What once was lost, but now is found October 22, 2004 ~ 1:45 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedSubtitled: Big as Life and Twice as Ugly
When I was about 20, I had a gynecologist appointment that left me a little unsettled. No, there wasn’t sexual harassment, and it didn’t hurt any more than usual (anyone who denies that the speculum is uncomfortable is lying). What unsettled me was my gyno declaring that she couldn’t find my right ovary. Yeah, you read that right. For my male readers, the gyno places the fingers of one hand inside the patient, places the other hand on the patient’s abdomen, and feels around for the ovaries. I guess this is pretty effective, because every other time I’ve had this procedure done, they’ve found my ovaries right where they expect them to be.
But for whatever reason, on that particular gyno visit, my doctor couldn’t find the right one. She decided I needed to get a sonogram to find it. Now, since I was going to college 90 miles north of my gyno’s office, I had to wait a couple of weeks to get this done. In the meantime, I told my two best friends and we had a whole bunch of “missing ovary” jokes. Which were funny to a point, but I was also worried that something might be seriously wrong. As it turned out, when I had the sonogram the tech was able to find the missing ovary in about 30 seconds, right where it should be, “very nice and almond shaped” (she really used those words. I remember that clearly.) Nothing to worry about, I guess sometimes the little suckers just shift around a bit.
I had totally forgotten about this until I went to the gyno yesterday. As he was probing for ovaries he said my right one was enlarged. “Maybe there’s a cyst,” he said. He wrote a prescription for me to get a sonogram. So now I’m waiting until November 8 to get my sonogram to see what the hell’s going on in there. I appreciate the irony that my missing ovary has decided to reassert its presence, big as life and twice as ugly. And I also realize that there’s probably nothing wrong with me. It doesn’t hurt (at least it didn’t till the doc started poking at it yesterday), there’s no blood, there are no Alien-like movements going on there, I’m fine. And besides which, even if it is a cyst, Mom says “Cysts are common in women your age. Cancer isn’t.”
So there you have it. But I hate having to wait so long to find out what’s going on. Why tell me there might be something wrong only to make me wait three weeks to find out?
In the meantime, let the ovary jokes commence. Got to fill the time some way, right?
