“These doctors know what they’re doing.”
I sucked in a deep breath through my teeth. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.” I slowly turned in his direction. He wasn’t smiling and he wasn’t frowning, but even in the dim light of the parking garage, his eyes shined like the Northern Lights.
“Of course I’m right. Now let’s get this shit over with so we can do something better than hang around a doctor’s office.” John unlocked both our doors and hopped out.
Before I could even unbuckle my seat belt, he had the passenger side door open and was staring at me. He was really getting into the whole ‘knight in shining armor’ thing. “You coming or what? I could take your place, but I’m sure the doctor would have a lot of questions.”
I rolled my eyes, unbuckled my seat belt, and hopped out of the car. How he could be so upbeat about all of this was beyond me. I guess since he wasn’t the one that got the call about having cancer. He didn’t have anything to worry about.
He shut the door behind me and put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to his warm body. He smelled like he was fresh out of the shower and almost made me forget that I was going to the doctor. Almost.
We walked through a long tunnel that connected the parking garage to the larger hospital and stretched over the street below. People drove their cars underneath it and went about their daily business as usual while I felt like I was taking the longest walk of my life even though Dr.Rodriguez’ door was right at the end.
I stared at the large brown door with a few different doctors’ names written next to it. Behind each of their names were a bunch of letters, and I had no idea what they meant, but hopefully that meant more degrees or that they knew what the hell they were doing.
John finally opened the door for me and I walked in with him close behind. The office didn’t look like the sterile, fluorescent doctor’s office that I was used to. The walls were painted a dark green color with a few sections of maroon stripes running through it. All the furniture was a maroon color, with some real couches facing a TV and a set of bookshelves filled with children’s’ books. On the walls were pictures of pregnant women and some of newborn children all styled like they were oil paintings in gold frames. I might have thought I was in the wrong place if it wasn’t for the table full of pamphlets about menopause and all of the pregnant women sitting around and reading Parents magazine. A few women looked up as we entered. They probably thought I was pregnant with John’s love child and were examining my finger for a ring. If only that were the case.
I slowly took the last few steps until I was at a glass window. A bubbly blonde in a pair of black scrubs sat behind it, staring at a computer. She slid the window open once her bright green eyes flitted to mine. “Hi, how can I help you?” Her voice was sugary sweet, like she hadn’t been dealing with hormonal women all day.
“Hi, I’m Melanie Wilder and I have a 12:30 appointment with Dr. Rodriguez.”
She looked at the computer screen, typing a few keys, before she nodded and picked up a tablet with a big orange case and stylus pen dangling off the side of it by a short string. “Okay Melanie.” She handed me the tablet. “I have you all set. We need you to fill out your information on here and bring it up to the desk when you’re done. If you don’t get it finished before you get called back then you can just hand it to the nurse.”
“Okay, thanks.” I nodded before she closed the window.
John was staring at a magazine rack on the wall. “You’d think they’d have a Sports Illustrated or something.”
“John. This is an OB. It’s mostly women.”
“Dudes come with their women to the OB. Obviously. I’m here with you.”
He followed me to one of the couches where we sat across from a very pregnant woman thumbing through some tabloid magazine. She was pretending not to listen, but her eyes flitted to us instead of the page.
“John,” I whispered. “Do you realize that when you say things like that, people might think we’re here for a different reason?”
“What? Like that you’re carrying my love child?” he said, loud enough that the lady across from us didn’t even pretend that she wasn’t staring.
“John!” I hiss-whispered.
He grinned, putting his baseball cap backwards. “I’m just giving you shit, Red. I have to do something to see that gorgeous smile make an appearance.”
I looked at the tablet in my hands, feeling like my face was about one hundred degrees. The guy had a way of making me blush, even when we were sitting in the middle of the doctor’s office.
He quickly pulled out his phone and was busy tapping on that while I filled out the extremely long health care history form. I didn’t even known the health history of my dad’s family and I wasn’t about to call that train wreck up, so I just guessed on most of it.
A door directly to my left opened. A short nurse in black scrubs stood with her dark hair in a loose ponytail. “Melanie Wilder?”
I stood up a little too quickly, practically jumping. “That’s me.”
“Great. Follow me.” She smiled and swapped her folder from one hand to the other.
“Do you want me to come with?”
I looked over to John. His eyes were wide and I couldn’t read what was behind them. If he actually wanted to come or if he was just being nice.
“If you want your husband to come back with you, that’s fine.” The nurse said, the smile still plastered on her face.
“Oh no he’s not—”
John stopped me before I could finish my sentence. “It’s cool. I’ll wait out here. Let me know how it goes.” He took my hand and squeezed it gently.
I swallowed hard and felt like every girl in the room was staring at me. Which they probably were and wondering how I got to go in ahead of them. I gently squeezed John’s hand back before I followed the nurse into the next room where she shut the door behind us. It wasn’t as much of a room, but more of a corridor. Directly in front of us was a big nurse’s station in which different scrub-clad women sat behind computers. To my left was a scale that sat opposite a bathroom and in front of me was a long hallway, painted the same green as the waiting area with more pictures of pregnant women, and tons of open doors in each direction.
“I can take that tablet from you, if you’re done,” the nurse said and I handed her the orange, clunky tablet.
“If you could just step on the scale here. I’ll get your height and weight and then we’ll go to a room,” the nurse said in an uber perky voice. Why was everyone so cheerful? They were in a place that stared at lady bits all day. No way would I be that happy.
After stepping on the scale and getting measured, (heavier than I thought and shorter, not a great combo) I followed the nurse into one of the many open doors. The walls were maroon and an exam table sat in the middle with a small chair, some magazines, oh yeah—and a nice little replica of a woman’s vagina sat on a shelf directly in front of me. How was I supposed to concentrate on anything when I had a vagina staring at me?
“Okay.” The nurse closed the door and sat on a wheeled stool. I pried my eyes away from the shelf and took a seat on the exam table. “It looks like you’re here with a referral from Central’s Student Health Services because of moderate dysplasia they found on a pap smear?” She didn’t even look up from the folder she was reading.
I shrugged. “That’s what they tell me.”
She closed the folder and looked at me, hard. Her eyes were like two giant brown marbles. “Did the doctor from Student Health Services explain what that means?”
“Um, she just kind of told me that they were cancerous cells and to come see Dr. Rodriguez.”
The nurse gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Well, good to see they educated you on that.” She then pulled a pamphlet out from the rack behind her and handed it to me. It was magenta colored with four different stock photos of women of different ages and races and in big text it read, ‘The link between Cervical Cancer and HPV’.
“Ohhh kay.”
“That should give you some more information about HPV and I’m sure that Dr. Rodriguez will discuss more about it with you. It happens to a lot of women your age. I’m not sure the exact statistic, but I’ve seen so many girls walk in here with the same thing. Most of them do only have mild dysplasia, but I’m sure that Dr. Rodriguez will be able to discuss a plan with you and help you with the next steps.”
