Flotsam

From Mimi Smartypants’ recent post (re: “Love your body day”):

‘As much as I would like to subscribe to some yoga-rrific holistic philosophy about the mind and body being connected, I can’t help but see my body and my “self” locked in constant low-level struggle, like an elderly couple bickering constantly on opposite ends of a plaid couch.’

This made me think of the following…

1. Age 5-Present: After having my blood drawn during a doctor’s appointment, I leave the cotton ball taped to my arm for a minimum of 12 hours (usually 24). Until I was 14, I also avoided using said arm for as long as possible afterwards, sometimes keeping my elbow crooked over the cotton all day after returning from the appointment. I remember being aghast at the laissez-faire attitude of the nurse at my pre-kindergarten appointment, as she poked a hole in my vein, then covered it with a flimsy scrap of cotton and a length of masking tape, assuring me that it would close up all on its own. I had read a book about blood just that summer, one of the thin rectangular educational volumes that came once a month as part of my book club (We All Need Sleep, The Story of Hair!, etc.). I understood how a scab or clot was formed, I had seen the pictures of soft, crimson platelets rushing to the site of injury, and it seemed both complicated and as if it were lot of hard work. I had an uneasy feeling that my blood cells were probably every bit as lazy as the rest of me, and I didn’t trust them with anything as important as clotting.
2. Age 16-Pesent: Some gynecologists refer to my uterus as “Retroverted,” which makes it sound cool and vintage-y, others call it “tipped” (I prefer “rakishly askew”). Still others, for instance the very young OBGYN who performed my last pelvic exam, would rather gouge at my insides in a vain attempt to position a speculum before exclaiming “Your cervix is like totally BACKWARDS!” And I particularly enjoyed the GP I saw a year ago, who, when asked whether my awkwardly placed uterus would affect my ability to conceive in the future, shrugged and said “Probably not. But it WILL be interesting to see if you can deliver normally!!! Then he chuckled madly and left the room.

Also, I think having had two miscarriages (one too few to merit any medical investigation, but one more than necessary to mar all future pregnancies with hideous 9-month long siege-state of fear) makes it difficult to regard one’s body any way but warily. Sullen, vastly pregnant teens shuffle through the Target near my house dragging litters of healthy biological children behind them. My great-grandmothers managed to shoot out more than a dozen children each—while still cooking for scads of ravenous farmhands and carrying bales of crops or whatnot. And yet the doctors I see about my endometriosis seem entirely unconcerned. They tell me to come back if my symptoms become worse (worse than a 22 day period? What might that be, exactly?) murmuring vaguely that there is “A lot we don’t understand about the female reproductive system.” Especially mine.