Doctor Visit

So...Elizabeth has been on the mend and finally today she seemed a little more her smiley self by nightfall.

And we did have our doctor visit. This was a visit that was already scheduled to review lots of tests Elizabeth had to take owing to the fact that we know virtually nothing about her genetic background and also to verify if all of the medical information in her orphanage medical report was accurate. I got to the doctor's office my normal state of panic whenever I am waiting to receive any kind of medical test results.

I sat in the waiting room with Elizabeth and had a pit in my stomach afraid that some of the tests would reveal something dire (yeah, I know I am neurotic). As we waited I watched the nurse and receptionist to see if they had a look of "oh I feel sorry for her"...or if they were smiley or serious when they were talking to me. I was somewhat relieved to see them smiley and playing with Elizabeth as if nothing was wrong.

The Doctor called us in and closed the door. With a large folder in his hand he said, "sit down we have a lot to talk about." Of course, at that point I nearly passed out. I remember thinking, it has to be bad news. If it is good news what is there to talk about?--you just say, "everything looks good".

So there he went test by test, result by result and he would say, "so this looks good, so this looks good,--every time he said that I wanted to say "so tell me which result is the one is the one that is going to scare the hell out of me?" But I resisted the urge and just hoped and prayed that all the tests would be fine. He finally got through the last result and said there was only one issue which was slightly under the norm but he wasn't concerned about it since her overall blood counts were quite good.. And also that a low blood count of that sort was very common in Asian populations. He may retest her in a few months to see if it is still low. When he finished, I said, "so , other than that all of her tests came back okay?" He said, "yes..everything looks okay and her immune system looks good."

I was almost surprised that he said everything was okay. I kept thinking he was going to pull something out of the file or say, "well we really need to worry about this or that." The only thing he said was to expect lots of changes in the next three months and that Elizabeth will soon be walking and starting to say a few words. WOW!


Walking out of the doctor's office I realized that my happiness was inexorably tied to Elizabeth's health and happiness. If she is happy, I am happy. If she is sick, I am sick. I guess that is what family is about isn't it? Of course I should add "family and friends"....as I have friends who are just as dear as family to me.

Elizabeth is sleeping now and I am going to try and curtail my natural tendencies to worry ..and also not to focus on all the zillions of things that there are to worry about!

What me worry?