In the early parts of my Obstetrics and Gynecology posting as a medical student, a woman who was in her late 40's came to the gynecology clinic with a distended abdomen and was later admitted into the wards. In my ignorance during those early parts of my very first parts of the posting. I took medical information from her and she told me she was pregnant. She told me that no one believed her.
During our lectures, they taught us about psychological problems associated with pregnancy, feeling blue...baby blues, a misnomer for a name if you asked me. why would a baby feel blue? babies are such angry creatures that is at times they aren't sleeping and the most beautiful. These beautiful creatures were what my patient craved. That is why when I was leaving she held the edge of my ward coat and saying "doctor don't let them take my baby away".
I went back home confused and not knowing what to do. What if she was saying the truth? This was before my labor ward posting where I'd have easily had touched her belly and known that cause of her abdominal distentions was not from her uterus.
I'm probably the least attentive to opportunities to learn. The ideal thing would be to read about her condition and also find out the next line of management for her case. Instead, I went home confused and came back the next day with those same confusions.
It was a theater day to the credit of my blissful ignorance, which is why I never got questioned about the clinical notes I had taken down about the woman. The doctors responsible for her care would have torn me down for diagnosing her with a pregnancy in the gyne ward, a ward for everything other than pregnancies.
She was booked for surgery the very next day. In the theater, my late entrance met her sleeping off on anesthetics.
A CYSTIC MASS FLOODED THE THEATER FLOOR WITH FLUIDS.
I wish someone could mop up my ignorance the way they mopped that room off.
Pseudocyesis is a condition in which a person for whatever reason thinks that they are pregnant.
