See, when you don’t fit in, you're forced to see the world from many different angles and points of view. You gain knowledge, life lessons from disparate people and places.
And those lessons, for better or worse, have shaped me.
“When I was doing my residency in New York, a patient came in 18 weeks pregnant and very, very sick. The only way to save her was to terminate the pregnancy. We were in a Catholic hospital … I vividly recall my director of obstetrics and the chairman arguing with the nuns. They said, “Well, the baby’s only 18 weeks, it’s going to die.” They felt very strongly that we could not do anything, but they would be okay with us transferring her to get care elsewhere. The director rode with the patient in the ambulance because he was afraid that she would have seizures. She was in her early 20s, and she already had a kid. That really got to me. How could we let this mom die and leave her child behind when we have the means to take care of her? I said to myself: “I never want my hands tied behind my back like that again.” I used to travel; these days I’m mostly in Georgia and I’m a backup physician in Alabama. In Alabama, my patients tend to be poor and young. The youngest was barely 12. She went to play with a classmate, and there were older boys over … When her guardians brought her in, I was reluctant to take care of her in an outpatient setting because we couldn’t sedate her. I went to the local hospital and said, “She’s just a baby. She’s suffered enough. Please, can we put her to sleep.” Everybody was onboard. Things have changed so much I don’t know if I would be able to get away with that now. The most frustrating thing for me, especially in the Southeast, is seeing so many women who are not empowered to take care of themselves. Especially women of color. You hear things like “I was told I’m too young for an IUD” when we know that’s not true. They need to know what their options are. I’m Haitian-American, and the part of me that is extremely cynical wants to say, Well, it’s because these are black women. But I really think it’s a matter of poverty. It just so happens that the face of poverty may be black. A few weeks ago, a woman came in for a medical abortion. As she was about to take the pill, she asked, “Do you think God hates me?” And I said, “No, he doesn’t hate you.” She said to me: “I tried so hard not to get pregnant. I told my boyfriend to use a condom, but he refused and forced himself on me.” If you overturn Roe v. Wade, what’s going to happen is we’ll go back to the way it was before. Every state for themselves. And best believe that the conservative states are going to try to outdo each other. Poor women will suffer. Poor women will die. There’s a generation of abortion providers who are more willing to be vocal about the impact of these different legislative measures. I tell my learners, “I don’t expect you to provide abortion care, but I want you to support your co-worker if they say, ‘Hey, we need a piece of legislation.’ I want you to stand behind us. But most importantly, I want you to be able to counsel and educate your patient in a way that respects her decision.” If I can train 500 providers who are compassionate and willing to respect and help their patients, I’ve done my job.”
I had to reblog this because it suddenly hit me on an emotional level that this woman, described in the first anecdote was laying in a hospital ICU dying while a half-dozen people a few hallways down argued about whether or not to save her life…..and in the end decided that while they personally would prefer to let her die, they were willing to compromise and simply not stand in the way of another hospital that would save her. Helpless and dying and not even aware that people were discussing whether or not your life was worth saving. I’ve been in the hospital and scared and not even in a true crisis, just happy that we have antibiotics and pain killers and, even afraid, confident that me not dying was the number 1 goal of the people there.
I feel like this is what happens when we talk about fetal personhood or whatever…..you could go to a hospital to because you were dying and the people there could choose to stand around debating the value of your only and precious life.
I’m going to love you. You don’t have to love me back. But I’m going to love you with my whole heart. And even if you break my heart, I will always wish the best for you. I’ll love you for me, not for you. Because love is a flower growing in my heart, and if my heart chooses to grow a blue flower for you, I will trust my heart. So I love you.
i’m not saying it’s gotten bad again but some days the ground threatens to open up and swallow me in and I almost let it. i’m not saying it’s gotten bad again but I don’t think I remember the last time I ate all three meals without feeling my insides twist onto themselves and threaten to leave. it’s not bad again because some days I can still laugh and mean it but I still come home to my chest bursting with all its empty. it’s not bad again because he makes me happy but when he’s not around I can’t exist on my own anymore. what i’m saying is that I can’t say it’s bad again because saying it makes it real, saying it makes all this hurt real.
I’m good at falling in
love with trees & flowers &
things that don’t belong to
me, we’ve been repeating
sentences, looking for
feelings in misplaced
punctuation - a series of
I love you’s caught on
lips in the turmoil of
catching a thriving season -
you remind me of smiles I
lost years ago - I just didn’t
know how much I missed
my name
