Finding the place wasn't easy. It's located in a highly trafficked medical neighborhood totally unfamiliar to me. I finally took the right turn into the right parking lot and hiked into the building. I walk into the ginormous waiting room and holy shit, I swear the hyperventilation started before my second foot landed. Pregnant women, babies, blissful couples who probably peed on a stick yesterday and are already planning the nursery. F*cking fantastic. I take a deep breath and hold in the tears. Get to the check in desk. Introduce myself as a new patient of Dr. S, "here are my medical records so you can make a copy". Nooope. They don't do that (make copies). Too busy. Er, okay. I suppose I should have asked before going, right? Normal people would now sigh and ask where the nearest Kinkos is, no biggie. Not I, said the crazy one. I burst into tears. I'm imagining the receptionist pushing the secret security button under her desk to have me hauled off to the psych ward next door. So I sit down to wait for my turn in the lab and one moment later, get a new neighbor to my left. She's large, she's glorious, she's having a baby. I'm sad, I'm empty, I'm not. The tears just keep coming. I really feel crazy. People are looking, I swear they are.
Give my blood and back in the Sequoia. More tears, more heavy breathing. I drive around for a few flustered minutes before spying a Randall's. Grocery stores do copies! I wait my turn at customer service and hand over my 90 page stack of records. There's a baby faced kid working who reminds me a lot of Michael, but his name badge reads "RYAN C". He regrets to inform me that their copier is self serve, and directs me around the corner to their machine. This thing should have been beaten by Peter Gibbons & Co. in Office Space. Think 1982. No top feeder, it's the old kind where each individual sheet needs to be placed on the glass one at a freakin time. Oh, did I mention it's quarter-fed? Awesome. As RYAN C shows me how to work it I feel another wave coming on. I START CRYING AT THE COPIER. IN RANDALL'S GROCERY STORE. Poor RYAN C looks flummoxed. "I'm sorry, it's just that we're an old Randall's and our equipment isn't so great, I'm sorry ma'am." He thinks I'm crying because I don't like his copier. Nope, just crying because I apparently overestimated my ability to function in public. I try to mumble something to him to explain that I'm not crying about his copier, I'm just having a hard day, but it comes out all jumbled and crazy sounding and RYAN C slowly backs away (most likely concerned for his physical safety by now) and hightails it back to customer service.
One more bout of tears after dropping off the records at the office (this time I made it back to my car first). Enough adventure for one day. Here's hoping Dr. S's office is quick about processing lab results and calling to follow up. It would be great to know that my levels are dropping, which would tell me that my body is doing something right and heading in the right direction.
It's not lost on me that today is a day whose history is more tragic than my current situation. Impossible to believe it has been SIX years. I had just moved into Alpha Phi and UND was in full fall glory with the back to school buzz and rush activities. When I woke up that morning and went into the bathroom, the normally light-hearted morning program on the radio sounded very serious. They were talking about a possible fire breaking out at the World Trade Center, or maybe some sort of plane crash. I wondered to myself if that was in Chicago. Then I wondered where dad was, his job required nearly constant air travel at that time. I cleaned up and headed down to the living room and immediately knew something very bad had happened. No fewer than 40 of my sorority sisters were crowded around the television crying, and just a moment later, we watched as another plane crashed into the tower. All I remember from the rest of that day was stunned silence and a sense of the world changing right before our eyes. It's still hard to believe.
The high praises bestowed upon Dr. S and staff are already looking to be right-on. At 5:30, 5 short hours after I left the lab, I received a call from the nurse. The nurse, who was actually compassionate and kind and DIDN'T treat me like some strange specimen (as I've experienced over and over again this week from the former practice). My progesterone, she says, is "terrible". You know you've sunk to new lows when a word like "terrible" brings hope- we should be so lucky to be diagnosed with a JUST a progesterone problem. It's treatable! It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me or us- just a hormone deficiency that we can work with and most likely conquer! ((please please please let that be the problem and/or all that's wrong)) Unfortunately, this nurse hadn't received my records from the front desk (not shocked considering the 800 or so patients they were processing when I brought the records back in). So she didn't know I was already aware of my diagnosis and called expecting to break the "your levels suck and you're miscarrying" news to an unsuspecting patient. Instead she got me saying "right, okay ,and now what do we do". Took a second to clear up with her that I'm not a heartless shrew, just that I've known this for 9 days and am past (or numb to) the shock portion of grief. I go back early Thursday morning for another blood draw, which will give us more information to decide whether to proceed with this wait and see craziness, or to do the surgery. For now, I'm thankful to feel that I have a competent medical staff handling my case and I'm no longer fully responsible for overseeing my own diagnosis and medical care. So relieved about this......
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