The Pain of the Medical Procedure

I have a friend who is very ill, so I've been spending most of my non-work hours at the hospital. It's one of those things where you have to be there, but you aren't doing anything. The phrase "hurry up and wait" must have been invented for this situation. How can there be urgency and boredom at the same time?

But I promised her she wouldn't become blog fodder, and I have to keep that promise. It's just important for you to know the back story. I'm at the hospital and I'm stuck here for a bit, and with too little to do.

Now we're going to turn this story around to be ALL ABOUT ME. Now there's a surprise. Sigh. But I'm hoping there's something to be learned here. Cross your fingers.

I thought at the beginning of this marriage debacle that Dave had left me for another person. He'd found someone he loved more, I figured. That seems not to be quite the story. What seems to be true is that he left me for a series of no-strings-attached liaisons. I don't know how many there have been. Nor is the timing completely clear to me. But we were certainly still married, and with no talk of divorce, when the first one happened.

Gradually it dawned on me that I had had unprotected sex with a man who had multiple partners. I don't know how or if he protected himself and these other partners. But imagine the look of pitying disbelief if I had gone to a health care professional and said "My husband has recently been unfaithful, with at least one and probably more people. We haven't used protection in over 20 years, and he continued to have sex with me during that time. But I don't need to get tested for AIDS or other STDS; he would never jeopardize me like that."

But by not getting tested I was acting as though that was exactly what I believed. For crying out loud. So Sunday's "pull up your big girl pants and do the thing you have to do" task was to get tested. I was at the hospital anyway, sitting around doing nothing. The question that rattles around in my head all day every day -"what can you do to move yourself forward?"- had a simple answer. Roll up your sleeve and let the nice girl test your blood.

I don't have the results yet. I did learn that I have to get tested for three years. Who knew? And I sort of wish that insurance hadn't covered the cost of these tests. I would LOVE to send Dave the bill; it's only fair that he pay for them. And of course I'm very aware that a bill might come due that he can't pay. He was clearly willing to put his needs before my health.

Yet, I'm oddly not freaked out about waiting for the results. There's more on my mind than that, these days. Other people and processes have the prime "worry spot" in my brain right at the moment. But maybe I'm also not freaked out because I know I can handle the news, whatever it is.