Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2016-07-21 06:13 am
azurelunatic) wrote2016-07-21 06:13 am
Entry tags:
IUD expulsion; IED explosion. Slightly different.
Oh, uterus.
So because of reasons (mostly involving PCOS and my desire to maybe #bloodcannon a little less), I've been thinking about an IUD for a while. And since a few of my friends and I have entered into a mutual support pact about embodiment issues, it was well time for me to schedule an appointment for that.
Having determined to do the thing, I was rather in mind of doing it promptly, and since there has not in fact been any reason to suspect I might be pregnant (owing to not having been around any unchaperoned sperm since 2004-ish), sooner was better than later.
Unfortunately, the online appointment booking thing was down at the time I tried to get an appointment, so I wound up calling in; because I called in, I got an appointment with some random person from the office, rather than the uterus inspector I'd painstakingly picked out from the list. (The painstaking process went like: are they in this office? Do they not go on about how much they like babies? Does something about their profile strike me as friendly to me and people like me? OK then.)
Since it had been a while since seeing a uterus inspector when not in a highly traumatized and upset state of mind, and the state of the sexual health care art continues to change, I came prepared with a short list of questions whose answers I actually rather thought might apply to my current life. (I also have come to the conclusion that while I have no particular wish to get surgery which is super optional, I want to carefully monitor the risk & pain tradeoffs between keeping the uterus in and having the fucker OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT, and remove it as soon as it tips, rather than attempting to keep it around much past its best-by date.)
(And as I had occasion to discuss with friends when talking about my uterus in general, getting my uterus OUT doesn't bother me like it would some people. I've decided against body-birth at some point in the past 20 years. I also know myself well enough to realize that doing 50% of the caregiving for a kid in the 0-4 range would drive me out of my tree, especially when you factor in sleep-dep. Plus, I have no idea whateveandriss would think of a much-younger sibling.)
Various friends have pointed me in the direction of the cervical nerve block while getting the IUD put in. Also, the wisdom of taking ibuprofen before the insertion.eveandriss wisely informed me that she had felt kicked in the uterus, like a bad period, including back pain. A heating pad and advil helped. And she would have preferred to have someone to hold her hand. Ursula Vernon's experience was fairly high up in my mind, despite also knowing that my general vaginal area is pretty damn stretchy (ask me how I know) and that things that other folks would consider excruciating, I sometimes consider basically just Tuesday. I brought the Sex Ed hat, and made sure that there were a few other random comfort objects about my person and bag, just to make doubly sure.
I, very unwisely, went before I left. This did mean that despite chugging the rest of my water bottle in the waiting room, I was not prepared to give the obligatory urine sample for pregnancy testing purposes. Oops. I did, however, specify on the intake form that I am agender, with "they" pronouns. There was no sensible place to put it, so I put it near the top in some blank space. This seems like a helpful clarification.
These things always require the ritual weighing. I observed that the number had changed by (mumble); given that the factors driving the change involve proper meds, and also rather better stamina, I am not inclined to argue.
Doctors' offices also render me a shaky and tense mess. My blood pressure was ... oi. The assistant entered my information, got to meet my sex ed hat (she is a crocheter herself), called one of her compatriots over to meet my sex ed hat, and then sent me off to the bathroom to try and get enough to test.
I dropped the first sample cup in the toilet. I had rather better luck with the second one.
The uterus inspector and I talked, after that, and she answered my questions. I declared my preference in favor of ditching the uterus if the balance shifts, rather than trying to keep it; I have neither practical nor sentimental reasons to keep it. The reason that I'm (still) too old for the HPV vaccine is because people over a certain age tend to get the bad side effects at a medically unacceptable rate. The pattern of bleeding following penetration thing that I'd observed made her declare it was time for an endometrial biopsy. I asked for the cervical nerve block, please, and I'd already had the ibuprofen beforehand.
I was, in fact, bleeding at this point in time. This was quite all right with her, as that's the best time for this procedure. We assumed our positions after the usual interlude of undressing and gowning up. She did the breast exam; I asked about that bit on the right side I'd been curious about. Nah, not to worry.
She got the equipment set up, ultrasound and all. Of the various ultrasound operators I've had doing the internal wand, she's the best so far. She located the uterus; its position seems unremarkable.
