Fine, yes, I’ll stick it below the fold for all you babies.
Sorry babies with an RSS reader. You’d better just hope your eyes don’t skip too far down before you finish reading these sentences that tell you we’re about to deal with <quietvoice>girly stuff</quietvoice>.
Anyway, so I have to admit that I have not been to the gynecologist since my horrid, horrid experience back ages ago. And that when this doctor came in to talk to me and asked me when the last time I’d been was, I started cryng, which surprised even me, and so I had to tell her the story. And afterwards, she was like “Would you like some tea?” Which made me love her a little bit.
Anyway, so yes, there are grosser things than having to go to the gynecologist when you’re “menstruating” (if you can call six weeks of on and off bleeding anything other than bleeding), but that was the grossest thing I’ve had to do in a while.
So, I explained my whole deal, first to the nurse and then to the doctor, and then I just had to take off everything below the waste, lay on a big pad like you put down for tiny dogs you don’t bother to house train, and stick my feet in the stirrups. She stuck the speculum in, which, to me, has never been that uncomfortable. For those of you who’ve never felt one, it’s a little like having two spoons put in your mouth and then pulled apart enough to stretch the sides. That’s an imperfect analogy, but that gives you the idea.
Then she took some swabs, which I didn’t feel at all. And then she reached up there with a couple of fingers and felt my uterus and ovaries. It didn’t hurt when she pushed on the one on the left, but when she moved her fingers away again, holy shit.
Then they took blood from my arm, which took like two seconds. The differences between folks who take blood all the time and folks who don’t, in terms of the terribleness of the experience is just night and day. This chick was just tie off, stick in, pull vials, done. Also, here’s a handy tip. Soak that tape they put on your arm (or any Band-aid) in a little hydrogen peroxide before you pull it off and that loosens the glue right up so it’s not nearly as painful to pull off. You’re welcome.
Then, we went to lunch. And I had to come back for an ultrasound. The ultrasound technician was awesome. She explained every single step and asked me if I wanted to insert the want myself (I said no) and then she made sure I could see everything on the screen and she pointed out to me my uterus and my ovaries, which was very cool.
Again, if you haven’t had this done–and I know a lot of this just depends a great deal on the size and cooperativeness of you cooter (with my cooter being all “do whatever you want to me, if it will make this madness stop” which I was glad about. I love my cooter and I like when we’re in agreement.)–if they’re going to do a vaginal ultrasound, they have a wand with a slight knob on the end, and they slip a condom over it, lube it up, and put it in your vagina. It doesn’t hurt, though I had some real pain when she was pointing it at my left ovary and taking measurements and such. You, presumably, would not, unless your left ovary was also staging some kind of rebellion.
Anyway, so as I said yesterday, the doctor said it sounded like a textbook case of ovarian torsion (if I’m spelling that right). But the sonogram technician said the ovary is back where it should be and getting blood, so if it did twist, it untwisted. And that that doesn’t explain the ongoing bleeding. I should find out more about all that today, after the tests.
The main things that the doctor is concerned about are whether I’m anemic after all the blood-letting, what my hormone levels are like, what’s causing the bleeding and what’s causing the pain.
I also am concerned about those things, obviously, but America, everyone at the office there was so awesome. Over the past year, I’ve spent more time in and out of doctors’ offices than I have in my whole life, and I have done it all over at St. Thomas, and I just want to say that my experience with everyone over there has been so uniformly positive. I feel so lucky.
And, I just want to take a moment to get a little PSA-y on you. Here I am, a grown-ass woman who runs around the world talking about her cooter, making crochet objects in honor of her cooter, and basically just proud to have her cooter. And I, too, was embarrassed and freaked out about engaging in good cooter maintanance, and I, too, was so freaked out by my terrible treatment at the hands of one asshole that I didn’t go, rather than face that. I’m just saying, anyone can get freaked out about this stuff. There’s no shame in that.
But there are good doctors out there who will not only examine you, but they will respond to you as a human being. And you deserve that in a doctor.
End of PSA.
Filed under: Stories About Me
B, I’m so glad you had a good experience, and doubly glad that you shared it with your readers as a reminder that “you deserve that in a doctor.”
I have neither a general practitiioner nor an OB/GYN and haven’t been in a doctor’s office in seven years. This is stupidity on my part, but whenever I feel like I might need to go to the doctor, I have my husband give me the “talk” that doctors give fat women regardless of their problem: “Lower your cholesterol, lose weight, exercise more, it’s all your fault…” and save myself time and money. Fortunately, my ailments to this point have been transitory.
Do I have bad attitude? Yes, I guess I do. What sealed it for me is sitting miserably slumped on a doctor’s table hacking my head off with whooping cough and having a doctor badgering me about scheduling a fast so that I could get an accurate cholesterol measurement. Not a good time, doc. One of these things is not like the other.
Although not nearly as bad, it becomes exasperating very quickly when you are a bit overweight and have the nerve to have better vital signs and statistics than the entire staff at your doctor’s office, and they have the complete lack of self-control to be ASTONISHED by this and express said astonishment without the slightest bit of tact. I’m supposed to be riddled with disease as judgment for not being adequately skinny.
You can’t very well go round telling people there is a 100% chance of [insert terrible disease here] when you have someone consistently flouting that.
And the point of this comment? That it is sloppy and irresponsible for those in the medical profession to not listen to what the patient is saying both with her mouth and her examination/test results.
I’m so glad you have a good experience with this doctor.
Jane & Bridgett, you bring up a good point, and something that also makes me loathe to go to the doctor, which is that they have their biases–as all people do–but are in a position to really damage people when they act on those biases.
Yayyy for good coochie care. It makes a big difference. Just for the record, I get much better care at the hands of the nurse practitioner midwives at the local birth and women’s health center than I received from any of my OBGYNs. It feels like a small betrayal to admit, since all my aunts and grandmas are/were OB nurses.
~ cheers, whistles, runs around in circles joyously like a small dog ~
E-me if you have additional questions, darling. Been here, done this, wore the t-shirt that ties up the back.
So happy for your happier-ness!
Hope it all turns out okay. I’ve gotten weird whenever they ask about the wand. Somehow it seems obscene for me to insert it myself. Or maybe that’s just me. I’ve had lots of visits like this, and worse, but usually something good comes out of them eventually.
I am cracking up at the lack of dudes so far in the comments. Usually they are quick on the draw here.
p.s. i hope you are ok
Just adding my well-wishes, as someone who has had to put on her big-girl panties (pun intended) and go to too many gynos too many times for too many problems. None as bad as yours, though, which makes my empathy all the stronger.