A Fort Wayne woman who suffered pelvic pain since age 11 found relief after a chance meeting with a doctor revealed a condition that had eluded diagnosis for decades, a case critics say shows the gaps in women’s pain care.
Dawn Jemison’s story began with stabbing pelvic pain as a child, pain that worsened over the years and became an almost daily struggle. By her late teens, the pain was so constant she was waking up in agony and pushing herself through work and life despite not knowing the source. “As the years are going by, these pains are getting worse. It is not just a couple times a week, a couple times a month; it is almost every day, waking up because of pain, a stabbing pain, a lot of times, and just not having an explanation,” Jemison said.
For more than 30 years, Jemison visited doctor after doctor, underwent dozens of tests, and received diagnoses of anemia and lupus in her 20s. Still, the cause of her unrelenting pelvic pain remained a mystery. Eventually, the suffering became so severe she decided drastic action was needed. “I'm like, 'I'm done, I'm done with it all, let's get rid of the organ that I thought was causing me the most problems,'” she told reporters, describing her request for a hysterectomy in December 2024.
But before surgery could happen, a twist of fate intervened. While serving a private room at her Fort Wayne restaurant in January 2025, Jemison overheard a presentation by healthcare sales representatives and doctors about a patient whose story sounded strikingly similar to her own. “It was completely by chance that I was the server on this room, that I was actually paying attention to what they were discussing, and noticing that the person on screen was (like) me,” Jemison recalled. That moment led her to Dr. Abigail Qin-Nelson, an interventional cardiologist present at the meeting, who offered to evaluate her for a rarely diagnosed condition called pelvic congestion syndrome.
Dr. Qin-Nelson performed a venogram, a specialized imaging test, that revealed major blockages in Jemison’s iliac vein: one location was 76% compressed, another vein 52% blocked. The diagnosis: pelvic congestion syndrome, a condition where blood flow is restricted through the pelvic veins, causing chronic pain. The Cleveland Clinic, cited in the reporting, notes that pelvic congestion syndrome has no clear cause and is often overlooked in women with unexplained pelvic pain.
Treatment was direct and technical. Using a catheter, Dr. Qin-Nelson placed two Medtronic AbreStents, one near Jemison’s kidney, the other along the left side of her groin, to reopen the veins and restore blood flow. The venogram alone took over two hours, which Jemison described as twice as long as typical. Discomfort from the stent placement lasted only a few days. Shortly afterward, she underwent a second procedure to cauterize smaller veins that had formed as alternate pathways for blood around the blockage.
As the months passed, Jemison’s pain dramatically improved. By the time of the article’s publication, one year after the procedures, she reported: “It was just validation, like, OK, I wasn't lying, I wasn't making this up, I wasn't looking for attention. There really was a problem, and I just had to find the right doctor to fix it.” Her daily pain, once a constant companion, “is at a zero.” She called the change a “complete 180 on (her) life.”
Jemison’s relief was mixed with frustration at how long it took to reach the solution. She reflected, “I would still probably be laying in my bed right now asking, 'What did I do, what did I do wrong, how do I fix this, who do I talk to next?'” Now, she says, “It's now like, oh, I want to go walk, I want to go to the park, I want to be in the garden, I want to do different things. I can do that without having to work around my pain.”
This case highlights a problem too many Americans face: years lost to undiagnosed, untreated pain. Jemison’s journey underscores how women’s health complaints, especially chronic pain, can be dismissed, misdiagnosed, or attributed to unrelated conditions for years, or even decades, before doctors identify the root cause. The original reporting points to broad gaps in the medical system that leave patients searching for answers on their own.
Dr. Qin-Nelson told reporters that Jemison will continue routine monitoring to ensure the condition does not return. The article does not state whether Jemison ultimately underwent the hysterectomy she had once requested. Open questions remain about why pelvic congestion syndrome is so rarely diagnosed and what steps healthcare systems could take to prevent similar missed diagnoses.
Jemison’s case is a reminder that too often, common sense and patient persistence, not the health system, deliver answers. Americans deserve better than to rely on luck to get treated for decades-old pain.
