siannan

Chex cereal for lunch, because I do what I want. J. had to work today (bah!) so I don't feel obligated to be anything but grubby. Which suits me fine because my uterus exploded.

Hey, lets talk about my uterus.

I was 14 when I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome. You know, what Sandra Fluke was talking about before Congress, and Rush thought she was talking about having sex and called her all kinds of names and asked her to send in homemade porn (which is a violation of FCC standards, ya know, and a reportable thing *cough*do it*cough*).

The endocrinologist recommended I be put on The Pill.

Me mudder said no. Why? Because the Pope said no. Because JP2 knew all about the pussy and associated plumbing, I'm sure. The endocrinologist took one look at me mudder and I guess he knew that this was one bitch you could not argue with. Me, I was too clinically depressed to care much one way or the other. I remember her driving me home from the hospital in the rain, fuming as she gripped the steering wheel. "It's just not APPROPRIATE to suggest such things!" Yeah...my health issues, so inappropriate to be discussed by a doctor.

So I spent high school going through ridiculously irregular and painful periods. Many panties were ruined. Much Tylenol was consumed.

When I turned 17 (coincidentally the same time I became consensually sexually active), my periods stopped altogether. Of course this happened the month that I took it upon myself to get my ass to the gynecologist of my choosing* and get a scrip for The Pill, which I couldn't take because you're supposed to start after your next flow finishes. Whatever, I said, and kept going along with condoms. I remember I had one ten-day-long gusher when I turned 20 and then kaput.

When I was 23 I started seeing a gynecologist regularly, because J. and I were thinking about having children in the near future. She put me on The Pill, and gave me Provera to start a period artificially. By that point my ovaries were like, calcified.

Most ovaries are pink and the size of grapes. Mine are dead-white and the size of lemons. And growing.

My hormones had been so whacked for so long that now The Pill gave me every possible side effect short of a stroke. I became jaundiced. I had three-day-migraines every week. I was gagging spasmodically. My sex drive was kaput. Mood swings. There were alarming lumps in my breasts that I was assured were normal (fuck you). The gyno kept bumping me down to lower and lower doses, but nothing changed. After three years of trying to get shit kickstarted below the belt I said the hell with it. I would rather be amennorheic and a hairy yeti and fat than have my liver stop working and my skull exploding every Sunday. Children were not in my future.

So I shop at Lane Bryant and keep tweezers in every room of the house. I still get acne. I'm not as pretty as I used to be (not that I was any raving beauty ever), which contributes to my agoraphobia (that's another post, people).

About four years ago I started menstruating again. It's painful and untrackable, sometimes I get premenstrual symptoms, sometimes I don't. When I do get PMS, it results in near-suicidal despair. It ranges between a 25 to 40 days between flows.

I will always wonder if I had been properly medically treated when I was first diagnosed if I would have these problems. I haven't had to get an oophorectomy (knock wood) like Sandra Fluke's friend, but it's always a possibility. Do I resent me mudder for not allowing me to take the meds? Yes. But what I resent more is the bullshit patriarchal belief/political system that indoctrinated her to put the alleged wishes of some imaginary sky fairy, written about in a book thousands of years before commercial oral contraception was available, above the medical needs of her child.

When my sister told me about taking her younger daughter for her Gardisil shots I was so happy I cried. We've come so far. Don't let creeps like Rush Limbaugh, who thinks that oral contraception is taken in random fistfuls like the way he chomps down Viagra and Oxycontin, drag us back to the dark ages.

I'm a slut on my own terms.

*Naturally since the gyno I chose wasn't on the Approved List Of Anti-Abortion Catholic Specialists xeroxed by the parish (yes, this existed), me mudder was incensed. HOW DARE I TRY TO TAKE CHARGE OF MY HEALTH.