If you're listening to this, it might be because you heard a podcast series I made called The Retrievals.

Sometimes when I meet people, they'll say, oh, the one where the nurse stole fentanyl.

Others don't mention the plot.

They go straight for the theme.

They know the podcast as, the one where doctors thought it was normal for the women to be in pain.

It doesn't matter if you haven't heard the retrievals.

The details of that podcast are less important than the common experience it described.

Pain a doctor didn't listen to. Pain a doctor didn't adequately treat.

That resonated with many listeners and hundreds of them, mostly women, began writing to me with their own stories.

One afternoon I opened a note that was unlike any I'd received so far.

The listener described something that was so shocking that I thought what she experienced must have been singular, an anomaly, a mistake. Then, within a day or two, I opened two more of these notes describing

similar experiences. Soon I understood that this was a subject that would come up again and again.

I was rushed into the C-section, my husband was there and I could feel them starting the operation.

I could feel the incision.

And the doctor asked me, do you feel pressure?

And I said, no, I feel everything.

And everybody kept telling me, oh, you know, you're just feeling a lot of pressure.

And I was like, no, I'm pretty sure this is just pain. And they said, well,

that's not possible. You know, if you were feeling it, you would pass out from the pain. And I was like,

I wish I could pass out from the pain because this is, I could feel them taking my organs out and

moving though. I could feel them pulling the baby. I mean, it was, I'm shaking, just talking about it.

It was major abdominal surgery without full anesthesia.

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