Jodi Hollingshead: My name is Jody Hollingshead. I was born and raised in West Virginia. I am a mother of two young daughters, a wife and a city councilwoman. Verena was my mother's name. She was a public educator in West Virginia. For almost 40 years. Her favorite color was always yellow. She was a single mother, and if you ask anyone who knew her, she was the sweetest, brightest light. She was delightful to be around. She was an incredibly hard worker. And she cared more about her kids, both her biological kids and her students more than anything. It's important to note that my mother was never diagnosed with the disease that killed her, which was pulmonary fibrosis. Even on her death certificate, it simply says lung disease, despite all three of her siblings having passed away, and likely both of her parents from pulmonary. Fibrosis, despite having all of the symptoms of pulmonary fibrosis, and despite seeing a pulmonologist regularly due to her family history, she never got that diagnosis. An actual diagnosis could have added months to my mother's life. It absolutely would have changed the trajectory of her care. And the resources available to her. My mother lived in a big body, and because of that, most of her doctors chapped most of her symptoms up to her weight. Instead of taking a more holistic, a deeper approach and looking at the entire picture. Most of her doctors simply blamed her muscle wear and tear. Her back issues, shortness of breath, almost constant, her dry cough, her fatigue, her joint pain, all of her symptoms were usually chalked up to being overweight. In her last year of life, it became apparent that my mother didn't get listened to or believed about her condition. We sat in doctor's appointments with her, listening to her describe her symptoms over and over and over. And watching as doctors shrugged their shoulders and said, you need to walk more and drink more water. But doctor, all of her siblings died of this disease and they felt exactly the same. Well, she doesn't have this marker, which blah, blah, blah blah, blah blah, blah. And so she never, she never got it. And because she never received that diagnosis, quite frankly, no one around her took her illness as seriously. As we should have been. We thought she was in better health than she was for probably a decade. When my mother became unable to care for herself, we had to start navigating the maze of health insurance and rehabilitation centers and hospital bills, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, which is a nightmare on its own, let alone when you're reckoning with The possibility that your, your mother may not have much longer. Ultimately, um, we found a different pulmonologist who was finally straightforward enough with us to suggest we contact hospice care. It was at that appointment where we were told my mother had probably 1 year or so to live. She died 3 weeks later. I attribute that to doctors continually dismissing her. I attribute that to her not being believed the way women are treated in in our healthcare system as it is today is unacceptable. There are so many conditions and symptoms simply not being researched because they're attributed to other things that women often have to deal with. I believe without a doubt that my mother would have lived longer had she gotten that diagnosis. I can't even begin to imagine how many women have died because they aren't being believed, how many women have died too soon. Because our healthcare system isn't set up to serve women.
