and of accountability. And I am the one living with the lifelong consequences of those failures.