I never wanted to be that kind of woman who lived according
to her menstrual cycle. You know who I mean, the one who won’t go swimming
because it’s that time of the month, the one who has to take a day off of work
because her Aunt Flo is visiting, the one who stays in bed and feels generally
cursed by Mother Nature. I wanted to be like the girls on the Tampax commercials,
with their hair blowing in the breeze as they water ski across the river, the ones
executing a perfect dive off a platform or racing a car faster than all of the men.
No period was going to slow them down.
Unfortunately, I am not a BASE jumper while on the rag. I
am, at forty four, finally having to accept the truth about my lady parts, that
they are out to get me. Ever since that first time, thirty two years ago, when
my panties blossomed red, I have had a less than happy relationship with my
uterus. From cramps in junior and high
school that were strong enough to make sitting in a desk impossible, to the
horrible head-crushing migraines that plagued my twenties, to my less than
ideal emergency C-sections in my thirties, to now, my reproductive system has
had it out for me. And finally, after many years of my putting up a good fight,
it’s winning.
Over the past few years, my menstrual cycle, which could
never in good faith be described as normal, has taken the unusual and extreme
to some new limits. I decided to mention how much worse the frequency and length of my periods is to my
gynecologist at my last annual exam. She told me that the next time my
periods came closer together than twenty days, I would need to call the office for an
ultrasound appointment. Sure, she tested my hormone levels and all that stuff,
to see if I am going through “the change,” but honestly, everything else seemed to be okay, except for the part when I never know when my period is going to show up or
how long it will last. My period is the worst house guest ever.
I downloaded this lovely app during the summer which keeps
track of your periods for you, the greatest app ever created. Men, I am sure,
don’t have to keep track of anything when they go to see a doctor, which is as
often as never anyway. Women, on the other hand, are lucky to not be asked the
date of their last period when checking out at the grocery store. You always
know you need to know, and somehow you never do, which is why I still think my
second daughter’s due date was more than a few weeks off. Anyway, with this
app, I now know just how irregular my periods are. Sometimes, it’s every twenty
five days. And sometimes, it’s fifteen days after the last. Considering it lasts over a week, that means some months I only get a week off. Government employees get more vacation time in a year than I spend not bleeding.
So I made my ultra sound appointment. I went to the doctor
and sat in an crowded waiting room filled with everyone from young beautiful first time
moms to way older women fighting their aging in a very ungraceful fashion. I
just sat there, waiting for my turn, trying to avoid staring at the other
patients, convinced that I had uterine fibroids and would need surgery, much
like my mother and grandmothers had. What do I know about menopause? No one in
my family’s history made it that far with a uterus.
The ultra sound technician called me back to the exam room
after a bit of a wait that I didn't mind because of the awesome people watching. She was a very friendly woman, and I was nervous, not so
much for the test itself as for what it might show, which meant that I was
incapable of using what little filter I had and would tell this woman everything. She
told me to step into the adjacent restroom to remove my jeans and underwear and
to empty my bladder, after which I was to return to the room and settle myself
on the exam table with my feet in the stirrups.
I walked back in the room after
the peeing and disrobing part and said, “It’s just like at home.” She gave me a look that said odd, so I had to
explain that I meant walking around without pants, you know, when you go home
and take your pants and bra off, except that I generally keep my panties on at
home, so really, it was nothing like that. I couldn't stop words from spilling out of my mouth.
She laughed politely and dimmed the lights. “Ah, creating
the mood,” I said. She put a protective latex cover on the transvaginal
ultrasound wand and then lubricated it before inserting it into my vagina. Let me translate that. She put a rubber on that thing, lubed it up real good, and tried to stab my cervix. It
was all I could do not to ask her to turn on the vibrator so at least one of us might enjoy it, but was it really
necessary for me to transfer my discomfort to this woman who was just doing her
job?
She moved the wand around a bit, not unlike you would do
with a stick inside a hula hoop, before saying to me, “Have you had an
ultrasound here before?”
“Why yes, I am a member of your frequent flyer program,” I
said. “Did we put an IUD in you or something recently?”
“Yeah, about a year ago. It wasn’t all that easy.” Which was
an understatement. It took two doctors over four attempts and one hour to do what
was supposed to be a simple ten minute IUD insertion. Afterwards, it took two nurses to clean
up me and the floor. After six unpleasant months, getting that IUD out was also an
ordeal. No wonder she remembered me. I was the one who fainted on the table.
Fuck waterboarding. If you want to torture someone, have trouble inserting an
IUD.
“I knew your uterus looked familiar!” she said all
excitedly.
“No one has ever said that to me before,” I told her.
“I don’t know faces,” she said, “but I never forget a
uterus.”
She took all the measurements of my lady parts, data that meant
something to her and my doctor, I am sure, before checking all around. She
located one ovary, but then said,” I can’t seem to get a good picture of the
other one.”
“Oh, that one likes to play hide and seek. No one can find
it,” I told her. I actually had a theory that I expelled it several years ago,
which is why I only get ovulation pain on the right side every other month.
“No, it’s there; it’s just hiding behind a gas bubble in
your intestine. See?” She indicated what looked like a tube sausage on the
monitor, which turned out, in fact, to be my bulging intestine. She pressed on it
a bit more with the transvaginal wand to make certain I knew what she meant,
down to the very core of my being.
“Oh, excuse me,” I said. “I’m gassy, and you can see it. How
embarrassing.” I was desperately trying to keep it all in. Talk about control. Thank you, Joseph Pilates.
She removed her wand from my love canal and said,” I don’t
see anything to be concerned about. No fibroids or anything. You look good to
go. Go tidy up and get your pants back on, and then you can wait for the doctor
down the hall.”
My gynecologist reviewed my chart, my ultrasound, and my
history with me as well as could be accomplished in under two minutes. “An
endometrial ablation is the next step. It’s simple, just five minutes in the
office, not even general anesthesia. Most women don’t even get periods anymore
after they have it done. And it’s perfect for someone like you, who just bleeds
too much and doesn’t want any more children but isn’t really going through
menopause yet.”
And so, I agreed. I fought the good fight, but I am ready to
not have to spend so much of my time planning around my period anymore. No
matter what I try to tell my daughters about how periods are a normal part of
life, I accept that I am lying. Periods do suck. And I am ready to not have one
anymore, especially if it means I can still have my own natural hormones. Sign
me up!
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