The order had to be: cervical sample gathering for testing, cleaning, nerve block injection, biopsy, IUD insertion. She did the thing with the speculum. My cervix was being helpful, and was right there! She began with the poking to get test samples for the various screenings.
A short time later, there my cervix was not. It was "being squirrely", she said, and had to make a call to summon a different speculum with a little more authority.
We took this opportunity to re-group. I had been intermittently looking at Twitter via my watch, which meant that at one point while she was still up in my business, I went *snerk* and she checked to make sure that I was okay. It was not, in fact, something she had done wrong, it was something that a library patron had done *very* wrong. Sorry, twitter-friend, for laughing at your pain, but at least you helped distract me from the very real terror of getting an apparently surprisingly large chunk of plastic shoved up my bits? Also the bit where she described the likely sensation of injecting the anaesthetic into the cervix as "like a bee sting". That was not a super comforting description. However, a certain amount of poking and scraping later, I was still not feeling bee-stung.
I should take a moment to describe the equipment used for the local anaesthetic. She used a plastic syringe, with a terrifyingly thick needle to draw out of the bottle. She then promptly took the thick needle off and dropped it in the sharps bin, and opened another package, this one with a very fine, very long needle, mostly encased in a very long plastic tube, vaguely the shape and thickness of an anti-yeast-cream applicator. The idea is that the plastic tube allows for safe insertion of the needle without risk of poking a vaginal wall by accident.
The person with the new speculum knocked on the door, handed over the speculum, and offered to stay in case her presence would be needed to calm down a possibly-frantic patient. The doctor reassured her that in fact her presence was not needed, as the patient was doing just great. This was true! I'm pretty comfortable with the concept of speculums, given that my circa-2002 favorite was vaginal fisting (with the boyfriend with very nice large hands).
So, new speculum in place, she re-located my cervix, and began prying it open.
The numbing was clearly working, as my cervix mostly registered just pressure, and no pain. We kept up the chatter; she kept up communicating exactly what she was going to touch and an attempt at describing what I was going to feel. She was an order of magnitude off for what I was actually feeling; it was no big deal, actually. I did start to feel a small amount of cramping, as my uterus woke up to the idea that an indignity had just been visited upon it, but just the sort of very light twinge that would be a sentinal for "take your ibuprofen now or regret it for three hours" -- and I had taken my ibuprofen. So. That wasn't bad.
There was rather more junk in my uterus than she'd been expecting with the biopsy. She advised me that if things came back in any way weird, I'd be having an appointment with the cancer department; apparently they handle everything from slightly weird all the way up to hella weird. Which was a useful heads-up.
Next came the actual IUD insertion. More pressure and a small amount of pinching, and it settled home. With, apparently, blood.
The doctor did a final wave-around with the wand, to make sure that the IUD was where it was supposed to be. It took a bit of joysticking about in my nethers, but she found it, and pointed it out to me on the screen. I could sort of see a light spot, but had no idea what I was looking at. It's an acquired skill, reading those.
She pulled out the wand and then kind of stared at it. Despite the protective plastic cover over it, it was basically soaked in blood, as my uterus decided that between the prodding, the biopsy, the IUD, and then more joysticking, that it was *done* playing nice. All the blood, but no pain. She hung it back in the appointed place on the machine and put a glove discreetly overtop it, but the blood sat there being very bright red and biohazardous. She tossed another absorbant pad down on the floor below the bed, to catch more of the drips.
I inquired about the 5-day timeout on any vaginal activity (tampons included) -- would say external action with for example the Hitachi be forbidden? Alas, it was orgasms and anything else that might aggravate the uterus into expelling the IUD. No Hitachi. No ... anything. Woe.
I got some post-insertion instructions. Then I got dressed, and looked sadly at the bloodstained wreck of the paper over the bottom of the bed. They were going to have to basically scrub the whole room. There was blood on the bed, on the floor, on the ultrasound probe...
The assistant came back in for wrap-up, and for my blood pressure reading. The second reading was in fact still high (gosh, I wonder how that could be, what with just having my bits jimmied), so she set up an appointment for ... when would work? Tomorrow? Or Friday? I realized that I'd been thinking it was Thursday all day. So tomorrow would work, wouldn't interfere with anything. Friday had more chance of interference.
