My Comforting Advice

"I was raped, I haven't left the house since I got back from the hospital till the police came and got me," the young dark-skinned woman sitting in front of me explained in an irritated tone as if being forced to spell out something obvious beyond the need for explanation.
"So, you didn't get these prescriptions filled or take any of the medicine the ER told you to?" I asked, looking at the ER report and written prescriptions she had brought along on her arrest for bad checks.
"No," she answered, "I mean, I was just raped, after I was raped I went home. I didn't shower or anything for three days. then I went to the hospital and went home again. Now I'm here." I read over the carbon-copy ER report. The words "rape," "Trichomonas," and "possible Pelvic Inflammatory Disease," were written across the top. In the problem list the word "pregnant," was circled. Instructions were written to take two antibiotics for 14 days each.
"How long have you been pregnant?" I asked. She shrugged.
"I'm not too far along, but don't even get into that prenatal stuff, I'm going to get an abortion when I get out," she said, crossing her arms over her stomach, as if barring my access.
"OK," I said, "The sheet here says you have a vaginal infection, Trichomonas, did you notice any vaginal discharge or odor before you were raped?" I asked, holding the ER report in my left hand and flicking my right index finger into the center of the paper. I suspected she'd had Trich for awhile and not noticed. She shook her head "no."
"How about now?" I asked. She shook her head again. As I started to take her vitals I noticed she was missing her left index finger at the second knuckle.

"I didn't go to the hospital at first because I thought 'who would believe me?' because of where I work. But then I thought, 'what if he does this to someone else?' Then I knew I had to go in." she said as I started taking her blood pressure. I wasn't sure where she worked, but I was pretty sure it wasn't the Wal-Mart photo center. "How did the police treat you when they interviewed you?" I asked.
"The police were great," she replied. "The asked me lots of questions, they seemed very concerned, and they told me they'd look into it. They've been the only ones I've really been able to talk to about it."
"Well, that's good," I replied, "It's good that they listened to you," I added, not wanting to imply it was good she hadn't talked to anyone about it other than the cops as I started listening to her stomach and palpating her abdomen. "Anything hurt?" I asked. She shook her head again. "I am going to call the nurse practitioner for you, and we'll figure out what we need to do about your meds." I told her, making eye contact and smiling before writting some notes on the progress sheet.
"I'm only here for five days," she said.
"Don't worry, you'll start your meds here, then we will give you some to take home," I explained.
"So, I'm done?" she asked, getting up.
"Yes, I think they're going to house you down here because you are here for such a short period of time," I replied.

I called the nurse practitioner who told me to wait on meds till she could examine her the next day. When I arrived the next evening the woman with the missing index finger was housed in medical.
"I feel like I'm going crazy in here, I have nobody to talk to, you're the last person I was really able to talk to," she told me when I came around to get her vitals.
"What about your family?" I asked as I strapped the automatic blood-pressure cuff to her arm and pushed "start."
"They don't have collect calls on their phones. My mom, I called her from the hospital and said 'Mom, I'm at the hospital,' and all she said was 'I'm at work.' My sister has a newborn and a two-year-old, and she's starting back to work," she said.
"So she's pretty much out of commission," I said as I cut her off by pushing a thermometer towards her mouth.
"Those are the only people I really have," she continued after I removed the thermometer. "I feel like if I was in the housing unit I could talk to some people. Up here, I know you all are trying to help and all, but up here all I have to think about is the rape, I see it over and over again. I feel like I'm going crazy."
"It's here or Intake," I said, writting her vitals down on my index card. "You aren't here long enough to get classified into the housing unit."
"And I'm not here long enough to see Mental Health or a counselor or anything, right?" she asked.
"Well, I can try to refer you," I said. "What about reading?" I asked, nodding my head to some books on her cinderblock shelf.
"Normally I read all the time, but now, when I read, I feel like my head is going to explode," she said, looking up at me for a solution.
"Look, you're sort of in between," I said, "You aren't really here long enough to get classified and placed in the housing unit and get started with mental health, but you are here long enough for it to really suck." She nodded her head "yes." I had appraised her situation correctly.
"I just don't know if I can make it," she said. I could see tears accumulating along the lower edge of her eyelids.
"You are making it, you are doing it, minute to minute, right now." I told her. "That's all you have to do for the next two days is make it. Then you'll have more control over your life again. You can make choices again."
"I am going to do some things differently when I get out," she agreed.
"I know you have a lot going on," I said.
"A lot," she echoed me.
"All I can tell you for now is that sometimes life is really terrible and you just have to grind through it till you are in a better place. The one thing you can count on is that things will change, you will get out." I said, gathering up my equipment and preparing to secure her door. I realized I had just given her a stripped-down dharma lesson: sometimes life just sucks, the First Noble Truth, and things are going to change, the Law of Impermanence. Other nurses might have told her the Jesus loves her or that God had a plan for her. I had my own message. I thought about my own recent break-up and sleepless nights, my own anxieties about living alone, exiled from my previous life. I looked at her for a moment, to let her connect the sadness within me, stepping out from around the white labcoat for a second and allowing her to see I knew what the hell I was talking about.
"Thanks," she said, I could see gratitude in her eyes before I headed to the next cell.