November 8, 2002

Colposcopy

You will all be happy to know that I survived the colposcopy.

If you are easily squicked about sharp devices used to cut flesh, stop reading now! (Jessie, who is still smarting from the Buffy with Willow and the flesh-eating demon, I am talking to you.)

They kept me waiting nearly two hours, but that's just par for the course. I was mean to my kind mother who offered to come with me so instead of feeling bondish solidarity, we just ignored each other in the waiting room while I watched General Hospital and wondered petulantly when Jasper Jax ceased speaking like a proper Australian.

They finally led me into a room and I did the standard strip from the bottom half down and wrapped myself in the yellow sheet. I always have all sorts of neurotic thoughts about how I hope they've washed the sheet, and I'm always careful not to let any part of my body touch any part of the table that isn't covered in paper, which I of course checked for its newness. I sat there looking at my socks and remembering the Sassy article I read in like 1987 about what to expect at the gyno and it said to always wear socks to keep your feet warm and my feet always sweat when I'm nervous so my socks were moist so that did me no damn good. Thanks anyway for the memories, Sassy. While I waited I looked at the table to make sure that all of the instruments were sealed in unopened plastic bags.

The doctor came in and explained that both my abnormal pap smears were low grade, which is supposed to be a good thing. (NOT COUNTING THE LOST ONE, but I was trying not to dwell on that in restraining myself from going after the doctor with one of those foot-long metal torture devices waiting for me on the table.) She said that she was staining my cervix with vinegar (courtesy of a large Q-tip after she made some joke referring to a dill pickle which I've since blocked out) which would make any abnormalities show, and then she started looking in there with the colposcope, which doesn't touch the body and through which the cervix is magnified. She noted one spot that she said merited being sent to the lab so she sprayed me with some anesthetic and grabbed one of the foot-long metal torture devices and SNIP! There went a little pink pellet of cervical flesh about the size of a cross between a Nerd and a grain of rice into the jar of clear solution. Swoon! No, really, I swooned and almost passed out, knowing I should not have looked, but I felt I had to look to make sure she wasn't faking me out. Then she took a curette and did a scraping of my cervical canal beyond where the eye can see. While I didn't feel the previous snip, this felt approximately like my uterus was being impaled, which I suppose it practically was. Luckily it was over before my eyes could complete their projectile path out of my skull. Idiotically, I glanced over as the tissue collected by the curette was placed in another jar, and I won't even tell you what that looked like, except it was very, very red. Ah, my cervix. We've now come face to face.

She then patted my leg and apologized again for the lost results and said that never in her fifteen years as a gyno had this ever happened. Whatever, lady. It is only my desire to get through this latest heinosity as promptly as possible that has kept me coming to you, so don't get too used to it!

I felt sort of lightheaded when it was all over, and I had cramps through the afternoon, but it was nothing that a Darvocet and some Italian chocolate from my parents couldn't cure. I'll find out in a week what the results are and figure there's no sense worrying until then.


get notified.

previous next

journal archives

© Copyright 2002 elb