No matter why I'm there, I'm always asked about my last period. When was it? Fuck if I remember, unless it was a source of major inconvenience. So I randomly pick a day on the calendar they show me. And no matter why I'm there, I'm always quizzed about my ladybits. I could stub my fucking toe and need a toenailectomy, and they'd fucking be all up in my ladybits.
But the dudes? Allow me to show you this crazy-ass double standard that I noticed only after I admitted I have teh sexx0rs and am not teh pregg0rs:
Do you see that? One fucking question for the guys. About their prostate.
Do you see all the questions about my ladybits? Lots of 'em, huh? Sure, it's all health shit, but for fuck's sake. I had goddamned congestion, not strange echoes emanating from my nether regions. Why do they need me to answer this shit EVERY FUCKING TIME I'M THERE? Please to clarify, medical people in the know. Why?
And more than that, why is it MY responsibility to answer questions about birth control, and he's not even fucking asked? And why am I compelled to provide this information when my only medical issue is that I'm coughing up green lungturds?
I of course, stopped answering questions, and when the nurse was going over my form, she gave me The Look. You know the one. It's the same one when you say you can't remember the first day of the last time you were bleeding out of your vagina. The Look. So I gave her my happy housewife smile*, and that was that. Lucky for her.
After I left, I contemplated all this shit some more, and I realized something else.
When I'm there because my nose can't stop generating snot, and my lungs can't help but recycle it, they are all up in my vagina. When was my last period? When was my last PAP? Do I have any issues with my ladybits right now? And that's fucking annoying as fuckall.
But when I'm there because I have issues with my ladybits, I get nothing. No, that's not quite right. I get the fucking runaround. I get the ladybits-are-mysterious-and-to-be-feared thing, even from medical professionals. So they listen to my complaints, declare it'll pass when I enter menopause, pat me on the head, and send me on my way.
What the fuck? So when it doesn't matter, they're all up in my shit. When it does matter, they don't give a shit. And the menfolk? When was the last time you had a finger up your ass OR alternately and providing more accurate results** the PSA blood test? Very well, continue on. We don't care whether you use condoms when you fuck because your sex life and potential exposure to STDs or potential to become a babydaddy? Your business. Not ours. Have fun sticking your dick in All the Places this weekend, my man!
I declare bullshit, and I refuse to comply ever again. If I'm there about my ladybits, I will answer all their reproductive health questions. If I'm there because I tripped over a sprog's toy and took a nosedive into the wall***, they get nothing but my middle finger and my happy housewife smile.
Fucking Navy medicine.
*I'm told this smile on the receiving end appears to say "fuck with me, and I will fuck some shit up." Which might explain why it gets results...
** But of course only for dudes who get fingers shoved in their asses and not for women getting metal things and sticks and scrapers shoved in their cookies and sometimes also fingers in their asses. Because women don't mind have wooden shit and cold metal parts shoved up their cookies for to scrape fucking cells. Where the eff is our blood test, and why the eff can't we get in on that shit, eh?
***Ahem. So didn't happen.
9 comments:
Yet they don't provide comprehensive reproductive care. Go figure.
WORD, Kimba. Word.
You hit a nerve today. After 2.5 years of substandard care overseas, in which everyone was intensely concerned about the date of my bleeding but not the actual bleeding, I am back in the States, going to a real, non-Army-affiliated MD. Please tell me how I can go from *pats on the head, nothing wrong* in Germany to "you need a hysterectomy* here?
When I did see a doctor at the Army clinic about an earache, his first response was to tell me I was overdue for a mammogram. "Could that be causing my earache?" I snapped. The conversation deteriorated from there.
So tell it, sister!
I had a DNC (not to be confused with a D&C) at 22 and *still* no answers on my disastrous periods. This was civilian medicine, mind you. It's like they want to know all your shit but when something's wrong... they can't answer it. I blame medical science, to be honest. There has to be some trends going on and figuring out why some women seem to bleed uncontrollably, have no regular cycles, and all that but not get an endometriosis diagnosis just hasn't hit the hot button yet.
We're facing infertility problems now (thanks war injuries, you ROCK!) and I straight up mean it: If we can't have kids I'm doing *something* to stop my period. Half my life of it doing whatever it wants and if it can't have its intended purpose, it can go fuck itself.
Argh.
I get that look all the fucking time. I take Seasonale, which is a birth control pill that's designed to give you one period every three months. I've been on it for a long time, and after my body got used to it, I started running them together even longer. So now I only have periods two-three times a year; when I start feeling bloaty and crampish, I'll take the placebo week, have a period, and then start rocking the Seasonale again.
But the "last period" question (which I only have to answer at the mammograms, thankfully) got a whole bunch of "sometime in the spring" from me, and a lot of eyerolling from the techs, so now I have a note in my cellphone with the date, and I just update it whenever I decide to have a period. I just whip out my cellphone and can provide the date whenever needed. I LOVE that shit.
This might be too much information but I have had vagina problems for the 1 year, 8 months, and 19 days. And the first time I went to the doctor for it was the 1st week in October of 2010. I filled out the questions the way we are supposed to and it didn't make a difference. for almost the next year I had to go to the doctor almost every other week and I started writing random, inaccurate lies on the entire form. Never once was I asked about anything I filled out. The last two times I went to the doctor this year I only wrote my name and the date and my sponsors last 4. No one said anything.
Also, earlier this year, I had a yeast infection from taking antibiotics and I called my PCM to make an appointment and was told I had to wait 2 freaking weeks. I asked the appointment line person who was female if she thought that seemed appropriate and she said "First come, first serve." I hung up and went to planned parenthood. The Doctor I saw there gave me a surplus of treatment in the event I had any future problems.
I know one of the problems here is that there are too many people and not enough providers.
They're trying to talk me out of my birth control here. It has a black box warning for osteoporosis. I had a bone scan. It's fabulous. Doc even said better than hers and she's never taken it. The others come with warnings of strokes and make me psychotic. They want me to get an IUD. You know, the thing I know of 2 people personally who have had to have theirs surgically removed because it migrated to regions it wasn't supposed to. I'm bracing myself for my next lady bits appointment. It's going to be fun. And blog worthy I'm sure. Because they're either going to continue giving me my current birth control or sign me up to have those unneeded parts removed. Those are the only 2 options because I have so many issues without the BC of choice. Can't wait for Spring.
Oh, and they *LOVE* when I say my last one was in the Spring of 2006. They just cannot fathom how I'm still functioning like that.
Typical military bullshit. *le sigh*
On the one hand, I will miss at least having a place to go for health care without worrying about a bill.
On the other hand, it will be nice to find a doctor who doesn't care what's going on in my cooch if I'm in his or her office for bronchitis.
It's not just Navy medicine!! It happens in the civilian world too. With the same amount of eye rolling and ineptitude.
I'm glad I ready your post, because I'm now going to start my own rebellion when I go for an ingrown toenail and end up explaining to the same person I have seen for the last year why I do not have children. OMG...you mean you are STILL infertile? That shit does not just go away? F'ing dumb ass bitch...
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