ROUTINE

FICTION

Crying made her feel childlike, though it was clear to both women in the room that this was an adult’s problem.

“You aren’t the first person to cry in my office over a past experience with an IUD insertion,” said the doctor.

This could have been a dismissive comment, or even a cruel one, but the doctor did not mean it that way, and the patient did not take it that way.

“It feels silly,” said the patient.

“Would you say it was traumatic for you?”

It was a more honest question than the patient had been expecting. She brought the memory forward. The patient saw spots in her vision and felt a pressure behind her eyes as a consequence.

Moments passed as the patient contemplated the question. Then twenty seconds. Then one minute. Never had she considered that this could be something that someone called ‘traumatic’ – painful as it was. Once the answer had been decided, the patient strained to speak a response, afraid of crying more. A shallow breath.

“I guess so,” she said finally. “Yea.”

“I am sorry.”

What could she say to that?

“Thank you.” 

The women continued on, discussing alternate options. The top of the patient’s mask became wet with tears, which only embarrassed her further. “This is a routine, mundane part of life,” she thought to herself, picking the skin surrounding her fingernails.

It was very clear the doctor wanted to help.

At the end of the appointment, the patient signed her name in shaky handwriting onto the appropriate paperwork.

In the hospital bathroom mirror, the patient saw her swollen face for what it was. For a moment, she stared at the apparition in the mirror in wonder before becoming too overwhelmed by her own gaze to keep eye contact with the anxious figure. While washing her hands, a confident-looking woman in navy blue scrubs emerged from a stall to the patient’s right.

The patient’s pink eyes and wet cheeks transformed the pair’s polite half smiles into a moment more intimate than the patient was comfortable allowing. She dried her hands quickly and fled to her car, not without turning her face away from the middle-aged man at the front desk, despite her instinct to deliver a half-smile to him as well.