Today, it was time to clean the litter box. Although in truth, it was time to clean the litter box on Monday, which made it 1,000 times worse today. Or possibly only a little bit worse. Either way, it was today’s first Disgusting Thing.
The washing machine has been smelling odd lately. It isn’t one of those fancy front-loaders with their fancy mold smells, though. It’s a very old washing machine that came with the house. It probably isn’t older than me, but I’m guessing I was still watching “Strawberry Shortcake” when it came off the line. (And now I’m watching “Strawberry Shortcake” again! The circle of life!) So anyway I thought I’d try to clean it by running it with a bunch of vinegar in it. Before I started it, though, I removed the heavy-duty agitator (this kind, not this kind), and by the hammer of Thor, it was disgusting. I soaked the agitator in bleach, which cleaned it up pretty nicely. The vinegar didn’t do all that much for the funk in the drum (coincidentally, also the name of my new jazz fusion album, which drops next Thorsday), so I had to scrub it out.
“There’s something crunchy in my chicken,” said my child as he ate his chicken nuggets for lunch. “I think it’s a chicken beak.”
“Mama, Marsha threw up again!” said my other child as she tried to go downstairs but was stymied by a cat and her vomit. “And now she’s eating it!”
And friends, it is not even 3pm yet. That’s enough gross for today, Universe! Thank you!
Summer 2010. Bay City, Michigan.June 20th is the official first day of summer this year. But today it’s over 80 degrees out there, the bees are buzzing around like mad and we only have 16 days of school left. All this means I’m thinking Summery Thoughts today, which made me remember that this time last year I was seeing lots of “Summer Bucket Lists” on the blogs.
A little googling turned up quite a few lists from last year, including one person doing a “Summer Bucket List Party.” I wish that meant I got to attend all of the fun stuff she has planned for the summer, but it doesn’t. It just means other people are linking to their summer lists on her page, which is also fun even if it isn’t a hot dog roast under the stars.
Anyway, I thought this year I might make my own list of things that would be fun to do this summer. I would be terribly surprised if we actually did everything on the list, but it’ll give us somewhere to start when the I’m Boreds begin. By which I mean yesterday, because someone is bored every 15 minutes.
(Fact: My mom used to tell me that “only boring people get bored” when I told her I was bored. I always thought that was kind of mean. She also told me she played with sticks and rocks when she was a kid. Which tells me that she was definitely bored, too.)
or more about my lady parts than you probably wanted or needed to know and definitely more than I ever thought I’d tell you
On Thursday morning I checked into the hospital to bid adieu to my Mirena IUD.
“But wait!” you say. “The Mirena IUD is supposed to be removed at your OBGYN’s office, not at the hospital! You’re doing it wrong!”
And so it is, and so I was, but only because the Mirena started it.
After Pete was born, I talked to my obstetrician about birth control options. He was very enthusiastic about the Mirena and I was very much in favor of taking the path of least resistance, so I made arrangements to have one installed in my person. It hurt like the dickens. That doesn’t seem to be the case for everyone, and I’ve since learned that they don’t recommend Mirena unless you’ve given birth. “Given birth” here differing significantly from “having 2 C-sections,” because sending a child through your birth canal stretches parts that don’t get stretched during a C-section. (Here’s more discussion about cervixes, C-sections and Mirenas, if you are so inclined.)"health," by amy_b via flickr.com
The immediate aftermath of the Mirena was unpleasant, as I discussed in a 2008 post titled “Fragility.” I still think the Mirena had a lot to do with my crazy feelings then. I think they might want to look into the possibility of warning people who’ve had post-partum depression or a family history of depression that the Mirena could trigger this kind of thing. That is entirely my non-medical opinion, Mirena manufacturers, and you may not sue me for it.
In addition to the crazy-in-my-head feelings, the dizziness and the regularly scheduled migraines, I developed a weird and very itchy rash a few months after the Mirena was put in. I mentioned that to my doctor the day I told him the Mirena was making me crazy, and he said it was eczema and that I should put Vaseline on it and that it would go away. It didn’t.
(Have I mentioned he’s no longer my doctor? Because he’s no longer practicing? That seems worth mentioning.)
I soon started getting weird, dull pains in the area “behind” the rash — on my insides — as well as what I can only describe as phantom baby kicks. They were all localized to the same area, generally behind the itchy spot. I felt for a rather long time that something strange was afoot in my lady bits. But I continued not to do anything about it, because I trusted that my doctor was right that it wasn’t the Mirena. It was just something strange and defective about myself. And so I waited until it was nearly time for the Mirena to expire (or whatever it does) before I went to have it removed.
This is where we get to the delicate lady issue I mentioned last month: My new OBGYN couldn’t locate the Mirena. Even after an ultrasound of the GOP variety, an assist from another doctor and a good deal of very painful scraping about with a hook — “We basically did a D and C,” she said. — she couldn’t find it.
I didn’t cry there on the table, but I did cry in the car. It hurt. A lot, and for many hours thereafter. At my next appointment, the doctor said she and the nurse had been very surprised that I hadn’t cried. I assured them that I had, in the car. They seemed oddly relieved that I wasn’t impervious to pain.
“You’re going to have to put me under if we have to do that again,” I said after the scraping and the ultrasound and the more scraping and poking.
“Oh,” she said after my ha-ha-I-am-lightheartedly-masking-my-pain-remark. “You go ahead and get dressed and we’ll talk about that in a minute.”
To which I thought “No no no, I was only kidding you can’t be serious.” But serious she was, which is how I ended up having a hysteroscopy on Thursday morning. The procedure sounds considerably worse than it is. A scope is inserted into your hoo-ha so the doctors can get a better look at things, and then they can poke around without doing so blindly. It’s relatively painless. Or so I believe. I wasn’t actually cognizant for any of it. The last thing I remember is saying “It’s cold in here!” and the nurse telling me “That’s to keep the germies out! This is oxygen; just breathe normally!” And then I woke up some time later and the Mirena was finally gone!
And do you know where that pesky little IUD was hiding? Here, I made you an expertly rendered graphic of my insides so you can see for yourself!
Yes! It was lodged in the entrance to my fallopian tube, right behind the itchy place and precisely where the weird pains and phantom kicks have been manifesting!
This is all far, far more than I ever planned to share about my lady parts on the internet, but I felt like it was important to tell you the story. Not because of my Extreme Dislike of the Mirena — which is certainly there, but it works beautifully for some people so there’s that — but because I knew something was wrong and I didn’t do anything about it after my doctor told me the Mirena couldn’t possibly be causing any of my symptoms.
So here’s what I’d like you to take away from this:
Listen to your body. Get a second opinion. Find someone who will listen to you when you tell them your body says something is wrong. Find someone who will try to help you find out what the problem is. Find someone who won’t offhandedly dismiss your concerns. Stand up for yourself, even if you are like me and you cry whenever you try to do that. Draft a letter, if that’s easier. (It is for me.) Just make yourself heard. It’s your body, and the doctor is there to help you take care of it. Even if he is really really excited about going rock-climbing over the weekend.* Take care of yourself, even if you have to kick your physician to the curb to do it.
*Yes, really, that’s what we talked about after I told him I was falling apart. Don’t be like me.
