When Life Hands You Lymes #29

Happy Friday, Everyone! I had a delightful time hanging out with my sister and her family this week. We arrived home yesterday evening and I’m now at a weekend cousins-get-together. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up with a little bit of my writing/blogging world early this next week. 🙂 


Today I have the 29th segment of my fictional story, When Life Hands You Lymes to share with y’all. I decided to make up for the lack of writing posts this week (I barely got any writing done…) I would give y’all an extra-long segment. I hope you enjoy and as always, I would love to hear feedback! 


The doctors office. It wasn’t quite what I’d remembered from the last time I’d been there, but who knows how many years it had been. 

“Katie Emerson?” The lady behind the counter was wearing earrings, a purple nurse’s outfit and had tiny glasses with orange rims. She looked tired. 
Mom, Katie and I all stood up. 
“Is it alright with you if we go back together?” Mom asked. 
The nurse looked a little confused, but nodded. Mom is a note taker. She’ll take notes about any and everything and I can’t remember a time when she didn’t go to a doctor/dentist/optometrist with me, or at least call them up afterward and fill a page with her neat script. 
“Being in the medical profession is one of the most rewarding jobs I can think of.” Katie sat up on the examination table, legs crossed in a lady-like manner. If I were sitting that high up, I’d be swinging my legs back and forth like a kid. 
“Why’s that?” I made sure the sound was off on my phone and then slipped it into my pocket. There were at least three signs in the tiny room saying No cell phones allowed. Wow, they must really be serious about that rule. 
“Think of all the people doctors and nurses get to help. If I were a nurse I would want to go to some third-world country and help out in a clinic way out in the bush. I’ve been reading a blog written by a girl my age who’s been in Haiti for a year now. Her stories are amazing. I’m inspired by her.” 
For some reason, I was not expecting that from Katie. Before either of us could say anything else, the doctor came in. Since Katie was on the table, he made the practical decision to start with her. 
Dr. Burritt is professional and yet friendly at the same time. It didn’t take him long to finish up with Katie and give her a clean bill of health. Mom said I should go next, so I hopped up on the table. 
“How have you been feeling recently, Madalyn?” Dr. Burritt began with tapping my knees and then poking me in several different areas. 
“I’ve been well. We’re just here because I want to join a fitness program.” I shrug. 
“That’s not entirely the case.” Katie jumped in like a mamma bear. “She’s also been tired recently and we can’t figure out why.” 
“Deep breath in and then out.” Dr. Burritt holds his scope thingy on my back and listens for a minute. “Tired? As in what?” He asks when he’s done. 
“Oh, I just feel like sleeping more than usual.” I give another shrug. “I think it’s from all this heat.” 
“Another deep breath in and out.” Dr. Burritt places his scope on my chest. “So, nothing really to complain of?” He asks again when he’s done listening. Reaching up, he feels my neck, then stops. Then he feels it again. “How tired did you say you’ve been?” 
I wish he would take his fingers off my neck. I feel like I’m about to be choked. “I don’t know.” I can’t think with his fingers there. It’s freaking me out. 
“Madalyn, do you know what your thyroid is?” Finally he removes his hands and looks at me, arms crossed. 
“Um, no.” I know I must have learned about it in school some time, but right now I’m pulling up a blank. 
“It’s what controls your energy.” Dr. Burritt jabs a finger on my neck. “And they’re located about right here.” 
I nod. Ok, I can don’t really need his fingers there to let me know. 
“I can feel yours. I can feel it a lot.” 
“Ok?” Suddenly I was wishing he would just get to his point and stop trying to explain it to me. 
“I think we’d better get it checked out.” 
“Why?” 
“Because if you’ve been tried, then maybe your thyroid is out of whack and if we can get you on some medicine then your thyroid will get back into shape and you won’t be so tired any more.” 
Now that was my kind of lingo. 
We finished the examination, then I was sent out to get my blood drawn while he did Mom’s check up. 
“Madalyn Emerson?” A nurse wearing a cute red poke-a-dots scrubs smiled at me when I walked into the little closet-like room they had pointed out to me. I would hate to have to spend my entire day in that size of a room, poking people and pulling out their life-fluid to send off in little tubes. 
“That’s me.” 
“I’m Andrea.” The nurse gestured toward a chair. “Why don’t you sit down. Have you ever gotten your blood drawn before?” She snapped plastic gloves onto her hands.
“Not that I can remember.” 
Andrea took a little swabie thing and wiped off the inside of my left arm. “Well, you’re not going to feel much, just a little poke. You might want to look away though.” 
“Ok?” This did not sound like fun. 
Andrea tied a elastic band around my arm, a couple of inches up from my elbow. “I need you to make your hand into a fist, alright?” 
I did. 
And then she got out the needle. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. As I watched, she glanced down at the paper I had handed to her and then swung her brown ponytail out of the way and then she stuck the needle in my arm. It was like a gyre of blood that shot to the top of the tube and all of a sudden the red poke-a-dots on her scrubs didn’t look so cute.   
“Are you ok?” Andrea must have heard me gasp. 
“Yeah. Fine. Totally fine.” Or not. 
She pulled on one side of the elastic she had wrapped around my arm and it came off and the blood began filling the tube faster. “You can open up your hand now.” 
A minute later she was done and a piece of cotton and bandaid was on my arm. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” 
“Pain level? No.” I shivered. “Creepy level? I’d be thankful to never have that happen to me again.” 
Andrea gave a little laugh. “Just think, you’ll be able to figure out what’s going on with your thyroid now. That will be worth it, right?” She took a pen and wrote a few things on the tube then dropped it into a red box that was sitting on the counter. 
“Good point.” 
“Are you done, Madalyn?” Katie stuck her head in the open doorway. 
“Yep.” I stood up and right away got a little queasy. 
Reaching out, Andrea put her hand on my shoulder. “You ok?” 
“Fine. Totally fine.” Maybe a stretch, but really, who needs a drama queen? Especially around Katie. Not a wise choice. 

7 thoughts on “When Life Hands You Lymes #29”

  5. Helena says:
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    So the character may be completely fictional, but I WAS THERE WITH YOU WHEN THAT REALLY HAPPENED. Yeah, I remember that and all those details, spot on and very engaging. So how much like Katie am I really? honestly?

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  6. Aidyl Ewoh says:
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    Ahem. I'm not sure you're supposed to realize that Katie might be a little bit of you… 🙂 Alright, let me put it this way: Katie is going to be more and more different from you as time goes on. Madalyn needs someone who isn't totally understand and (spoiler!) I'm thinking Katie might just have to be that person. Since you've been like one of the most understanding people ever, that means that Katie won't even be able to compare to you. Then of course, she might learn some lessons and remind me of you again… 😉

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