Tina sat on her fmaily doctor’s clean white bed, waiting for her to come. Tina had made an apointment after tumbling a few days ago. She told Bette she was just feeling tired but that wasn’t all…at night her jaw and legs hurt. An old familiar fear of anything medical grew in her belly. It reminded her of waiting alone for Bette all those years ago, finding out she miscarried, and still Bette not coming. Tina shook her head trying to shake the thoughts out. The swing of the door brought her to all senses. Dr. Jafari was a slim petite Egyptian woman in her early forties. Very soft spoken, beautful with a wonderful tendency to go pass the usual ten minutes just to listen and answer any questions. Tina often saw veiled women waiting in the waiting room, Reem Jafari had a repuatation as the most respected muslim family doctor. Angelica cetainly lked her, even though she complained like a banshee about hating doctors, Tina could tell she liked Jafari when she started making up symptoms just to get the doctor to touch her. Dr jafari knew this but also knew Angelica just liked the contact, she suspected either Angelica wasn’t getting the physical contact she need at home or her adolescent surliness prevented it.

 Dr jafari greeted her and while checking her paper and washing her hands asked about Bette and angelica. Dr Jafari was very respectful and all stererotypes about muslims had threw out the window when Tina first came to her. “im just feeling very tired all the time, and my leg and jaw keeps bugging me at night” Jafari turned around and gave her full attention..”elaborate please” ” well lately i have been very tired all the time like im dragging myself everywhere, and at night in bed my jaw and leg like bone pain, and i’ve lost a bit of weight” Dr Jafari nodded and started to check Tina’s tonsils her ears her heartbeat…the usual then she asked if she could see the sore areas. Tina stood still while Dr Jafari started to massage and feel the underside of her jaw…”it seems there is a bit of swelling on the underside here” then Jafari massaged and felt Tina’s leg, the affected part above her kneecap, Tina said it hurt only slightly..”a bit of swelling here too”. Jafari then quizzed the life out of Tina…had she puked lately, what kind of tiredness, dizziness, blah blah blah. when tina was putting her own clothes on, Jafari turned around making paperwork and pulling out a card…when tina was dressed Jafari turned around, she was always made sure not to look at changing patients, and gave Tina a card. “here is the number to the hospital radiololgy center, i want you to make an apointment to make x rays and  maybe an MRI…for precautions to see if there is anything seeable wrong” Tina took the card then looked up…”anything wrong like cancer?” Jafari sighed and touched Tina’s arm “im not going to lie to you tina your symptoms are common symptoms of some types of bone cancer, but it is probably just symptoms of extreme stress or a fever coming on, fever stricken people often have achey bones…this is just a precaution its important to know things to rule things out especially at your age”