Happy not to be followed

At the oncologist/hematology office today to see what’s what with that life-threatening, miscarriage-inducing, blood-clotting disorder I have which the OB and maternal-fetal specialist kept going on about, there were several sad-looking older couples who avoided eye contact. And me, with Little Girl, a stroller, a backpack of toys, a sack of snacks, and a huge folder of all my many, many medical records. I think the doctor, who primarily works with cancer patients, was delighted to give someone easy, good news, with no follow-up visit required, and no tests of any sort necessary: as it turns out, I actually do not, in fact, have a life-threatening, miscarriage-inducing, blood-clotting disorder.

It was much ado about nothing, just a weird blip from all the scattershot testing they did when I had my infertility workup. FYI, if you have untreated PCOS, that can do funky things to your measurement of PAI-1, an enzyme or something that does something or other that, despite the diagram and the four explanations to me, as I hunched there squinting seriously at the doctor, I still cannot explain to you, but anyway is involved with blood-clotting. Now that my PCOS is under control with Metformin, my numbers are normal, my genotype was, evidently, always unalarming, and there is no problem. The other doctors clearly didn’t get it, but of course that’s why they referred me to a hematologist to begin with–blood is confusing. Even this doctor carried in his pocket a well-worn cheat sheet illustrating the processes involved.

Ah, it was such a rare pleasure to leave a doctor’s office feeling ship-shape and sound.

BFF

It’s not surprising that Husband and I have been testy with each other lately. It’s been a tumultuous few months and probably when things settle down and we see him more and he’s here to do things like fix the scanner and the bike seat there will be fewer irritated phone calls. But tonight’s big international telephone call fight was on an unexpected topic: are we or are we not best friends.

To me, your best friend is the person you complain about your husband to, not your actual husband. Yes, I mean, I guess we’re friends–I think he’s funny and I like to talk to him–but that’s just one small part of what we are to one another. “Best friend” is a little pat for the relationship we’ve created and negotiated over the last ten years. There’s certainly a lot more to us, though I guess friendship is a big one (somewhere with co-parents, co-planners, co-sex-havers, the like). Sheesh–top five relationship category wasn’t good enough for him? So I wouldn’t concede the point and insisted that best friend was not, and should not be, my job. But he hung up sad, and that makes me feel bad, and I guess I’m wondering: am I doing it wrong if he’s not my best friend? Am I a stubborn meanie for not just agreeing?