plumbing

if you don't want to know about my ladybits, just skip this post.

so last monday i was out geocaching and all of a sudden my car got loud. REAL LOUD. i turned around to see if a chopper had just ridden up on my tail.

so i called my mechanic and the soonest they could see me was thursday.

ok, fine.

so then after a number of hours waiting at the mechanic, i am told that they can only do half the things that need doing, because they need a part that they can't get until friday.

oh, that's no good, i say. i have somewhere i need to go this weekend.

they tell me they'll order the part and it will be available for the appointment we schedule for monday.

but then, oh, no!! i have an appointment monday at the gynecologist!

no problem. the mechanic says they can shuttle me over to the doctor and then back. everything will be cool. it just means i have to get myself to the mechanic by seven fifteen in the morning so i can make it to my eight-thirty appointment.

so over at the doctors' office we're making chitchat about how the WILDLY unpredictable timing and flow of my periods is either garden variety approaching menopause or there could be a problem.

we all think it's just garden variety stuff, but everyone thinks it's a good idea to check it out.

one word: speculum.

see, if you're fifty years old and have had a couple of kids, a speculum is no big deal. if you're sexually active even, it's no big deal.

for me it is a BIG FAT PAINFUL DEAL.

right. so do the thing they need to do and then the doctor makes a digital exam and then the resident needs to make a digital exam.

maybe you are thinking that maybe i didn't need to allow the resident to do this, but i really, really believe in good education and for young doctors that means hands-on with real patients.

plus it's interesting.

the resident says she could feel my cervix just fine but did not feel my ovaries and the gynecologist said that SHE usually isn't able to feel much in the way of ovaries unless there's an enlargement of some sort.

the teacher in me is fascinated by this conversation.

so then the speculum has to go in again, which i think is going to be just fine because by now i'm all warmed up. the reason the speculum has to go in again is because there's going to be a little endometrial biopsy.

they say "it's going to feel a little crampy and pinchy" but what they SHOULD say is "it's going to feel like we're sticking a pointy thing up into you and scrape around to the extent that you are going to have an existential crisis and don't worry about the part where you feel dizzy and sick, because that is TOTALLY normal"

so during the procedure my phone is going crazy and i usually keep my phone turned off, but today i had it on because MECHANIC and they pick up my phone and hand it to me and the number that's calling me every thirty seconds is my mom and i think: "that can't be good news".

but it turns out it's just because my mechanic wants to tell me that the part didn't come in today and they're not working on my car and then i sat in the entranceway of the medical building for an HOUR AND A HALF waiting for the shuttle pickup.

i am beginning to think that i was being grossly and inappropriately optimistic when i pooh-poohed the idea that there might be bleeding afterward.

so i'm cranky.