#medicallyfamous

2/9/21

On the Wednesday, after a couple of nights in hospital, my phone rang with a 'No Caller ID' number identified. I've come to know by now that, in my life, those phone calls are the hospital. I answered expecting it to be some baby-related department organising some scan or blood test or infection swab. Instead, I heard Eilish. My gynaecology oncology nurse.

The last time I saw Eilish I was bawling my eyes out having a pap smear while she held my hands. So when her first words to me on the phone were "don't cry," I couldn't really blame her. Eilish had been scanning blood work into my file and had seen that I'd been admitted to hospital. She was purely calling to check in. To say she was thinking of me.

On the Thursday, I sat in bed having my obs taken by the midwife when a man in scrubs walked through the door. Blue scrubs, head covered, mask on, I felt my brain flicking through the male doctors in my life. It certainly wasn't Doctor Swift (my IVF doctor from a private clinic in Pindarra) that I expected to see. Turns out he works at the Gold Coast hospital every second Thursday, had seen something pop up on his system about me being admitted to hospital and so he had decided to pop in. Now Dr Swift has never really been my 'reassuring' doctor. But today, he nonchalantly reminded me that babies born at 28 weeks spend 'a bit of time in the nursery' and 90% of them go on to be fine. 'A bit of time in the nursery' might be the understatement of the century but I bloody appreciated the sentiment.

So, I might not be famous. But in the medical circles of the Gold Coast, I just might be. And I can't help but feel overwhelming gratitude for the men and women who have cared for me, and continue to care for me despite no longer being directly under their jurisdiction.