Close but No Cigar

[Part three. This one is more graphic, and probably less funny. Surgery isn't really funny, so I don't know what you expect from me. Also, I need to apologize to those of you who thought my surgery was today. It was last week, and I am recovering quite well. Thank you for your concern.]

I tried to be optimistic, really I did. I felt confident in my doctor’s ability. I had back up help with my daughters if needed. The laundry was washed and dried and folded. The fridge was stocked with all the necessities. I was prepared to have a day or two of down time. I was ready to go.

The night before my surgery, I shoved one pill in my vagina and a melatonin in my mouth and slept well. I woke up in the morning, had a lovely shower, gave my legs a courtesy shave, put on comfortable clothing, and made the morning routine as close to normal as possible for my girls. After making their breakfast, I made my own and took my other pill orally. I slipped my other prescriptions, my vaginal morphine suppository and my Xanax, into my purse. We all got in the car to take the girls to school before heading over to the doctor’s office.

By the time we got there, whatever that cervix relaxer was had kicked in pretty good. I can’t vouch for how relaxed my cervix was, but the rest of me couldn’t walk a straight line. My husband signed in for me and then the nurse called us back to a waiting room. She handed me a cup for a urine sample and then told me to insert my suppository anally after I peed. I must have given her a baroo, complete with head tilt, because she explained that she knew the prescription was written for a vaginal suppository, but it’s not supposed to be.

I stepped into the bathroom and stood there for a few minutes trying to figure out what to accomplish first, the peeing in the cup or the shoving a suppository up my butt. I went for the pee, getting some of it in the plastic cup, the rest all over my hand. I put the container in the little cabinet marked “urine samples,” then flushed and washed my hands.

Next, I attempted to open the bottle containing the suppository. The bottle said to squeeze the sides to open the top, but hell if I could figure it out. I stood there squeezing and pulling and tugging, but it wouldn’t open. I stuck everything else back in my purse and stepped out of the restroom. No nurses were loitering in the hallway, so I wandered a bit until I found the lab and asked the woman who may or may not have been my nurse to open the bottle for me. She smiled and took the bottle, popping it open expertly before handing it back to me. “It’s kind of tricky, I know,” she said without a hint of condescension. I went back into the restroom and inserted the little waxy bullet in my ass, marveling at how easily it just slipped right in. I was still marveling about it when I sat back in the waiting room, next to my husband.

“It’s in there,” I whispered loudly. “I can feel it. Am I supposed to be able to feel it?”

“It has to get to body temperature to melt,” he told me.

“Gross,” I whispered back. "I have a candle wax bullet melting in my ass."

A different nurse came and collected me, and we passed by my doctor on the way to another room. I gave her a friendly little wave. We sat down and the nurse asked me to take out my medications, then expressed surprise at not seeing any pain medicine. I told her I already had ibuprofen and the cervix one and the other thing in my ass. Then I apologized for saying ass. She handed me a cup of water and instructed me to swallow my Xanax, then led me to an exam room, where she gave me an injection of something in my left butt cheek. I curled up on the paper on the exam table to rest because I really needed to rest. The nurse came back a little later and I asked her if I could put on some socks that I had brought from home, but I needed help finding them in my purse and then getting them on the right feet. My nurse was very patient. I didn’t feel quite as sleepy anymore, so I read the book I brought with me, only it was more like I read just one word over and over.

The nurse then led me to the surgical room. I removed my skirt and panties as she instructed me, then got on the table with my feet in the stirrups. She covered me up with a paper tablecloth and left me to pretend to read a bit more. After a few more minutes, my gynecologist came in with the nurse. She settled herself between my legs, turned on the monitor and a bright light. I thought how nice it would be if it weren’t so bright, but then she might not be able to see, and it would definitely make reading trickier. Still, she could do the same with a head lamp, which comes in handy while spelunking.

