Well, the big, scary part is over.   Cold knife has been wielded, and I have survived! 

I got ready in record time that morning!  Up at 5:15…..out of the house by 5:35.  Of course, there really isn’t that much a girl has to primp, when they forbid make-up and fashion isn’t really too important.  No coffee (sucks major bunk that early) and no food, not to mention the drags I took from my boyfriend’s cigarettes caused me minor Catholic-guilt feelings!  I had a bitch of a time trying to get my belly piercing out, though.  Must’ve taken at least five of those minutes agonizing in the bathroom, hoping I don’t drop the damn thing, and Sophia (the cat) eats it while we’re away.  Fourteen years later and I’ve never taken it out.  Thank goodness it went back in!  So, we load up into the pimped-out Mom-van with track-lighting to boot, get all the way out of the driveway, when I say, “Uh honey…..it’s garbage day.”  This, of course, demanded expletives from my other half, and we both jump out of the pimp van, drag the trash and recycling out to the curb, and jump back in the van.  After a short ride, minor heart-palpatations, and a scrapped roof of the pimp van (apparently taller than 7 feet), we arrive at the torture destination aka. the hospital. 

Lucky me, I’m the first one there!  After the obligatory verification and “give me all your money” speech, they escort me to my own semi-private room.  I say semi-private because curtains are not walls, especially when the idiot across the aisle has both her parents, her boyfriend, and at least one stripper-friend with her.  I know for a fact that this chick’s having the same surgery as I am, since I’d ran into her at both my Ob/Gyn, and the pre-op appoinment.   Oh lucky me.   Needless to say, I booted my other half out of there at about 6:30.  All he would do would be to get in the way, irritate me, or genereally become squeamish over the IV injection.  He loathes hospitals.  Besides, there’s a TV in the pimped-out van!  I can honestly say I’d rather be watching the Tyra Banks show right about now.  Plus, it’s damn cold in those rooms!  Who the hell controls that?  I mean, I know the nurses are working their butts off, but I’m hanging out in a little gown with ties right above my ass, and rubber-soled socks!  Do they really want you to be freezing and naked and overly apprehensive beforehand?!  Just knock my ass out already!  Luckily, after the IV ladies hooked me all up, they gave me a mild sedative, so I spent the next 45 minutes or so staring at a blotch on the curtain, and just generally not giving a fuck about much.  Of course, they give you this sedative, and then the docotrs arrive and start asking questions at about a mile a minute, and here I am in my little robe-thing, “Can I have another heated blanket?”.   I’m pretty sure I flipped off the neighbor-pack at one point, but pussies…the lot of them.  It’s only day surgery for Chrissakes!

Next thing I know, they’re wheeling me down the hall, saying things like, “This will only hurt for a minute,”.   I vaguely remember being slightly creeped out by one the nurse-guys, but I think he was new or something.  Nothing like a little coochie-surgery with a man-nurse!  I know, it shouldn’t bug me, but I’ve never even had a male Ob/Gyn, so……………………………………………….after that, who the fuck knows?!  I’m assed-out on the operating table sucking up happy-gas and floating off to Lala-Land!   About two and a half hours later, I wake up in recovery.  That has always irked me: pass out one place, wake up in another, and who knows what’s going on in between?!   As I’m checking for drool marks and trying to find my feet, they start talking to me?!  Um excuse me, but I need a few more minutes to process before I can answer in a coherent sentence.  I guess I must have passed out again, because I wake up in something called “Short Stay Room 5″, which has been carefully labeled to the sticky board to the left of me.  Oh thank God….there’s a phone! 

