love your blood

On Wednesday, 8 days after the miscarriage, I was on bed rest on the couch. I had been losing an alarming amount of blood every day for the past week but during a visit with extended family the loss increased.
 We were having a nice visit. We laughed, shared stories and looked at photo's. All the while I was wondering if I might be in true danger but not willing to mention it to them if they didn't press me.  I was waiting for them to ask if everything was alright with my healing from the miscarriage or even to inquire if there was a reason that I stayed on the couch the entire visit. They were surprisingly non curious.
When they left, I hurried to get Zion to his therapy appointment. I would have cancelled it, if it were any other appointment, but this was a chance to help him learn to attach to others. Life without relationship is not worth living, so I took him. Ironically, I was the one that was in real danger of losing my future.
On the way over I felt that my life force was my blood and it was leaving my body in intermittent yet frequent rushes. I felt protective about my blood. I wanted to grasp it back to me and hold it jealously to myself. "no", I felt like crying, "don't go!". By the time we got there, I was praying out loud in whispering cries, "God preserve me".
Not surprisingly, if you understood Zion as well as I do, he appeared to not notice that anything was wrong and he never asked. I dried my tears and went up those stairs. "What was I doing going up those stairs?", I thought.
They were like a passage to death leaving the last glimpse of sunlight behind me, and yet I kept going, like I was in a trance.
I was between earth and heaven and I won't feel that again probably until the day I die. I don't want to forget what it felt like.
The secretary said, "How are you?", I said, "good".
I tried to hurry the appointment along so I could get back down those stairs. I kept finding chances to go into the bathroom for more bundles of paper towels. Finally out in the car, I started driving and called Leon. "I have to get to Dr. Sisco as soon as possible, can you call him?". We both knew that he would have gone home by now and I didn't want to die stuck in traffic over there. So, I just drove home,.. fast. I repeatedly prayed, "Lord preserve me".
I knew that if I left my children and Leon this way, it would be my fault for not going to the hospital sooner. Why hadn't I gone?... I'm not sure. I think that I thought I was invincible.
I didn't want to leave my family. Thoughts of the wonders of heaven were not drawing me.
When I got home, Leon was already out watching for me. I stood up and felt my blood run down my leg and tickle my foot. I lifted my pant leg and sighed. It felt like my body was giving up and just letting my precious, beautiful blood go away. I was afraid and crying.
Leon said, "Oh God,.. I'll take you to the hospital". He ran in to tell the children what to do. Mckennaugh put her hands on my shoulders and prayed for peace. The anxiety left and peace filled me. I stayed peaceful throughout the rest of the time.
I lay in the back of the car and talked dreamily about the beauty of the trees going by. I joked with the doctors. They kept asking me how I felt and I kept answering, "oh, I feel reeaally good!" I felt like someone had slipped me a happy pill. Just a little one, not quite enough. I wasn't very happy about having a good looking, young man come in and introduce himself as the doctor who was going to do a pelvic exam.
I thought I would die of shame. Then Leon, always full of quiet strength for me, said a few words that only I heard and gave me that look that convinced me that it was going to be alright.
They were able to find the problem and fix it. They said that I had lost almost half of my blood.
For 8 days I had been going in and out of businesses, talking to friends and family about relatively unimportant stuff while behind my eyes there was a reasonable fear that maybe I was in trouble.

It makes me wonder if there are people near me that are bleeding to death (perhaps figuratively) and not telling anyone. Yes, it is their responsibility to be honest and get help. But it is my responsibility to care when I ask, "how are you?".
I think that I have changed in many ways from this experience. I pray that it is a lasting change.