The doctors exchange some glances, scribble some more notes.
“Okay,” Dr. Emily says, nodding and smiling at me.
“So, can you remember, was there anything unusual that happened, health-wise, preceding this pain?” the younger doctor asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Like, had you been sick recently, before you noticed the pain starting? Had you been under a lot of stress?”
A nervous feeling settles in my stomach, and I recross my legs. I will not tell them, they cannot blame this on stress, on my being young, on my being female, on my being stupid.
“Well, I mean, before I left school I had a pretty bad flu or something.”
It was the day of my sophomore recital, I was so feverish I couldn’t function. A friend brought me Tylenol Cold, cough drops, nylons, helped me get dressed.
“And did you see a doctor for that?”
I shrug. “I mean, no. I had a fever, sore throat, swollen glands. It just seemed like a usual thing. Except it took forever to go away.”
“What do you mean by that?” asks Dr. Emily. This may be the first time I’ve revealed this detail to her, the weird flu that never ended.
“Just that, I mean, even after my throat wasn’t sore anymore, I still kind of felt like my glands were swollen all the time, and I kind of just always had a low-grade fever.”
Frowning, scribbling.
“And when did that start?”
May 14, 1990. Four days before I turned nineteen. A week before the end of school.
“I don’t remember,” I say. “Sometime around the end of the semester. Right before I went home.”
I will not tell them, I cannot tell them, about my not-boyfriend, about the games, about his cruelty, about the fight. About that night before I left for the summer. I trust Dr. Emily, but I can’t shake the suspicion that these doctors are here to doubt me, probe me, to dissect me, to take me apart until I am too small to feel anything else but pain anymore. To blame me. But I won’t confess. I will not be blamed. I will not reveal my secrets.
The doctors confer among themselves for a moment, and then Dr. Emily says, “Excuse us for a moment, please,” and they leave the room.
I bring my knees up to my chest and hug them to me. It feels good to move. My shins ache, my arms ache, and when I rest my head on my knees I have to fight the urge to sleep. But I close my eyes for a moment, feel my chest rise and fall with my breath.
Dr. Emily pokes her head in the door and comes back into the room, and I unwind myself back into a normal sitting position. “So, we’re going to get that blood draw today,” she says. Hands in her pockets. White coat floating around her, looking too large for her.
“Do you really think I’m sick?” I ask.
A look of surprise flits across her face, but then she is back to her Dr. Emily countenance, centered and friendly and professional.
“We’re all taking this seriously. Of course. You’re in good hands, don’t worry.”
I’m grateful for her reassurance. But mostly I’m glad.
I passed.
It is winter 1990 and no one knows what’s wrong with me.
Dr. Emily leans in to listen to my heart and her white coat falls open a little. Her dress is flowery, but still professional—she still seems like a doctor—and yet seeing it is startling. Proof of her humanity, her existence outside the exam room, outside the confines of her role as my doctor. She adjusts the stethoscope and moves a little closer to me, leaning even more, and I feel her belly brush my knee.
“Sorry,” she says, laughing a little, gesturing to her stomach. “I keep forgetting about this thing.”
I am confused for a moment, and then she stands back, her hands cradling her stomach in a suddenly familiar way, and I realize: She is pregnant. My shame is twofold: How have I not noticed this until now? And: How soon will she be leaving me, fleeing with relief from my case to care for her own, far-more-straightforward patient?
I stammer my way through the things I know people are supposed to say upon learning of someone’s pregnancy, the congratulations, the due date question, but my heart is racing, the blood rushing in my ears. In a few months, she will be gone, and then who will see me? Who will see the proof of my humanity?
Who will believe me?
She is talking, I realize, and so I do my best to stay present, pay attention somehow, even though it feels like she has opened up a chasm beneath the exam table and I am falling through the floor.
“. . . maternity leave, but as I said, that won’t start until mid-January. And don’t worry, I’ve been meeting with the whole team to make sure everyone’s on the same page. I actually presented you at grand rounds last week. You’re quite the conundrum. I also had a nice talk with the rheumatologist. He had a few thoughts about what might be going on with you, even though the blood work didn’t pan out. You’re still taking the medication he prescribed?”
“Yes,” I say, “though mostly all I can feel are side effects. It hasn’t helped with the pain or anything.” Drowsiness, as he predicted. And an added layer of fog during the daytime. A kind of numbness. But not enough.
“Hmm,” she says. “And by this point it really should be working, if it was going to work for you at all.”
I see a flash of his kindly face, a lurch of my stomach as I remember his words. My dear. It simply means we haven’t found the right medicine yet.
She sighs as she closes my file and sits back on the round rolling exam-room chair. “I’ll be honest. This is a
