A plug for our healthcare provider
On Saturday morning I noticed my vision start to go blurry, which for most normal people would feel a bit disconcerting, and even more so when you recently went though a very expensive lasik procedure so this sort of thing wouldn't happen. Also, when you're pregnant everything can be a symptom of imminent death. So I called our midwife Rebecca and left a long message which contained the sentiments Sorry to bother you... blurry vision... I may just be going crazy.... but internet says I'm dying.
Rebecca promptly called me back and asked me a series of bizarre questions: Are your ankles swollen? Do you have a headache? Do you have pain anywhere else? "Well," I replied, "I'm pregnant, so you'll have to be more specific as to what magnitude of swelling/headache/pain concerns you."
Even though I assuaged her fears on the secondary symptoms front, she still insisted on coming over that afternoon to evaluate me. Hours later she was here at our door, blood-pressure monitor in hand, to make sure I wasn't showing signs of pre-eclampsia, which is pregnancy code for HOLY F-ING SHIT. Luckily, a two-minute screen of my blood-pressure and pee confirmed that everything is fine. Boy, then didn't I feel stupid. Like, um, sorry to make you drive all the way out here when I've just got a bout of lazy eye. Apparently I no longer manufacture enough blood oxygen to power a baby incubator and read at the same time.
As bad as I felt socially about the whole situation, it sure does beat a saturday afternoon in the ER getting simple symptoms checked out, which is what I would have had to do in a managed care situation. If that's not a plug for midwifery, I don't know what is!