The Vagina Monologues

If you don't want to have too much information about me, I suggest you stop reading immediately.

I went to the gynecologist today, which is never happy fun time for me. I suspect it is not happy fun time for any woman in a non-pregnancy situation, but I have particular difficulties on which I will elaborate in a moment.

I used to see a gynecologist regularly in high school because I was getting my period twice a month for 8 days at a time (meaning that I was menstruating about 50 percent of the time -- yay for me). I went on birth control, so I had to keep up with my yearly visits to keep getting the prescriptions. By the time I was a senior in college, I had been on and off of birth control pills for about seven years, and my periods had normalized. The last type of birth control I used made me so depressed that I threatened, in all seriousness, to kill myself, so, needless to say, I am wary about ever going back on them. After I stopped taking birth control, I pretty much stopped going to the gynecologist. I didn't go for over five years -- maybe more -- until last summer when my mother finally filled my head with enough concerns that I could be secretly dying of cervical cancer to make me go. I was not rewarded for this. The "doctor" I saw examined me with fireplace tools and generally did not seem to be on the up and up. But this time, I went to a doctor who came recommended by three different friends.

My problems with the gynecologist are not the fault of any doctor in particular -- not even ol' Fireplace Tools and certainly not the competent medical professional who examined me today. My problem lies in the fact that the exam is incredibly painful to me, and I'm usually choking back (or not) screams throughout the pap smear. Today's doctor basically told me that my, um, lady area is very narrow. It's so narrow in fact that it hurts me for her to be poking around in there even with the smallest instruments. This explains a lot about my rollicking social life, let me tell you. Anyway, she suggested that I have some minor surgery. She's going to put me under and do an exam while I'm anesthetized and see if there's any excess stuff down in that area that she can snip away to create more space. So, now we've gone from assaulting my lady-bits with a fireplace poker to taking actual knives to the area. Poor lady-bits. I'm not thrilled about this idea even though I agreed to her proposal, but I am hopeful that the benefit will be worth it in the long run. At the very least, I would like a gynecologist to be able to do a real exam without being distracted by the sounds of my shrieking in pain. If she isn't able to hack away at the underbrush down there and clear a path, I'm going to have to use a dilater, which basically works the same way as those expanders people put in their ears to make the earring holes bigger. I am truly the luckiest girl in the world.

Aside from that, the visit was pretty good. She put me on a low dose of anti-depressants to help regulate my moods during my menstrual cycle. I hate to admit that I am pissier around my period because it's something men and my mother like to bring up to evade blame, but it's true. I'm curious to see how the anti-depressants will work and whether I'll actually be a little more stable throughout the month.

Interestingly, she also tested me for a thyroid problem. I don't think there is anything wrong with my thyroid, but she thought she felt an irregularity of some kind, so she ordered blood work. If I do have a thyroid problem, it is probably causing me to have a lower metabolism, which would explain a lot. I looked up the symptoms indicating a thyroid problem online, but, like most medical symptoms, they are sufficiently vague that I have them all depending on when you ask me. (I could probably look up testicular cancer and have all the symptoms for that. Honestly, how do doctors ever manage to diagnose and cure anyone?) I should have the test results back on the thyroid early next week. Like I said, I doubt there is a problem, but if there is, at least I would know so I can start taking medicine or whatever I need to do to cure it and maybe get the old metabolism up to speed.