Last Friday, I developed significant weakness on the right side of my body. It was obvious from the fact the my smile was completely lopsided, among other things. It was so bad that when the Rocket Scientist saw me he immediately turned off the paella he was making (paella, yum) and got his keys and said “Let’s go.” (In retrospect, we would have done better to call an ambulance.)

We got to the E.R., which was totally slammed. It was full enough that they were not allowing anyone to accompany patients. At this point, I was in a wheelchair because I was having trouble walking straight. I went through triage, explaining my symptoms as best I could (I was having trouble speaking), was given standard neurologic tests (smiling, squeezing hands, touch sensitivity), all of which showed a pronounced weakness on one side of my body, and was then sent to the waiting room. FOR THREE AND A HALF HOURS.

When I finally did get back to a room, the Rocket Scientist was allowed to come back. He explained my symptoms, including that I was enunciating very clearly to be understood. The doctor checked me over, ran the same neurologic tests (with the same results), immediately called a “stroke code,” and notified the neurologist on call. Within minutes, I was whisked off to a CT scanner. I was examined by the neurologist when we got there.

The CT came back clear. I was diagnosed as having a “complex migraine,” which made sense since I have a history of migraine (usually controlled by Emgality). I was given Tylenol and Reglan and sent home.

Here’s the thing: according to all the PSAs, minutes matter when someone is having a stroke. As the doctor herself commented, I was exhibiting the signs that they tell people to watch for, including a lopsided smile and trouble walking. So why didn’t the nurses and doctor who were doing triage call a stroke code themselves?

I am a very large woman. I have been to the ER three times previously this year (each time with asthma exacerbations). And, most significantly I believe, I have a history of mental illness. (They would have known immediately about the mental illness since they had access to my medical record and looking at the records of someone who has a history of psychiatric hospitalizations requires an extra step in my medical center’s computer system.)

I was, I believe, not taken seriously. This is not the first time I have been to the ER and been treated this way. (I was seen immediately for the asthma, probably because my blood oxygen was in the 80s.) People with mental illnesses are assumed to be unreliable narrators when it comes to their own bodies. We’re attention seekers, they think. We fake symptoms, don’t you know? (I once came into an ER in severe pain from what was later diagnosed as a shoulder injury, only to have a doctor act as though I was simply there drug seeking. I was told to go home and take Tylenol, in spite of the fact that I had tried that — and I TOLD them so — and it had done nothing.) I take someone in to advocate for me, and they often get treated more respectfully than I do.

I wish I believed otherwise, but stigma is a real thing, even among medical professionals.

[I am still having some symptoms today, in spite of taking migraine meds, but they’re lessened.]