My doctor inserted a speculum, and then began giving me a series of shots in my cervix. You know how you go to the dentist for a filling and you get those shots in your gums and they are supposed to feel like a pinch but really feel like a hornet attack? Yeah, it was that. A hornet attack inside my forbidden zone. Satisfied, she stepped back out of the room to check her Facebook or something while she waited for me to get numb.

She came back in after some time and settled back between my thighs. This is where shit got real.  My doctor stuck something in my cervix; I think it was a dilator, or a series of graduated dilators. Each one was more uncomfortable than the last. Seriously, messing with a cervix is guaranteed to make you see stars with just the gentlest of contact. Ramming it repeatedly with different surgical instruments was a level of pain I can’t find words to describe.

Okay, graphic time. With everything she put in me, something wet flowed, flooded, gushed, shot, squirted out of me. I'm pretty sure it was a large quantity of blood. I held my book up over my face so that I wasn’t tempted to see what was happening to the bottom half of my body, from which I was becoming increasingly detached. I couldn’t even look at the words, but only used my book as a shield.

“There’s the culprit,” My doctor said. “You have a polyp. Let’s just biopsy that first.” That biopsy was the best part. I couldn’t feel it at all.

Then it was time to put a camera up my cooch to see what was going on in the farthest, darkest regions of my uncooperative uterus. Of course she couldn’t see well, which meant she had to move it around a bunch. Every movement brought a new level of pain. She decided to try without the speculum.

“Is this because of my wonky uterus?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s not easy to get in there and see what’s going on.”

She tried next with a shorter speculum. She tried with a longer one. Finally, she stopped trying and called another doctor in to look with her. Someone kept moaning, and it was really annoying.

The nurse came over to me and held my hand. She was a good nurse. She knew this wasn’t fun or easy or normal.

The other doctor watched the monitor as my doctor manipulated the camera around and around and around. They might have talked to each other, but I could only hear my own breathing, my inability to control it, and that annoying moaning.

“Well,” she said, removing the camera and the speculum, “We can’t do this. I’m sorry, but it’s just not worth the risk. You have a lot of scar tissue in here from those C-sections. Looks like you’ll need a hysterectomy, but at least insurance won’t be a problem since we tried this first.”

“Can we talk about that later?” I mumbled.

“Someone go get her some ginger ale,” she said. “You were a champ. Sorry it didn’t work out. But you’ve had a D and C now, so that’s something.”

And with that, she left the surgical room.

I stayed there with a heating pad on my belly, sipping ginger ale through a straw from a cup another nurse held for me. I don’t know how long that went on. At some point I remember my couch at home. And pain. A lot of pain. My husband found some old oxycodone from my daughter’s wisdom tooth extraction, and I took one of those, which I threw up some time later. I slept. I woke up cramping. I slept some more. There might have been a slice of pizza consumed, followed by more sleep and more cramps. Later, I was pleased to see I was still alive.

My follow up is in a week, at which point I get to talk about the next step. I definitely don’t feel ready for anything that involves any more poking and prodding in my baby maker. I thought about this whole experience today, and I’m curious why general anesthesia wasn’t an option. I had five pills at home, a morphine suppository, a shot in my ass, multiple shots in my cervix, and another pill to help me relax. I probably didn’t feel everything, but I felt enough. You would think with all that, I wouldn’t feel anything. This seems to be one of those in office procedures that probably shouldn’t be, or perhaps it’s so fast when it goes according to plan that some level of pain is acceptable. My question is, acceptable to whom?

I’m healing, but I am certainly not back to my normal. I am having a period from hell, as my very angry uterus retaliates for all it’s been through. And lucky me, no tampons for a week.  At least, I assume none. My doctor told me to not put anything in my bottom for a week, but I am pretty sure that is polite Southern for pussy. So I’m using pads, and no swimming or baths or other activity down under, which is fine by me, because I am just as angry with my lady parts as they are with me. And I am disappointed, that it didn't work, that it wasn't easy, that I went though all that and didn't even have surgery. That too will get better with time.

I’m sorry I don’t have a happy ending to share, but what did you expect? Happy endings are only for movies anyway.