The theme of this post, not dissimilar to the theme of this blog overall, is that I am a walking disaster.
Monday evening I found out that I had been exempted from the last of my finals, thanks to carrying an A average all semester. Meaning, I have straight A’s for the semester and didn’t even need to take 2 out of 4 of my finals. Feeling righteously proud of myself, I took all of Tuesday off from life and planted myself in front of bad television for six fabulous hours. When Pnut came home from work I treated myself to a virgin bloody mary, extra spicy. The bloody mary mix came from my mother, who I later found out retrieved it from her office while they were cleaning out the supply closet. Thanks, mom.
Fast forward to three in the morning, and many trips to the bathroom later. Then fast forward to seven in the morning where I am drinking water and simultaneously watching it leave my body from the other end. At this point, I started to get seriously worried for baby… I’ve had food poisoning in India and survived at least two days in a row of this kind of nastiness, but I’m not five inches tall. So we call the midwife’s emergency number, and the emergency doctor on the other end of the phone tells me I have a 24 hour flu, to take some immodium, drink some water and stay hydrated. Thanks, JACKASS. Would be great if any of that stuff stayed inside for more than ten seconds. So we head directly to the midwife’s office. The doctor there (my midwife is out of town) takes one look at my dry, cracked lips and the bag full of vomit I’m holding and sends me to the ER, thankfully just down the street. There I spend the rest of the day with an IV full of fluids and Zofran, capped off with a visit to the ultrasound doctor.
I admit it, me + doctor is inevitably a collision of egos. Here’s the thing - I respect a smart person, whether or not they hold an MD. But (big, huge but) holding an MD does not immediately gain my respect for you, nor does it mean you’re smarter than me, nor does it automatically mean you know more about medicine than I do. True story. So when the ultrasound doctor began her visit by not looking me in the eye, but by pulling up my hospital gown and telling me I shouldn’t be in her office because “this has nothing to do with the baby, you’re just vomiting, right?” she did not win my favor. Instead, she started me on a barrage of annoying and inane questions to which I already knew the answers, intended to assess her knowledge of actual medicine since her knowledge of human relations was obviously lacking. Her responses to my questions were less than adequate, and she covered up her lack of knowledge by acting like I had no right to ask her anything. Then, she informed me that I had a giant fibroid which was probably “what’s causing all the abdominal pain”. Thanks doc, OR it could be cramping from the explosive diarrhea I’ve had for the last 12 hours, you JACKASS. Also, if an expecting mother has been in the ER for over six hours, she probably needs a reassuring look at her baby regardless of whether or not you feel like it. And it’s what’s PAYING your bills, you JACKASS.
Pnut was a little embarrassed by my obnoxious interrogation of the doc. At least twice he whispered out of the corner of his mouth “topo, I thought you were feeling sick”. But I think he is secretly pleased when I pull this kind of shit - as soon as she left, he agreed she was an asshole.
The important part of the story is - baby is fine, and I figured out some cool shit on my own - like the reason I continue to appear not as if I’m carrying a baby, but as if I just ate five rolls of cookie dough for lunch: baby is sitting straight up and down in my belly.
Them’s the news, folks. Sorry for the long absence, but I’ve been busy working on those A’s and collecting enough medical knowledge to annoy smarter and smarter doctors down the line. My mum’s still convinced that this should all lead to an MD of my own. But really, wouldn’t it be cooler to be a nurse practitioner with a PhD so all the other JACKASSES have to call me doctor anyway?
P.S. My new favorite word is JACKASS.




