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Show 53 The x-ray technician is squeezing cold gel from a tube onto my right leg, pressing and sliding and smoothing it over the leg with the ultrasound wand. After a silent minute of this pressing, watching the screen, she leaves the room. I recognize Dr. Washington when he comes into the room because he is a neighbor. He is also a radiologist. He is now guiding the tech in her placement of the wand, both of them watching the monitor. "That's good, thank you," he tells her and she puts down the wand. "You've got a very extensive blood clot in your leg," he is saying to me. "Your whole leg, from your ankle to your groin, is involved and we need to get some blood thinner in you before it goes anywhere else." He is referring to my lungs, I am surmising. He is already pushing the intercom button, asking to be connected to the nurses' station on an upstairs floor. He is admitting me. Hy is upset to be losing me so soon and I am upset that I will have to be confined to a hospital room and away from my family for any length of time yet again. We do not share our separate and combined losses with each other. It is too much to swallow our own feelings, each of us alone, and there is no room to be able to also swallow the other's. No one has taught us how to |