I suffer. Period. I have been suffering, and I have accepted that I will continue to suffer for the rest of my life. I take it like a champ. I am a mother of four, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, and most of all, a human being with symptoms that are (constantly and continuously) ignored. Five hours ago, I walked into my home dumbfounded by one of the countless colonoscopies in the past 18 years. Tortuous colon. Really? You don’t say? I want to understand the reason patients explain their most excruciating symptoms? Why will my doctors NOT comprehend my medical history? Why has my body been responding to pain with Vasovagal attacks? My placenta embedded and grew into my kidneys, urethra, bladder, and most of all, my intestines for the seven months I carried my child (yes, unnoticed by my Ob-Gyn doctors). I survived a 12-hour surgery, two cardiac arrests, DIC, 60 units of blood and platelets, life support, and a coma. With my intestines on a table during four + hours of the 18-hour surgery. That I have surgical staples which, instead of dissolving or removing, have formed muscle and tissue? I have adhesions. Out of many colonoscopies, I have not been able to prep for JUST the last two colonoscopies? Double or single- the prep simply does not work. After sacrificing my soul to my toilet for three days, all I have to show for it is a doable “murky” colon at best and an SMH from the doctor. That even pediatric scopes many times do not fit. I have had a laparotomy and had a small portion of my intestines removed because it was twisted into a ball intertwined with muscle and ruptured. I attempted to make an appointment with Mayo Clinic to no avail. Why do I feel my voice is irrelevant? I am confident that somewhere between my ignorance and irrelevance is the answer. Again, suffering is inevitable, but I did not survive to give up at this juncture. Nor will I ever give up my search for knowledge and not necessarily a cure or “the answer,” but a little comfort and relief. Good luck to all on your journey to wellness. Raise your voices- sometimes it is ourselves that we cannot hear, and only then will the physicians LISTEN to us.