I lie on my left side. The sonographer rests her elbow on my right hip bone. From this pivot, her handheld transducer explores beneath my right ribcage, seeking spots on my liver, spotted fortuitously, incompletely by a CT scan that sought a source for pain on my left side. I don’t remember anyone using my hip as a pivot before: I am helping her, so she may care for me. Five days later, my child lies on one side, angry and frustrated. I sit on the edge of the couch, alongside, rub my child’s back— and notice, surprised: my elbow pivots on my child’s hip bone, so my hand may arc between shoulder blades. How often does my care pivot on a hip? How many times, forgotten, has another’s care pivoted on mine? As an elementary schooler, when I lay on my side on the living room floor in pain, watching late-night movies, my ear upturned, filled with drops to treat infection therein, did my mother, there, awake with me, rub my back, my hip the pivot for her care?
A footnote: The imaging appointments described above revealed nothing scary on either side of my body, thankfully.