Monthly Archives: July 2023

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Cord stories

I would tell my pregnant patients not to let anyone tell them a really difficult delivery story until after their own delivery. “Blame me,” I would say. “Tell them your doctor says you can’t listen right now.” So if you are pregnant, read this after the baby arrives.

Umbilical cords can be scary.

I delivered babies as part of Family Practice for 19 years. I was good or lucky or both. I still saw scary umbilical cords. Cords with a true knot, where the baby has managed to tie a knot moving around. More than one of those, not tightened down. Cords with two blood vessels instead of three, which can be associated with birth defects or genetic abnormalities, but not always. Cords with an abnormal insertion. I was waiting for the placenta once, with the baby in mom’s happy arms. One puts “gentle traction” on the cord to tell when the placenta is ready. I felt like the cord tore a little. I promptly call the ob-gyn. He arrives and tears the cord off. He then gives mom some “forget this” medicine and very gently gets the placenta with a ring forceps. The cord had a velamentous insertion on the placenta. This means that instead of going all the way to the placenta and diving in and spreading, the three vessels separated a few inches from the placenta. Not very well attached and I had torn one of the three vessels. Mom and baby did fine and I was glad I had called the ob-gyn. One of the scariest umbilical cords was normal but wrapped four times around that baby’s neck. Luckily I had called the ob-gyn, she agreed something was off and mom agreed to a casaerean section. Whew.

Most umbilical cords are not scary and most deliveries are wonderful. I loved holding new babies and saying hello and welcome.

The photograph is my son, about four hours old.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: umbilical.

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Meeting

I took pictures of this cutie out my back window. I got my Canon and cracked the back door. Sol Duc ran right out! But, mother deer is paying close attention.

Mother is nearly on my back porch and Sol Duc reverses direction very quickly and climbs.

An interaction between four sentient beings, though I stay in the house. I am photographing through a grubby window so as not to spook anyone else. Sol Duc immediately pretends nonchalance.

Mother deer is satisfied.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: sentient.

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Love tale

An older couple comes to me in clinic. She is losing her memory, they explain. They are looking for a doctor who will respect her wishes. Once she goes in the nursing home, no intervention. No antibiotics, no shots, no iv, no hospital.

Yes, I say.

It is about a year before she goes in to the nursing home. I do my regular visits.

After a number of years I happen to meet her husband in the hall. “She is talking about her twenties.” he says. “She lived in an apartment and ran errands for her uncles. I am hearing all sorts of stories I never heard! I go home and type them and send them to the family.”

“That is wonderful,” I say. He visits daily.

I go on to her room. She says, “That man comes to see me. He says he’s my husband. I don’t remember, but he is such a nice man!” I think she falls in love with him again daily. He visits and is where she is in her memory.

Some time later the nursing home calls me. “She has a fever of 101 and has not eaten for two days.” I go visit and call her husband. “Should I do anything?”

“No! She’d kill me!”

“Ok. She might die.”

“I know.”

She doesn’t die. The fever comes down and she gets out of bed and is thirsty.

There is a year between my years at the hospital and setting up my private clinic. We send out postcards, trying not to send them to anyone who has died.

Her husband comes to the clinic opening. “She died last year,” he says.

“I am so sorry! We tried not to send postcards if people had died!”

“It’s ok,” he says, “I wanted to come and thank you.”

He dies about a year after she does. I hope they are together again.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: true love.