Things Patients Do That Would Make the News If Anyone Else Did Them

Things Patients Do That Would Make the News If Anyone Else Did Them

A shortlist of things pregnant and postpartum patients treat as an ordinary Tuesday.

If a coworker ran a half marathon the same week they had major abdominal surgery, people would talk about it for a year. If a colleague closed a deal from a hospital triage bed, it would become office legend. Patients do things like this constantly, and most of the time, nobody clocks it as remarkable at all.

In the middle of a shift

I've had patients work full shifts through first trimester nausea severe enough to floor most people, then go home and do it again the next day, because sick leave doesn't cover feeling like the flu, indefinitely. I've had patients present research findings, teach full classrooms, and run client meetings while quietly counting the minutes until they could be sick in private.

In the middle of labor

I've had patients finish an exam or a work deadline between contractions, because the deadline didn't know or care that they were in labor. I've had patients labor for over a day, deliver, and within hours be tracking feeds and diaper counts like it's the most natural transition in the world, mostly because there isn't really another option.

In the middle of a newborn haze

I've had patients running on two hours of broken sleep who still remembered a preschool pickup time, a bill due date, and a sibling's doctor's appointment, while their own body was still healing from birth. That kind of tracking, on that little rest, is its own kind of athletic feat.

None of this makes headlines. It should.

If you've got a story about something you did while pregnant, in labor, or three weeks postpartum that would've made the news if anyone else had done it, we'd genuinely love to hear it. Send it our way. We're always collecting more proof of what patients are actually capable of.