D&C.
Such a simple sounding thing.
If it were C&D,
We might add it to our alphabet song.
Arrange soft & sauced alphagetti,
Or lettered sugar sweet breakfast,
But pasta nor cereal
Comes up or goes down
During a D&C.
The heartbeat was hard to find.
Clinic, emerge.
I thought I could find it –
Ultrasound usually does.
A quiver, confirmed by your doc,
Maybe it’s there?
Another U/S just down the hall.
“Anisarca”, the tech said.
As the patient and husband,
Waited in darkened room,
Tissue-less and worried.
It made me think of CSI:
The classic river scene.
13 weeks.
Doesn’t add to 17.
Reality and math uncorrelative,
But somehow add to demise.
We’re sorry.
The words clash with somber silence,
Like fetus inside.
With 4 weeks of questions.
Hovering in thick air.
Ultrasound equipment heat hums.
Next steps discussed –
We feel better in concrete.
Tomorrow is now: consult, hospital PJ’s, OR.
Quiet good mornings.
Anesthesia comforts.
In lithotomy, blood drips, tissue recovered.
That two lettered procedure,
Remove all of 13.
But maybe not all of 17.
My eye quivers, I sweat, step back
Find focus on green sheets, feet in air,
And finally sit.
Physiology meets reality,
Adrenaline reacts to tragedy.
As I sit, I think of gratitude:
I thank my body and mind,
For holding onto empathy,
And hope that hers does so too
Finding somehow after Propofol,
Comfort, patience and hope.