Robocat

 This is all medical talk--feel free to skip.  

SO, I stopped going to the GYN about 4 years ago because I was just DONE with that shit.  Not, unfortunately, done being female. The thing is, I've had horrendous cycles for years. I've had one D&C already, and heavy bleeding. HEAVY bleeding. Like I threw out a mattress and I was worried the police were gonna come knocking about the crime scene I was disposing of.  Gyn did nothing about that. Instead, what he made me do was go month after month after month after month for transvaginal ultrasounds.  

Now, this is not a painful procedure, but it is intrusive, especially if you're a victim of sexual assault (which I am). The techs are all female but, trust me, that doesn't make a difference, mentally. Someone you don't know is still shoving something in your intimate bitties, and this tech? Drove it like my vagina was a rental Buick, instead of the fine Italian sportscar it is. 

I also stopped getting mammos because, well, they're useless.  I have fibrocystic boobs, which means a mammogram is basically a silhouette.  Useless as a diagnostic.  But suddenly, 4 years ago, the insurance company decided that the ultrasound (which is actually diagnostic, and whoa, guess what, doesn't expose me to needless radiation?) was 'experimental' and they wouldn't cover it. So I said lol, no thanks. I'm not gonna get the useless radiation exposure. 

WELL, I guess I'm an idiot because I decided to go back for a gyn exam. And I left with four follow up appointments. Fun!  Except. Not. 

I need bloodwork, because he thinks I'm anemic and perimenopausal (I am neither--I just had bloodwork 2 weeks ago).  

I need a mammo/ultrasound (he SWEARS they will not try monkey business with me this year--apparently that 'experimental procedure' bullshit was a lovely bit of Obamacare).  

I need--UGH--another ultrasound. I told him he gets ONE PER YEAR.  

He wanted an endometrial biopsy but I refused. I told him I vasovagaled last time I had one and, yeah, I would call 911 myself if he even tried. 

And another physical exam.  

Why? Well, my cervix bleeds like a bleedy thing. Like...he looked at it sideways during the pap smear and it started bleeding.  Also, my uterus is enlarged.  Also I have a uterine fibroid so big he can feel it through the pelvic exam. Also, I have ovarian cysts.  Also I have nonresolving pain in my right breast.  

At this point, I'm mostly aggravated.   

What's weird is for a long time I was the happy hippie idiot who always gently frowned on girls who were like 'OMG I HATE MY PERIOD' because, well, my periods have never been fun nor easy, but I always tried to view them as, okay this might sound super new agey flower child, but whatever--you know, sacred. I was raised with that feminism that was So. Damn. Tired of women being told to first atomize and then hate their bodies--first look at your body not as a whole but a collection of different pieces, and then to view them negatively.  Perhaps BECAUSE of my difficult periods, I really tried to 'make friends with my body'--to honor when it had less energy, to recognize the cycles and work with them.  

The medical industry encourages us to do just that. We're not women, we're misbehaving uteruses. We're possibly diseased breasts.  We're 'uterine mass' and 'cystic ovaries'--we exist only as pathologized, diseased anatomy.  All that Foucauldian Gaze of the Clinic stuff.  You want proof?  You go to the gyn, right? You say, I am not sexually active and there is no way I could be pregnant.  You know what they do next?  GIVE YOU A PREGNANCY TEST.  You're not a person who has knowledge of your own body. The clinic has to PRY and doesn't trust you. 

So I'm sitting hear and there's a part of my brain that knows damn well my family history with cancers of the Lady Parts and another part going 'it's just tests, they don't know anything yet, it's all likely just Benign Annoyances, as usual' and..ugh, basically the whole thing is using up far too much of my mental RAM.  And all I'm thinking is, man it was so much better before I went to this stupid appointment.