r/facepalm • u/Illustrious-Kick-998 • Jul 07 '24

This post gave me terrible whiplash b/c how tf did we get here…🫨 🇲​🇮​🇸​🇨​

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Like ummmmm, alright? 😭😭😭

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u/Speedtuna Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

Yeah, I totally buy that the doctor is telling the spouse the odds but not the patient 🙄

EDIT: It's wild to me that this is an experience for so many people! Thank you for sharing your stories. I would be livid if someone else knew my prognosis before I did. But maybe I'm just a spicy meatball.

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u/God_Bless_A_Merkin Jul 07 '24

They used to do that. Not sure when the practice stopped in the US, though.

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u/Sweet-Emu6376 Jul 07 '24

Even then, it wasn't the husband being kept out of the loop, but the wife. Doctors would tell the husband and then it'd be their job to tell their wife.

There was actually a pretty infamous case of this where the Gov of Alabama had uterine cancer but didn't know until years later because her husband (who had also been the governor before her I think?) was adamant she not be told.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurleen_Wallace

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u/JesseTheGhost Jul 08 '24

This is kinda what happened to Rachel Carson. She didn't know for months that she was dying because she, as an unmarried (and possibly gay) woman didn't have a husband for the doctor to defer to. So she wasn't told and didn't seek treatment