From The Marshall Project:
Kwaneta Harris suddenly developed intense shoulder pain in 2019. Incarcerated in Texas, she began the process of requesting a specialized medical visit, certain she needed to see an orthopedist. Then, she started having heart palpitations and tachycardia, an abnormally fast resting heart rate, and requested a visit to the cardiologist. Around the same time, acne broke out across her face, something she’d never dealt with, even as a teenager. She filed a request for a dermatologist. Once a calm and collected figure on her cell block, she began to cry easily, and struggled to recall details and words that previously felt ingrained. Her long, dark hair began to thin>
Harris, a former nurse who is now 53, was quick to self-diagnose. Assuming she had a thyroid problem, she requested a visit to an endocrinologist. Getting each specialty visit took months. First, she had to exhaust any recommendations from the in-prison medical provider, a process that often took three or more months. When those remedies failed, she could request a second opinion, after which she’d wait two to three more months to get approved. Each specialty visit then required an hours-long trip across the state to Galveston on a bus, shackled to another woman. None of these appointments brought relief.
Three years after the shoulder pain began, Harris was listening to NPR when a TED Talk about perimenopause came on. Suddenly, the constellation of medical symptoms all made sense.
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