From Competence to Anxiety: My Life in the Stirrups
Warning: This post contains mild gynecological talk of the hand-waving variety, accompanied by impassioned medical system rants. Reader discretion advised.
For most of my adult life, I've taken gynecology appointments as a fact of modern womanly existence. As much as I've always wanted to be somewhere other than "stirrups-up" in the OB/GYN office, obsessing about whether I remembered to shave my legs that day, I made my annual visits a priority. I figured that this is just what you do. And being a complicated woman-type with all those fancy internal parts, there were plenty of opportunities, outside of annuals, to count the indentations in the ceiling tiles while having my U-joints and gaskets re-checked. Or to blush coyly while asking if this or that is supposed to happen when...well, somebody did that other thing. A-hem.
The joys of being a girl are endless.
While I had great compassion for my friends who found OB/GYN appointments stressful or even terror-inducing, personally, I didn't have that much anxiety associated with these visits. True, I kind of wish they would at least buy me a drink before taking such liberties with my vital controls, and I kind of wanted a shower afterward, but...whatever. You do what you have to do.
Then, at age 40, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and my relationship with gynecology changed. I was no longer a routine case and I was supposed to see someone special - in particular, a prominent gynecologist who worked in cooperation with the breast care center. I was urged to see her before my cancer surgery to evaluate my future risk, not just for additional breast cancers, but also ovarian cancer.
I will be honest: ovarian cancer scares me, much more than breast cancer does. My first thought was just take those ovaries out, right this instant! This response was possibly a bit knee-jerk.
Luckily, the gynecologist, who was very compassionate while being up on the latest research, let me know that this was not the time to get an oophorectomy. I needed to take care of the breast cancer first and take a deep breath. I did, however, need to get screened for ovarian cancer with a gynecology visit, blood test, and pelvic ultrasound, every six months. Oh my. She gave me a slip to reference when I called radiology and I was off.
The ultrasound, aside from being uncomfortable and waaaay too personal (again, no one offered me a martini or even a glass of chardonnay before making inappropriate gestures around my privates) was also terribly unnerving. The technician only communicated with me enough to scare the heck out of me by suggesting that I might have a defective kidney.
(The short list of things that truly freak me out? Ovarian cancer, kidney disease, and brain tumors. I should be glad no one scheduled me for a CT scan, but then I read that article quoting a neurologist who said that a brain scan is the first thing he'd insist on if he was a woman diagnosed with breast cancer, given what he knows. Uh, thanks, doc.)
As it turned out, my kidney was fine and I was off focusing on other issues, such as healing after breast surgery, getting genetic testing, and undergoing chemotherapy. I was told to call gynecology in June to schedule my follow-up for October, because that's when they'd have the doctor's schedule. Only, they didn't have it and asked me to call back in two or three weeks. I called back again and they still didn't have it, and then I think I forgot to call a third time, distracted as I was with 413 side effects from chemo.
Lucky me, one of those side effects sent me to the gynecologist's office to see a nurse practitioner who works with my doctor. She didn't take my vitals (thus missing the fact that I was running a fever) and dove immediately into diagnosing me with a sexually transmitted disease that I insisted I did not have and dosing me up with medicine. She did run a test to confirm her diagnosis, but then went on vacation when the results came back. While I assume the vacation was not personal, not letting anyone else give me the results felt personal. For days, the OB/GYN office didn't return my calls (you always have to leave voicemail for them) and so I finagled my test results from a nurse in the breast care center instead.
As you can guess, the test confirmed that I did not have an STD and that medicine wasn't doing me a damn bit of good. Eventually, the N.P. called me to tell me this, adding that, during chemo, I was a "Petri dish" for them and they just had to watch me to see what developed. This was no big deal. Evidently, being diagnosed with an incurable STD is no longer considered emotionally devastating.
I think it was around this time that I had enough of gynecology visits. I was concerned that if I were to go back to that office, I might end up with the same N.P. and either I'd smack her sharply across the face or burst into tears. Or both. So, I let making an appointment slide...and slide...and slide...until today, I am 14 months overdue for my re-check and screening. In the past, this would shock me. Now, I just feel sad and resigned.
As it turned out, I discovered something yesterday that suggests that I should see a gynecologist right away. It's one of those things that is probably "absolutely nothing" rather than something "super scary." But the "probably" part was not enough to comfort me last night, and I broke into my 3+ year old expired prescription of Xanax and took half a tablet so that I could calm down. I'm not sure which made me more anxious: the worry that I had cervical cancer or the thought that I'd have to go back to that OB/GYN office.
This morning, I decided to give the gynecologist's office one more chance, so I called them. As always when calling for an appointment, they kept me on hold for a while and then sent me to voicemail. In the past, they would take a day or two to call me back (I guess they think it can't be that urgent) but today, they called me back fairly quickly.
Hopeful, I explained that I was way overdue for my cancer re-check and that I had also just found something worrisome, so could my doctor please see me? Dashing my hopes, the assistant replied with those dreaded words: "Well, we're still waiting to receive her schedule..." Right. Of course I knew that.
However, she assured me that when they do receive it, they'll be scheduling for February.
"So, I need to find someone else at another office?" I asked.
"Yeah, you may want to do that," she answered.
No doubt the gynecologist will think I never came back due to negligence. As in, MY negligence. Whereas, I am just glad to forestall hitting people, which I am now sure might happen.
After hanging up, I made an appointment for Monday to see a gynecologist who works with my primary care physician. I've also calmed down and decided that what I have is something benign and harmless (thank you, Internet!) and so I'm no longer worried that my life is at stake. But I've realized that it's going to take some time before gynecology appointments are ever routine again, and I realize that as much as I like seeing the brightest and the best, it is no longer worth my trouble. Now, I just want to get through it without triggering a restraining order.
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