Jeffrey Burke - Is This test?

 

 

It's a Friday afternoon. I pull my car up in front of my daughter's high school. It's important that I tell you that my daughter, Isabel, knows this story and gave me consent to share it with you tonight. She gets in the front seat, throws her backpack in back, crosses her arms, stares straight ahead and says, “I have a medical subject I need to discuss with you. So, we can do that now or we can do it later?” All right. In my head, now, I'm making a list of reasons a healthy 16-year-old girl will initiate a medical conversation in a confrontational tone. [audience laughter] “It's not a long list. You’re just making the same list.” [audience laughter]

 

There are lots of ways for her to start this conversation. She could say, “Dad, I need to talk to you about something.” No. “We can do that now or we can do it later?” I resent that she's making it into a test. So, if I pick now, obviously, now is the right answer, then it communicates to her that what she has to say is important to me. What she has to say is important to me, but she is being a little bully and I don't want to let her win. [audience laughter] I'm also guessing that this is possibly a female medical topic, and I don't want to talk about confrontational female medical topics, because I'm already uncomfortable. And now, I'm nervous that she's about to tell me she needs an abortion, she was attacked, she got some STD. I don't know what it is. Clearly, she's anticipating some negative response. But her mom left town a while ago, so she stuck with me and my meager command of women's health. [audience laughter]

 

I look at her, and I can see she's nervous too. She's scared, which is why she's starting the conversation this way. She's being direct, and being strong and taking control, which I admire. So, when she says, “I have a medical subject to discuss with you,” it's not a test of now or later, it's a test for her to find out whether I'm actually going to listen to her and whether I'm going to create safety. So, with superhuman self-restraint, I condense all my anxieties and worst-case scenarios into three syllables. “Now is fine.” [audience laughter] I'm getting an IUD. So, either you can make me a doctor's appointment, or I'll just go to Planned Parenthood. Okay. Well, it's easy to jump to conclusions now, so I do. [audience laughter]

 

She's becoming sexually active. She's evaluating contraception alternatives. There must be a boy. “Who's the boy?” She reads my mind. “And I'm not sexually active. It's because of my periods.” I didn't see that coming. No one preps single dads for how to have this conversation. We're not exactly how to talk to our daughters about female physiology, so we don't. We avoid the subject. Guys never just sit around and bullshit about periods. [audience laughter]

 

This conversation with my daughter is like a yoga pose for me. Like, emotionally, I'm a pretzel. She tells me the cramps are severe. They're excruciating. She watches the calendar in fear of the first day. She had to curl up on the floor at school once, which was embarrassing, and lots of messy and uncomfortable details. I do the math, and I figure out she's gone through this like 50 times already in our home where I live and I didn't know, not even once, because it's never discussed. 

 

She's done her own research on a hormonal IUD, which should make everything less severe, make her more comfortable, that's what she wants to do. I listen to every word. She is being honest, and vulnerable and brave. When she's done, I just say, “Okay, sweetheart, I understand.” And she says, “No, you don't. [audience laughter] You don't understand until you start bleeding out of your genitals.” That's what she said. I say, “Of course, we can make a doctor's appointment.” The procedure goes fine. Everything's fine until about a week later, she calls me from school, crying on the phone. She's sobbing, “Dad, I think something's wrong with my IUD. Can you please come get me? It hurts so bad.” 

 

So, now, I'm racing to the school. I'm calling the doctor's office while I drive. I get there. A teacher has to help her into the car. She's bent over. She's crying. We get to the clinic. I help her across the parking lot. Halfway through the lobby, she can't make it. She doubles over. She's shaking, and crying and pulling my arm. I'm just standing here. I don't know what's wrong with her. I don't know how to help her. It's like an hour. She relaxes for a minute, maybe the pain is passing. 

 

The nurse comes out and takes her back. She comes out and says, “It's not the IUD. It's an ovarian cyst.” I don't know what that is. Right, I don't know what that is exactly. I know what ovaries are. I'm like, “Does she need surgery?” They just give her some drugs and send us home. Isabel falls asleep with her head against the window of the car. I look over at her, and I get it that when she shares these things, when she includes me like this, it's not a test. It feels like a test to me. But to her, it's not a test. It's an invitation.