I had no intentions of sitting down and writing a post over the weekend. UNTIL an unsolicited USPS piece of mail....
Last edited Sun Apr 20, 2025, 01:48 PM - Edit history (1)
...... arrived. For the better part of four years in the nineteen sixties. I was a USAF Surgical Technician. It was a job I loved. On more than one occasion in those four years, I was called to scrub in for an emergency OBGYN procedure. What follows are my feelings from being there. And knowing exactly why it was an emergency. I guess the Easter weekend is as good a time as any to express my long-held beliefs. I was there.
When Duty Calls
In that space, no one celebrates. No one mourns. Not yet. There is only focus, urgency, and the sacred duty of presence.
We were a team — young, trained, steady. We weren’t there to grant life or to pronounce death. We were there to stand in the middle, to ensure that when life had already passed in the womb, it would not also be taken from the mother who still breathed.
In those rooms — and there were many — we never cried. We couldn’t. There was always another life to consider. The one we could still save.
We didn’t witness the first flicker of life. That was God’s.
We didn’t see the last spark fade. That too, was God's.
But we were there to ensure that no one else took God’s place. Not an accident. Not a delay. Not the absence of care. Not ignorance. And certainly not a politician with no understanding of what happens when a mother’s womb holds death.
Each time we stepped into that room, we held to one sacred truth:
If you believe God plays a part in life and death, then He plays all the parts.
And if you do not, then it is still our duty to act with the best knowledge, the best training, and the best judgment we have — for the life that remains.
We gave mothers the chance to live and try again. That was the only miracle left to deliver.
So to those Senators & Representatives who speak loudly without ever having stood in that place: You were not there. You did not see. You did not save.
And you do not get to decide.
Let it be known: No legislator, no matter how righteous they claim to be, should ever come between a woman and her doctor in that room.
Because we were there, and we remember.
Addendum: Ectopic Pregnancy — A Reality Too Many Ignore
A ruptured ectopic pregnancy is a medical emergency. When it occurs, tissue is expelled into the abdominal cavity. If caught before rupture, the surgical intervention is simpler and far safer for the mother. But when it is ignored — as is tragically happening more and more across the country due to restrictive laws enacted to "prevent abortions" — the consequences are devastating.
A rupture brings with it massive internal bleeding, necrotic tissue, and the ever-looming threat of sepsis. To reduce the risk of infection, the entire abdominal cavity must be irrigated, often more than once. This extends the hospital stay and increases the risk of complications.
To the person who once said, "You might have saved my life," know this: the team who acted swiftly in your case did exactly what they were trained to do — without hesitation, and without needing to ask permission from a lawyer or a lawmaker.
It’s time we let doctors and trained medical teams do their jobs — before more lives are lost to delay, ignorance, and political posturing.
When Duty Calls — a team’s sacred stand between one death and the saving of a life.
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… to stand there.
Thank you for sharing with us by writing this post. What you wrote is beautiful, it is philosophy, at its core it is poetry.
I'm so glad you survived and are able to share your story.
Thank you usaf-vet!
Enormously moving, and of course, right on.
. . . I am humbly grateful to you, usaf-vet, for your eloquent way of putting words together with so much sensitivity, gentle kindness, and poignancy.
Soon after my precious baby Nicole Marie died, my marriage broke up. So, as a 31-year-old single mom of four, I wanted to know why my seemingly healthy baby died two days after her birth, with no explanation from the hospital staff. With absolutely zero high-school academic background, and working full time, I enrolled in nursing school — never expecting to be accepted. But I desperately wanted answers. I wanted know the real reason Nicole died.
I learned, all right. And it wasn’t pretty.
Since then, I went on to get a PhD in healthcare education and psychology, as well as attend law school. I started my own business and two nonprofits, doing public speaking, advocacy and activist work — and legislative candidate. On behalf of Nicole. I like to think someone I touched may be a little bit better off for my painful ordeal and follow-up efforts.
Now I use those many experiences to write medical-legal fiction thrillers, where I create images with words and produce characters from both the real-life good guys and especially the villains (with names changed to protect the guilty).
And that works for me.
Again, thank you, usaf-vet, for your inspirational wisdom.
🦋 wordstroken
Thank you for taking care of women when we were at our weakest. The blessing in a broken heart.
