Compassion

Since this recent miscarriage, I have had random bleeding episodes after jogging. Only jogging. Ad not every time. So I went to my ob on Tuesday to have her take a look. Apparently, I have inside cervical cells hanging out on the outside part of my cervix. It's common for this to happen in women who have given birth, and she wasn't too concerned over it. She told me it could be irritating it while I jog, and wants me to go through another cycle and to see if it keeps happening. 

So, after that appointment, I noticed frequent urges to urinate. A lot. I drink a lot of water, so I normally go a lot, but this was getting excessive and then I would feel like I constantly had to go and not getting relief. I, of course, freaked out because the last time my bladder felt like this, I was in extreme pain with a stitch through it after my TVC surgery. It was like resurfacing that panic all over again. I thought to myself, oh it's probably a uti. I took some over the counter stuff and a cranberry supplement but it still didn't feel better by Thursday, and I called my doctor to make an appointment for today. Now I was worried that this was some kind of issue from my bladder injury a year ago. In sets the panic and the anxiety and my mind going to a million different places.

So I go in today. The receptionist now knows me by name. I make a joke about how much I love them and I just can't stay away. I sit in the chair, jiggling my leg with the constant need to pee. They run about thirty minutes over in the waiting room. I'm finally giving a sample and allowed back into an examining room and a total of an hour and fifteen minutes later, the ob comes in. My normal doctor had nothing available so I was a little nervous. But she was so gracious and right off the bat told me she was so sorry about the wait and what were my symptoms? I always hate seeing a new doctor because she won't know my crazy history so I ask her if she wants to know. She says of course! And so I start to explain it and I barely get through the sentence, "I have lost two babies due to incompetent cervix" before I start bawling. I am speechless with myself. Here I was having a break down. A real one. I usually can explain my history to doctors without getting emotional but for some reason, this doctor had this look in her eyes, one of complete and total sympathy, of compassion, of understanding and sorrow for what I had been through. She listened to me babble on about it all... I told her that I am so paranoid about every little thing with my body and that I was afraid something was wrong with my bladder again and that I honestly think I have PTSD. She agreed with me and told me she would help me get the help I needed to deal with it. She told me that it was meant to be that we met today and that she has a special prayer jar and she writes names of patients who need peace on a slip of paper and places them in the jar. She asked if she could do that for me. Now, I am not a religious person. I grew up catholic but haven't practiced in over ten years. And I'll be honest, I have been pretty angry with god lately. But I nodded and said yes and I was just honestly just so touched by her kind words and understanding. After all was said and done, she said that all I had was a uti and all I had to do was to take some medicine for five days. I wanted to literally hug her.

On my way in I had noticed little bowls of rocks on a few of the side tables in the waiting room. I didn't pay any attention to them then but noticed them again on my way out. I stopped to look at them. The sign by the rocks said, "wishing rocks" and there was a sharpie near by. I read a few of them. One said, "to be cancer free" and another said, "pass my exam." I read them until I found one with a blank side. The other side of this rock said, "I love cats". I knew this was my rock. On the other side, I wrote, "have a full term baby" and I placed it with the rest of the wishes.