A different perspective

I know I should have written this post 3 days ago, but I just wasn't feeling it.  When I leave a doctor's office I have to call Jacob, my mom, my dad, my sister, and my in-laws.  Of course there are always a few friends who text and want to know know what the results were.  All have good intententions, and I really don't mind, but after you explain the same thing over and over again, writing it out in a blog seems almost draining. 

But here is the general gist of what happened on Tuesday.

Georgia Cancer Specialists is up on the 6th floor, and they are they only ones up on the 6th floor.  Anyone going in the building knows what is on the 6th floor.  So when I, the obviously pregnant woman, gets in a crowded elevator and push 6 I got quite a few looks of sympathy.  I was able to ignore those.  I don't need/want strangers sympathy. 

When I got off the elevator and rounded the corner to the check in table, I heard a couple of squeals.  Two of the desk nurses ran over to hug and pat my belly.  I hadn't been to the office since Dec, which for me is a really long time.  No one there had seen me pregnant.  I guess I should explain that I am somewhat of a special case over there.  When Jacob and I moved to Atlanta, I was 24, and the youngest patient by almost 20 years back then.  Almost everyone knew who I was. I don't think I am the youngest anymore, but I have been going there for 4 years, on a very regular basis.  So not only had they not seen me in a while, I was pregnant, another occasion that doesn't happen often for many of the patients there. 

Everywhere I turned more and more nurses came out and hugged me, chatted, and I felt my fear slowly disappear.  I was here with "friends".  I was trying to explain the overall feeling in the office to a friend the other day.  Working in a cancer department, obviously for the majority of your time you will work with sad/disappointed/grumpy/ with the occasional upbeat people.  I think it must be a requirement for the nurses that they must be in a good mood everyday.  The overall feel of the office is upbeat, you hear a lot of laughing, and everyone jokes around with everyone. 

I had my blood taken, and then was taken back to Dr. Saleh's wing.  Dr. Ellen, and Dr. Saleh met me before I even made it into a room.  Big hugs all around.  They followed me into a room and we just started talking about what was going on.  Dr. Saleh did go on to explain that there are many reasons that my platelets are dropping.  It has to do with me still having my spleen, something we would have taken out prior to trying to get pregnant, whoops.... and my antibodies are the mono-cysts, apparently pregnant woman automatically produce more of those naturally.  So my body is creating the one thing that destroys my platelets.  Great.   Dr. Saleh decided that if I can keep my platelets above 50,000 we will not be taking any action.  If I go below 50 then we will look at steroids, and then we will go from there.  Dr. Saleh is a doctor that likes counts, and then the count will tell us what to do next.  I knew I was at 73,000 when I had the CBC taken at the baby doc.  Then there was a knock on the door.

The lab report was handed over.  My stomach dropped, and then I choose to hold my head up.  I was ready.  My new count was 62,000.  They went down.  Kinda drastically in a week.  But Dr. Ellen looked at me and said "You are over 50 so let's celebrate!"  A whole different perspective.  She was right. 

So for the rest of my pregnancy I will see the baby doc one week, and the blood doc the next.  Close monitoring, and taking it a week at a time.  On my way out I saw a few other nurses, and the hugs, and the belly pats did help change my attitude.  I have a healthy baby right now, I am pretty healthy right now.  And for all of that I am thankful.