What felt like buckets of blood poured out of her body as she clutched her lower abdomen and raced to the bathroom in the early hours of the weekday morning. She spun around before shoving open the bathroom door and saw the trail of black tar behind her.
The moment she flicked on the bathroom light she became overwhelmed with fear. The pain was torturous, comparable to a knife stabbing her repeatedly and from the looks of her surroundings one might have guessed someone had been slaughtered. She was petrified.
She was a fairly young woman, who hadn’t even passed her 30th birthday, but was old enough to have heard similar stories from her mother and aunts, and most certainly some of her closest girlfriends.
This was only one of two things, something had ruptured and she was bleeding to death, or she was having a miscarriage. The latter was incredibly unlikely and to a point, unfathomable.
Without much thought to anything beyond the moment she grabbed the phone and dialed the person who lived closest to her. With nothing more than hyperventilation to offer as a hello she managed to tell the story and shortly thereafter he arrived.
He saw the massive amounts of blood and did what any man would do, he drove 110mph to the nearest hospital cursing and honking at any “idiot” doing the speed limit during this state of emergency. By the time she arrived at the hospital her blood pressure was sky high, 141/98, she could feel the blood trickling past her Kotex maxi-pad down her inner thighs and she couldn’t stop crying.
The receptionist verified her personal information, mailing address and mother as her emergency contact and right then he stepped forward.
“I’m her emergency contact in this town, put down my number.” She heard him begin, but the sound of her mother’s name had struck a chord, she suddenly began to feel weak and sat down.
Less than 12 hours before she’d gone for a relaxing massage, but not just any massage she’d gone for Ashiatsu; a Japanese form of massage where they hang from a bar and utilize their feet so they can apply more pressure, her favorite, a special treat.
As she lay on the massage bed listening to the calming music she allowed her mind to relax and wander to the future, which was primarily surrounded the simplistic thought of having a nice relationship with a good guy and success with her upcoming business venture. She had spent the hour and a half focusing on the concept of not allowing space in her body or her mind for what she knew deep down didn’t feel right and realized it was an issue of putting her energy toward the most positive places, going after what she wanted and not wasting time settling for anything less.
And now she was bleeding to death…and from the worst place imaginable.
All she could think about was the scene from the movie RobinHood Prince of Thieves where the woman died giving birth. Things like this happened.
He asked her permission to join rather than wait in the lobby and followed her as they escorted her to the private ER room. She reached for the white hospital gown the nurse handed her and waited until the nurse left. She looked up from her feet when she heard him clear his throat then he spun around to provide her privacy while she changed.
As she stripped her clothes off she could see that the blood was chunky clots now, and the effort of standing was excruciating. As she lay down on the bed he scooted his chair closer to her and wrapped his fingers in hers.
“Listen,” he whispered. “If you were going to die, this room would be full of hospital staff.” Which was not very comforting and she was pretty sure he said it out loud simply to convince himself.
He paused and she bit her lip, a poor attempt at holding back her tears.
“You’re going to be okay, everything is going to be fine.” He finished.
Within seconds the room began to fill with hospital staff and she began to sob. They attempted to calm her as they began the blood draws and set her up with the IV.
She glanced around the room through blurry red eyes and said, “He said that unless this room was full of people I probably wouldn’t die…and now you’re all here.”
The nurses began rambling sentences that were probably logical but her mind was too busy imagining the worst and visualizing the blood draw as she felt herself experience the moment before fainting where your lips become numb and your shoulders tingle. She had warned them she might pass out.
Suddenly she felt him tap her foot. She looked up to see him creating a turkey balloon out of an extra large purple latex glove. He was reaching for a pen to put eyes on it.
“All set, one more vial and you’re done,” offered the nurse.
A female doctor arrived shortly after and explained the first procedure; after hearing the description he excused himself from the room but not before throwing an overly dramatic glance at the doctor’s butt, which made her giggle.
The IV was digging into her inner arm the way a dozer scoops clay from the earth and she began to panic when the doctor began to lay out the scenarios.
“You have a lot of blood loss, and there’s any number of things that it could be, so we rule them out one by one,” the doctor began while snapping on the rubbery smelling gloves. “I’ll tell you the three most likely. The first is a miscarriage.”
“Can’t be.” she interjected confidently. Unless there was an immaculate conception and she was born again Virgin Mary; she’d just finished her cycle and had been to the GYN for the annual female appointment weeks before and got the a-ok on all fronts relating to female health.
“Likely we can rule that out then, the second however is an Ectopic pregnancy, which typically aborts itself between eight and twelve weeks, women even have periods and pregnancy tests can appear negative,” the doctor continued while opening cabinets to find the proper tools for examination.
She suddenly burst into tears; the thought was more than she could bear. In the last twelve weeks she’d ended the relationship, gained closure, moved on entirely and indulged in the joys of the holidays, including wine, liquor and incredibly unhealthy foods.
The room began to spin as she attempted to visualize a calendar on the ceiling. The math was difficult to comprehend amongst the emotion but she knew the likeliness was still near to none given her precautionary measures.
