Surgery

I hurt my knee shoveling about a month ago. I went into my doctor and he sent me to an orthopedic sturgeon and ordered digital x-rays for me. Doctor Laing gave me a cortisone shot, ordered an MRI and sent me on my way. Let me tell you, I'm no baby and I have a pretty high threshold for pain, but that shot was the worst pain I've ever felt. I woke up during extraction surgery and I thought that was the worst pain I'd ever have, but I was WRONG!

Anyway, today, I went back to Dr. Laing and he gave me the news -- I have torn cartilage and it needs to be repaired. That means that on Friday, I have to submit myself to surgery. Yes, I know it's Friday the 13th, but I'm hoping for the best.

Before you can have surgery (and you're a woman of childbearing years), one of the tests they do is a pregnancy test. Strictly speaking, I think this is normally okay, except -- I can't have children. It would be some amazing miracle if my pregnancy test turned up positive. Normally, when I'm asked by a doctor, nurse or x-ray technician if I'm pregnant, I make a joke, like "Only if a star is rising in the East." This usually gets a laugh and my file is marked no. But, today, today, being told that they ordered a pregnancy test -- when my file should say I can't have children -- just reduced me to absolute tears.

I don't want my insurance company to have to pay for a test that isn't necessary, but more than that, I don't want to hear the results. The pain of that last phone call when they told me that I wasn't pregnant was the worst experience of my life. Somehow, I just feel that if they do this test, I'd have to live with that pain all over again and, quite frankly, I just couldn't do it again. Doesn't my doctor get that? Doesn't he realize that a part of me died the day I discovered I couldn't have children?

After I finished my crying jag -- I got to thinking, why isn't my file marked? Cannot bear children - no pregnancy test needed. A woman is in childbearing years for a long time and I really don't want to have pregnancy tests for every surgery for the next ten or more years. I can't believe I'm the only infertile woman who has had to go through this. Do we all cry?

When I mentioned to Cheryl that it would be a miracle that I would be pregnant, she said, "Yeah, but wouldn't that be some miracle?"

I wonder if miracles do still happen. Maybe, I should take the test to see if one has happened.

God Bless