When I came to you, scared, alone, young, pregnant, and you told me I might have cancer, I did not expect you to hug me or hold my hand or even to provide any emotional support whatsoever. I didn’t expect you to sit with me all day and answer all my questions. I wasn’t looking to be coddled.

I did, however, expect you to be human.

So when I asked you, “What about the baby?”

And you answered, “What are you doing having sex so young anyway?”

I was stunned.

You proceeded to preach to me about how teenagers shouldn’t be having sex without being prepared to deal with the consequences.

At the time, I said nothing, but the tears fell from my eyes.

You couldn’t even find your soul then and said, “There’s no reason to be crying. You got yourself into this.”

First, I know that teenagers shouldn’t have sex if they aren’t prepared to deal with the consequences. I was. I planned to have the baby. I did have the baby. She’s a healthy adult now, thank you very much.

And as for getting myself into it, I’m not sure how I caused myself to have cancer. It wasn’t cervical cancer caused by HPV that is being so advertised today, but rather a type of cancer I could not have caused myself to have at the age of 16.

So was it your belief that I had cancer because I had sex? Is that the message you tried to implant in my brain?

When the nurse came in after you had left and asked me what was wrong, I will never forget how she mumbled under her breath, “That bastard.”

If not for that nurse, I might have continued seeing you. I might have let you continue to berate me.

I’m grateful she was there, and she directed me to a new doctor.

Not that it matters to you, Dr. Pride, but I am now cancer free, and have been for years. My daughter, the child you didn’t want me to have, is a happy and healthy adult in college.

But when I came to you, I was scared, lonely, and had questions. You treated me like I was nothing, beneath you, not worthy of your time.

I remember something on an episode of the Golden Girls that Dorothy said that I think sums up how I feel perfectly: “One day [sic], you’re going to be sick and afraid, and when that day comes… as angry as I was, as angry as I am and as angry as I always will be, I still wish you a better doctor than you were to me.”

Signed,
Not A Kid Anymore

Tags: bad doctor, bad doctors, doctor, health, letter, pregnancy, teen, teen pregnancy