My sister has worked the front desk of a urology clinic for six years.
She says most patients are embarrassed. But one woman last spring was different.
She came in on a Tuesday wearing a long-sleeved cardigan. The waiting room was almost 80 degrees.
On the form, in tiny, careful handwriting, she wrote:
Reason for visit: blood in urine, 2 weeks.
Two weeks. Most people come in after two days.
When the doctor called her back, she walked like every step had to be negotiated with her body.
He asked a few questions, then said what he always says.
“I'd like to examine you, just to see what's going on.”
She was shaking her head before he finished.
“No. I just need antibiotics. Please.”
He explained gently that he couldn't prescribe blindly. Blood and pain could be an infection. Or it could be something that couldn't wait.
She went quiet.
She looked at the door, then the wall, anywhere but him.
Then she whispered,
“If you examine me, you'll see things I can't explain yet.”
He told her she didn't have to explain anything.
“Then don't look.”
“I can't treat what I haven't examined.”
She was out of her chair so fast the paper on the exam table tore. My sister heard it from the front desk.
At the door, she stopped with one hand on the frame.
“Please don't call my husband. Whatever happens. Please.”
She left her appointment card on the counter.
Her phone number was on it. Beside it, in the same tiny handwriting:
After 4. He's at work after 4…..