Blasted!  They’ve stuck me with the weirdest-looking nurse ever, and now she wants me to make a choice.  Graham crackers or saltines?  Water or juice?  I’m feeling rather pukey here….saltines & water, please.  Oh and can I have another blanket?  After two packs of crackers and two glasses of water, here comes the crone, and I proceed to shuffle off to the bathroom, all the while managing to keep this pad wedged up in there and not run into any walls, doors etc.  So I peed, and apparently this hails great applause from the follow ladies in Short Stay (am I allowed to leave now), and am shuffled back to my bed.  I call my boyfriend, who I am assuming is sleeping in the pimp-van, and tell him I’m about there.  I manage to find my clothes and get them on.  I KNEW THERE WAS A REASON I DIDN’T WEAR A BELT TODAY!!!  So I managed to get my clothes on the right way (I think), and collapse into a wheel chair and was shoved out towards the lobby. I inform the nurse that my boyfriend is waiting outside, so we get to the lobby, and she says, “Is that him?”.  I’m staring at some goody-two-shoes bloke in a plaid button-down and thinking, “Yeah right, sister!”.  I like my men mildly scary-looking, musician-type.  But I manage to blurt out, “Um….no.”, as she proceeds to wheel me down the elevator and into the sunlight.  Ahhhh…I’m blind!  After a couple of minutes of yelling randomly in the parking lot for my slightly idiotic other half, who I’m thinking was actually asleep, he pulls the pimp-my-ride around and they load me in.  Halle-fucking-luhah, or however you spell it!   He looks over at me like a wounded pup, and says, “You ready to blow this shit?”.  OF COURSE!!!  This place creeps me out too!  At this point, the vicodin they’ve given has begun to kick in, I’m ravenous, and I’m kicking myself for not bringing pajama-pants.  I have vague recollections of what occured after that, but I remember the omelette (he wouldn’t let me have french fries), and staring at the video he plunks in, as he meadners off to get me some Sprite.  I think I spent most of that day in a pain-killer-induced coma, barely moving. 

© 2008 Christel Grady

Almost happy day!  I got to leave work early.  I’m milking this Cancer-card for all it’s worth at this job!  Stupid corporation that only allows two freaking sicks days a YEAR!?!  (see my short titled “Flu-Tube”, and you’ll know why I get sick all the time).  So I had a minor nervous breakdown and called in sick on Monday.  I know, I seem all calm & cool with everything, but honestly, it’s getting a little freaky. 

On top of that, I have to deal with an insensetive asshole of a boyfriend.  Men say the stupidest shit sometimes!  It’s like they just open their mouths and vomit out the first thing that pops into their little tiny brains?!  I’m just saying…….shut the fuck up already!  I’m dealing with enough bullshit right now, and listening to my partner trash my mother, my best friend and my dinner is absolutely uncalled for!  Sometimes, I hate the booze.  Stupid me….I should’ve seen the asshole rearing his lovely pea-sized head, but was a little pre-occupied with my own drama-rama!  So enough of me bitching about my boyfriend…… Onward to the pre-op!

I take the lovely public transportation for 2 hours back to my neck of the woods to my new Ob/Gyn, and all they do is check my blood pressure, and tell me that no, they do not have any new news, meaning my biopsy results are still up in the air.  Once again, why can’t they just say “Cancer”?!  Pre-cancerous, carso-something or another.  For Chrissakes…..I’m an English major, not some bumbling fool! 

Then, she informs me that the procedure will be slightly more extensive than orginally planned, but still “It’s not cancer”, and now instead of two weeks of no sex, I get to wait a whole fucking month!  A WHOLE FUCKING MONTH?!  Jesus, Mary & Joseph!!!  Did I mention that next Friday is my fucking birthday, and whoops…..no sex.  Maybe, just maybe, I can actually get some for HIS birthday in May?!   I’m inventive…..hell, we both are, but a whole month of vibrators & oral?!  Then of course, I might have to just shoot myself by that time! 

Then, all they do is schedule my post-op appointment, and shuffle me off to the hospital for more blood-letting & scales & idiotic instructions about not smoking for 24 hours beforehand.  No Sex & No Smoking (oh yeah – that shit deserves capitals)…….it’s like my own private hell!  Oh wait!  Maybe on Friday, they’ll take away whiskey too!  Just shoot me in the head & be done with it!

