My latest visit to the doctor was on Tuesday. Dan and I arrived, to a virtually empty waiting room and I did my usual pee in the jar test and went in with the nurse to the nurses station. The friendly, gray-haired nurse introduced herself and took my blood pressure, which was still very normal. She wrote a few thing on her clip board while we chatted and then asked me to step on the scale. As I was stepping up, I made the horrible mistake of clearing my throat.
"Oh, sweetie, do you have a cough?" I hear the concerned nurse ask.
"No, no, just a bit of allergies... I had a cold about a month ago, might be a lingering cough... ya know how that is," I laugh, thinking how sweet it is of her to be so concerned as I step up onto the scale.
Next thing I know, the nurse has hulked into some crazy anti swine flu monster and is breathing heavily down my neck.
"Well..." she grumbles, "Everyone with a cough has to wear this!!" She thrusts a surgeons mask into my hand and stands there with her arms crossed waiting for me to put it on. I sigh and meekly take it from her, slipping the thing over my ears and covering my nose with it before she returns to her former self.
Now, if you have ever had to wear one of those things, it's hot as hell and it makes you feel as if you are suffocating, which was only made worse by the fact that my lungs are squished up and I have a hard enough time breathing as it is.
Anyway, Nurse Hulk, weighs me and then marches me back into the waiting room like some freakish alien. "It'll be fine," I think, comforting myself, "No one was even in the waiting room except Dan." Of course, by now, that's all changed and the place is literally packed. I scamper over to Dan, with my head down, watching all the patients (most of them pregnant) shuffle away or make the wide circle around me. I whip off the mask as soon as the nurse disappears around the corner. I'm sure by now all the people in there are sanitizing their hands and holding their breath. I couldn't blame them, I would have done the same thing, I'm sure!
Now, I'm sitting there, waiting to be called into the dr.'s office and all I can think about is how much I have to cough, so I am gulping down water, but my throat is now burning and begging me to cough and clear it and I'm out of water... So, I slip the mask back on and manage the tiniest cough I can... Well, if you know how it is when you have an itch you refuse to scratch... It was like that, the tiny cough only made it worse. I sigh and hack out a big (and I'm sure, very swine flu like) sounding cough.
After what felt like hours, the nurse called me back into the dr.'s office and I began my walk of shame through the waiting room once again. Of course, as soon as I was in the office and the evil nurse had shut the door I took the mask off.
The doctor came in, this was our first meeting, he was very kind, probably late 40's with pierced ears and jeans... the type of doctor that isn't really "doctorly" but more like "hey want to go grab a beer after your kid is born?" type of doctor. I can imagine he was a hippy back in the day. He was cool and answered all my questions then told me to hop up on the table to listen to the heartbeat. I went to the door and called Dan in so he could hear it too.
Dr. McCarthy had me lay back and measured my belly, which he said was 15 (inches? cm? no idea) but he said it was perfect for 16 weeks. We listened to the heartbeat which sounded more like a woosh and was 144 beats a minute. Again, he said that was great and sat me up. He bid us farewell and sent us on our way.
On the way out, I kept the mask stuffed deep in my pocket, my hand gripping it tightly. We walked down the long hall and I prayed Nurse Hulk wouldn't see me on the way out. Thankfully, the waiting room was now filled with a new set of patients and, having already had set up all my future appointments, slipped quickly out the door to the safety of my own car! phew...
Your experience is really funny, I'm sure you had didn't think so at the time but I'm sitting here reading this and dying from laughter!!! Thanks for sharing!
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