My Dog Almost Died And It Rewired How My Brain Now Thinks About Urgency
04.18.26
Last weekend, I had to rush my dog to the ER.
My 15-year-old beloved Chihuahua mix started having heart palpitations. I remember sitting there thinking: Am I overreacting? I had to finish my workday. But, I texted my vet and she told me to go. Immediately.
She was right.
When we got there and I described his symptoms, we skipped the line and were taken straight back. Within minutes, he was surrounded by doctors and techs trying to stabilize him. I didn’t even get to process what was happening before he was gone behind those doors.
I sat alone in the waiting room for hours, crying, while they worked on him. No updates. No control. Just the quiet, suffocating realization that I might not be bringing him home.
Twenty-three hours and $9,000 later, I learned he had gone into congestive heart failure. Somehow, they pulled him out of it. He’s still here.
But I’m not the same. Because something about that experience rewired my brain around urgency.
In that waiting room, there was one question: what do I do right now?
The answer came down to three things: how quickly I acted, whether I trusted the doctor, and whether I could afford to say yes.
I’ve been thinking about those three things ever since. Because they don’t just describe what happened to my dog. They describe what happens to Americans in this country every day, in healthcare situations that are just as time-sensitive, just as dependent on access and trust and money, and treated like they are far less serious.
The answer came down to three things: how quickly I acted, whether I trusted the doctor, and whether I could afford to say yes.
That is the gap we need to talk about.
Right now, the decisions that actually shape women’s lives in the U.S. are not the ones dominating the headlines. The things that determine whether you get timely care, accurate information, or any options at all are being treated as political controversies, fringe concerns, or problems you should have planned around. Meanwhile, the stories that generate the most noise have the least bearing on what happens to your body, your health, or your future.
A medical emergency doesn’t wait for publicity. It just happens. And when it does, your outcome is shaped entirely by the systems around you. Can you get care quickly? Do you trust the people telling you what to do? Can you afford to say yes?
Over the next three pieces, I’m going to break down what is actually shaping women’s lives in America right now versus what we’re being told to pay attention to. Because the stakes are higher than most of us are being led to believe, and the gap between urgency and distraction is not an accident. It’s U.S. systems functioning exactly how they’re designed: to disproportionately harm women.
A few things worth sitting with this weekend:
Take 10 minutes to find out what accessing urgent reproductive healthcare would actually look like for you right now, where you live right now. Where would you go?
Identify one trusted medical source that you can turn to when something time-sensitive happens. Do you have a trusted doctor you know could help you?
Notice what dominated your social media feeds this past week. Then ask what was missing from it. We’ll share our take in the next post.
Find us on Instagram @Women_InAmerica
So glad the veterinarian was able to bring your baby back. They are more than family.