Shuffling, shuffling…..all the fucking way back across the city from whence I came to the hospital located in the opposite corner of town.  At this point, I opted for cabs, since I do not think I really need to spend another 4 hours on public transportation, especially to get jabbed with a needle and pee in a cup.  And why do ya always end up getting pee on your hand?!  It just grosses me out.  I don’t remember having to pee in a cup this many times before.  I pinky swear that I’m not a crack-head!  Fifty bucks later……..jeez, I can by a bus pass for that!

One more rant, which I’m sure I will elaborate on after the fact, but religious-based hospitals.  Unfortunately, that’s most of them besides the teaching hospitals.  I was raised in the church but have long since abandoned that hypocracy, and I loathe it when they ask you if you want to talk with a pastor or whatever.  COME ON DUMBSHITS!!!  I’m having day surgery.  I’m not going to keel over and die, and even if I did, some fucking preacher-guy I don’t even know is not going to save my soul from eternal damnation!  Okay….now I’m seriously going off.  It just irks me, and then I always feel like the nurses are looking at you like you’re some kind of demon-spawn or something.  Because OBVIOUSLY I must be some sort of whore to have contracted cervical (non) cancer.  Uhhh….wake up people…it just happens!  Hey whatever…..if I’m going to Hell, I’ll meet you there!  : P

© 2008 Christel Grady

     On March 19th, I get a call from the Nurse, and she informs me that my Pap has come back abnormal.  I am, of course, having one of those top ten shitty days at work, and all I really want to do is go home, have a shot or two and sleep the sleep of the dead.  Lisa, my Nurse who is in fact a doll-face, asks me to call back in the morning, as it is too late in the day for a referral.  Then, she tries to tell me not to freak out.  Okay, when the doctor says not to freak out, what’s the first thing you are going to do?!  Abnormal cells on my cervix?!  WTF?!  I get an exam every freaking year!  (Okay…breathe now)  So, I call back in the morning, get my referral, and call the new Ob/Gyn and set up an appointment.  Unfortunately, they can’t get me in until April 1st!  I figure this is probably a good sign…I mean, if they really thought I had cervical cancer, you’d think they’d get me in right away?! 

     Can you guess where I’m going here?  April 1st: After a week and a half of almost sheer terror, telling myself not to freak out because I don’t really know anything as of yet.  For all I know, I have a bladder infection or something else less scary.  So I meander into my new Ob/Gyn yesterday at 9:20 am.  I’m really early, but hey…that’s me!  Plus, I’m nervous as hell, and cannot sit around the house anymore without self-medicating! 

     My new Dr. informs me that there are “pre-cancerous growths” on my cervix, but “no one dies from cervical cancer these days”.  Oh joy…I feel SOOOOOOO much better now!  She then draws some sort of diagram, and on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being normal & 10 being cancer), she says I’m at about a 7!  Another WTF from me!  How could it have progressed this far without being caught?  Shouldn’t they have seen something irregular last year?  She tells me that (lucky me) I get to strap in again, and that they’re going to take a look with the microscope.  Absolutely lovely.  She says that there’s a procedure, which is slightly painful, but which can be done in the office, where they basically burn the cells off of my cervix.  I might see some smoke, but not to worry.  Sounds like a blast.  At this point, I need a stiff drink.  But I’m all for getting shit over with quickly, so I say, “Go for it!  Whatever you need to do!”  I have a high pain tolerance, and at this point, just want to get it done with.  Turns out, they can’t do that specific procedure, as the cells are too close to my vaginal wall, and she’s pretty sure I don’t want my coochie burned……DUH! 

     The next step is scheduling my surgery for 4/11, as this more drastic procedure has to be done in a hospital.  Well, at least they’re going to knock me the fuck out for this!   Hopefully, they’ll hook me up with some wicked pain killers too! 

Why, oh why do I have to be too old for the vaccine that was just invented?!  To all of you with young daughters, GET THEM VACCINATED!!!  NOW!!!

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/cervicalcancer.html#cat3

© 2008 Christel Grady