“The last and most likely is an ovarian cyst burst, in this case would be one the size of a lemon. Which, even still, assuming has no complications means you go home today. If there is a complication, or if it’s an Ectopic pregnancy, you will likely need surgery, you may or may not need a hysterectomy,” finished the doctor.
The word hit her like a freight train. Her mother, her aunt and her grandmother had all had hysterectomies due to complications from ovarian cysts. Right then she realized, she was about to lose a life, or could lose the option to ever create one.
From behind the bright light in between her knees the doctor began to speak again, “There is a lot of clotting here, it’s going to be a bit painful, I just need to move some of this out of the way.”
There was extreme agony, and then there was a long pause, her body continued to throb and clench from the depths of her insides.
“Ok, we definitely have a very, very large cyst. I’m going to take a sample of this for testing.” The doctor slid the chair back away from the bed.
“And?” she probed.
“And from the looks of it, you have an incredibly high tolerance for pain. You rated it a 3 and moments of 7…this is what most people report as a 10.” The doctor stepped toward the door.
She had figured a 10 would be equivalent to getting your leg sawed off or actually being knifed, neither of which she’d ever experienced but figured was 10-worthy.
He walked in as the doctor walked out and she could not contain herself. The fear of loss was overwhelming. He sat silently and let her cry for a moment, not much more. He offered some words of support and encouragement and then he started using the turkey balloon to cheer her up. He made more creative animals and tied various knots, he tucked it under his shirt, and he waddled around like a duck. She began to laugh so loud she had to cover her mouth.
During the course of a few hours she was wheeled in and wheeled out for various tests and what seemed like experiments in human torture.
She kept her eyes on him and recognized looks of sadness, moments of concern and thoughts of ‘what if’ as hospital staff appeared and disappeared. If it was an Ectopic pregnancy, he knew it was his.
“Let’s see…” he said looking around the room. “What else is in here that I can play with?” With that he grabbed tongue depressors, baby delivery kits and various other items and began to make her laugh. For seconds in between minutes of anguish that had her keeling over at the waist clutching her gut he made her smile.
In this moment she realized that while this man wasn’t for her, this man was the type of man she wanted in her life. That in any case, this man would be a great father. He told her stories where he’d broken a bone or needed stitches as a reckless child and made up logical uses for all the equipment in the room. He told her he was studying everything in the event there was a major emergency and the hospital was short staffed and he needed to jump in. She realized that if this had been his child, in this emergency, he’d be sitting in the hospital room acting the same way.
A radiologist arrived and began to wheel her bed out of the room down the hall.
“Would you like him to come along?” The radiologist asked.
“Yes.” she nodded.
He grabbed her purse and followed the gurney down the hall.
“We’re going to do an internal and external ultrasound. Have you ever had one before?” the radiologist asked.
“No.” she stated slightly scared. “What does it show?”
“It will show us if there is an unborn child in your body, or if you have ruptured your uterus or any part of your ovaries or fallopian tubes,” the radiologist replied.
He lifted up the hospital gown and put the warm Vaseline across her flat, yet incredibly sore lower stomach. As he began to move the paddle around she felt the tears begin to fall one by one. She’d seen this in movies. This is the part when a happy couple finds out the sex of their child.
She looked over at him and he mouthed, “Are you okay?” Silently she nodded no. He stuck his fingers in his ears crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out. But the tears continued to roll down her cheeks.
“Please don’t cry,” he said as he stepped closer to the radiologist and squinted at the screen attempting to make sense of the black and white imagery.
Suddenly everything in life seemed unimportant, and by now, though she was still bleeding heavily she knew she wasn’t going to die. But it wasn’t about dying, it wasn’t about her, it was about life and a future with someone. Preferably someone who makes turkeys out of latex gloves and squints at the ultrasound screen pretending to know the difference between a uterus and a bladder; because those were character qualities of a guy who would stand with her in the face of fear.
The doctor came back after what felt like 2 decades had passed.
“Well, it’s not a pregnancy of any kind, and it never was. After reviewing the blood work, biopsies and ultrasounds we can confirm it was a large ovarian cyst that exploded. You may be sore, bloated and even bleed for the next few days. Women can get these once in their lifetime and never again, they can go their whole life and never get one, or they can begin to get many, which will lead to complications.”
“So, this means I get to keep my ovaries, and there were no children in any of my fallopian tubes?” she questioned.
“Absolutely correct, I’ll have the nurse discharge you, with a prescription for pain. Take it easy for awhile; follow up with your regular doctor in a few days.” The doctor left the room.
As soon as the door closed, he jumped off the chair and began to dance around shaking his butt up and down and side to side while lifting up his shirt slightly to expose his rear and sang, “I told you! I told you… I’m always RIIIIGHHHT.”
As she lay on the bed listening to the completely unnerving sound of his ‘neener neener’ theme song she allowed her mind to relax and wander to the future. She knew that the fear of loss had changed her. While her hopes were the same, her thoughts were not. It wasn’t a matter of settling, it was about waiting for the moment when it was exactly what she wanted, when it felt right…the happy movie moment and nothing less.