A Daughter's Daughter

A teenage girl's medical experience

I'm bleeding. It burns and my hands are covered. It feels like all my innards have been shredded, threatening to fall out. They said it'd get better with the antibiotics, said it wouldn't hurt so badly in a couple hours. But I'm bleeding a lot more and it definitely does not feel better.

There's a knock on the door. "Are you okay?" My mom's voice sounds as strained as I feel.

I think about lying, telling her i'm fine. When I look at the towel beneath me, I reply, "No, Mom, I'm not -" My voice cracks and tears drip into my hands, onto the towel. The color doesn't even dilute a little. "It's worse."

"Do you want to got to the ER?"

The trepidation in her tone pulls more emotion from me than my own fear and pain has; what I truly want is to tell her 'no, I'm fine, I'll be fine, it's all fine.' Croaking a little, I say, "I probably should." I look down at myself again then sigh. "Would you get me a new pair of pajama pants?"

She creaks away, the tears continue their race down my face -- thickening when i try to stand. it's like trying to pull my uterus out of my belly button. Before my feet are under me, I'm forced back to the floor -- not before I notice how thickly stained my towel is. The door knob turns, "I've got them, I can just push them through the crack and -" My mom starts to say heavily.

"I need your help." She pauses and I her her sniffle before she opens the door completely.

Though the look on her face simultaneously hurts and terrifies me, I know that I've been rationalizing this situation to make it seem better than it truly is. Or, maybe, the look of pained horror was born solely of seeing her beloved daughter in a towel soaked in blood. Regardless, she was a paramedic for as long as I've been alive -- it should be much harder to shock her. She hadn't looked like this when I broke my leg and the bone and blood had made an appearance.

We manage to get my pants on fairly easily, she didn't make me stand just yet. i can almost hear her mental assessment of me as we made the change; she watched my color, my forehead for sweat, and body for trembling or weakness. I'm surprised she didn't check my pulse too. I wonder what she see, I hope she hasn't called an ambulance because she doesn't think I need one, not out of maternal or professional pride.

Standing is the hard part, I'm shaking so hard on the last heave, she nearly topples. We steady ourselves on the counter. 'you'll be okay, Mira." My mom mutters, her face puffy and her eyes still watery. But her concentrated gaze is enough for me, my trembling lessens -- a little, at least.

"As long as I have you, I'll be okay." I say, my arm thrown over her shoulder.

When we pass the towel rack, she grabs another. Pausing, she wraps it around my waist while I rest in the door frame. My stomach is roiling, its feels like blood is running down my legs.

By the time we're to the car, I've had to fold the towel, blood like a morning glory bloom behind me. My mom looks almost as pale as i am. Her hand is clammy in mine, the other white-knuckles on the steering wheel. "The docto said everything would be okay." I can't help but to repeat, my disbelief that this could be happening being almost worse than the fact that it is and it hurts.

Mom doesn't say anything, just frowns deeper every time I say it. When we get to the hospital, she commands me to stay -- as if I could do anything else. I almost as her to ask for another towel or something, but i'm not quick enough at swallowing my embarrassment. When she comes back and I start to move, I see that I was right to think about it. I'm feeling a little dizzy now and we have to fold the towel again. I can't even wrap it around my waist anymore.

While she parks the truck, I register myself. They try to wheel me back before she comes back. I ask them to wait, but she's jogging through their doors when they begin telling me that I don't need her and they'll send her back to me when she does come inside again.

"Your pressure is very low," The nurse comments as she takes my vitals, "and your heart rate is very high. On a scale from one to ten, where would you rate your pain?"

"A nine." I gasp.

"Okay, I'm looking for a room now" She scrolls a little on her computer then makes a call from her cell, asking if room eleven is okay. "Let's go, sweetie," she says, turning to me.

Mom immediately moves behind me, taking control of the wheelchair. The hallways are like streams, people blurs of bright scrubs and pajamas. The sign under my room number says "EMERGENT" and now i can feel how quickly my heart is beating.

To move me, Mom and the nurse work together to stand and rotate me. Even the nurse seems to pale when she sees my towel. She leaves, making a call at the same time, returning shortly with some large, absorbent pads. "Your nurse will be Jake and he'll be right in."

The curtain screeches softly when she closes it. When I look at my mom, she's looking awkward. "Do you want help?"

Glancing at the gown , I fiddle with the edge of the bed's sheet. "It's okay, I should manage just fine. Why not go get something to drink?"

With a shrug, Mom slips through the curtain. I pull the gown from the end of the bed, noticing that the bleeding still has not slowed. The dizziness is getting worse, I hope I'm seen soon. Wriggling out of my clothes is harder than I'd anticipated -- my shirt particularly so. It made my head spin a little when I tugged the hem up and over my head.

By the time I've managed to get undressed enough and the gown is thrown over my body, my mom, the nurse, and the doctor come in. She's gnawing on her lip as she follows my providers in. Jake looks mildly at her. "Ma'am, would you mind stepping out for the examination?" She looks a question at me and I grimace.

"Sure." She shrugs, staring at her shoes. My heart breaks in the door when Jake closes it behind her.

"Hi Mira, I'm Dr. Rasmussen." He extends his hand to me as the nurse rounds the bed to the computer. I try to smile and shake his hand. The bloody pad beneath me keeps drawing my eye though. "Let me get you sheet o start with."

"Thank you." I tell him, surprised by how soft my voice seems.

The nurse takes the sheet from him and opens it, tossing it over my legs. "So," Dr. RAsmussen says, pulling a stool from the corner. "You don't seem to be doing very well, or is that too presumptuous to say?" I shake my head. "First of all, you seem to be bleeding a lot. Is this vaginal bleeding?" I nod. "Does it hurt?" Again, I nod. "Where?"

"My low abdomen, mostly in the middle." It hurts breath, to talk even more. "It's like period cramps only a lot worse."

"Okay, I'm going to press around and see if we can find the exact spots, okay?" I nod, trying not to hold my breath as I wait for him to do it. When he moves the sheet down to my hips, I keep one corner balled in my hand.

As he palpates, I try not to cry out. It all hurts, but when he presses just below my belly button, I do cry out. At the same moment, I can dimly hear him say, "She's got a prominent linea nigra," and Jake affirms.

"Okay, Mira, it's very important to me that you're honest with me -- have you had unprotected sex in the last three months?" The tears from his examination still rolling down my face, I nod. "When you went to urgent care, did they do a pregnancy test?"

"Yes, but they said it was negative."

Dr. Rasmussen and Jake exchange looks over my bed. "Sweetie --" Jake begins.

"You don't have to say it, I can guess." I sob, pulling the sheet up to my face. Part of me feels like screaming for my mom, to tell her what a fool she is for taking me to a religious zealot of a doctor, too nice to break the worst but most necessary news to me, too pompous to believe that telling I have VD would have any consequences other than abstinence. The other part wants me to cry out to her to tell her what a fool I've been.

"We're going to give you a unit or two of blood and some pain meds. Do you want your mom to know?"

"If it's not infection, which it obviously won't appear to be without antibiotics, could it be anything other than a miscarriage?"