Someone knocked, and wanted to know if the assistant knew anything about an ultrasound machine. The assistant indicated the machine, but pointed out the impressively bloody probe. The other person pondered, but allowed as they could liberate a probe from somewhere else, it was the machine that was needed. They pulled off the probe, and the other assistant started wheeling it out the door.
I saw the cord stretch. "It's still plugged in!" I pointed out. Slightly chagrined, she unplugged it, then wheeled away with her prize.
That was about that. I collected my things and headed out, leaving promises to get the sex ed hat properly up on Ravelry someday. And I headed for home, a little disoriented and definitely feeling profuse bleeding, but not feeling kicked anywhere tender.
I came home to assorted encouragement on Twitter. Of particular note were the "uterus explosion" misreadings, and then a bit of sublime silliness with![[twitter.com profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
atavistique.
azurelunatic I think it will be time for tea when I get home.
atavistique and indeed there will be time/ to murder and create/ before the taking of toast and tea
azurelunatic Do I dare/ Disturb the uterus?
atavistique I have lingered in the chambers of the womb/ by follicles wreathed with endometrium red and brown
azurelunatic Till the speculum is lowered, in the gloom.
After the alluded-to pot of strong tea, I felt equal to dinner out with Purple, which was largely pleasant. I finally got to introduce him to the bread pudding, which was spectacular and my entire reason for bringing him. After dessert, I looked at my phone when Purple stepped away from the table, and found that I had received an emotionally jarring text. I showed Purple, and reached across the table to take his hand while I freaked out gently, and mourned the world in which certain terrible things had not yet happened. Eventually we repaired to the parking lot, to discuss the hardships of having been the kind of grownup who lost the rock-paper-scissors for presidency of the HOA board (this was the "bagsy not-it" game), pie that has tentacles, and the way he's *mostly* a well-behaved grown-up, but there are just moments when he has to fuck with people's brains. I have rather more of those moments, and mostly I let them off harmlessly, but every now and then there's something like the helldesk software, or ... other, less innocent forms of fuckery ... and I aim myself carefully before going off.
A good 12 hours on, and the bleeding's slowed to something more normal. And now, having written all this, I shall perhaps consider bed!
So because of reasons (mostly involving PCOS and my desire to maybe #bloodcannon a little less), I've been thinking about an IUD for a while. And since a few of my friends and I have entered into a mutual support pact about embodiment issues, it was well time for me to schedule an appointment for that.
Having determined to do the thing, I was rather in mind of doing it promptly, and since there has not in fact been any reason to suspect I might be pregnant (owing to not having been around any unchaperoned sperm since 2004-ish), sooner was better than later.
Unfortunately, the online appointment booking thing was down at the time I tried to get an appointment, so I wound up calling in; because I called in, I got an appointment with some random person from the office, rather than the uterus inspector I'd painstakingly picked out from the list. (The painstaking process went like: are they in this office? Do they not go on about how much they like babies? Does something about their profile strike me as friendly to me and people like me? OK then.)
Since it had been a while since seeing a uterus inspector when not in a highly traumatized and upset state of mind, and the state of the sexual health care art continues to change, I came prepared with a short list of questions whose answers I actually rather thought might apply to my current life. (I also have come to the conclusion that while I have no particular wish to get surgery which is super optional, I want to carefully monitor the risk & pain tradeoffs between keeping the uterus in and having the fucker OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT, and remove it as soon as it tips, rather than attempting to keep it around much past its best-by date.)
(And as I had occasion to discuss with friends when talking about my uterus in general, getting my uterus OUT doesn't bother me like it would some people. I've decided against body-birth at some point in the past 20 years. I also know myself well enough to realize that doing 50% of the caregiving for a kid in the 0-4 range would drive me out of my tree, especially when you factor in sleep-dep. Plus, I have no idea what
eveandriss would think of a much-younger sibling.)Various friends have pointed me in the direction of the cervical nerve block while getting the IUD put in. Also, the wisdom of taking ibuprofen before the insertion.
eveandriss wisely informed me that she had felt kicked in the uterus, like a bad period, including back pain. A heating pad and advil helped. And she would have preferred to have someone to hold her hand. Ursula Vernon's experience was fairly high up in my mind, despite also knowing that my general vaginal area is pretty damn stretchy (ask me how I know) and that things that other folks would consider excruciating, I sometimes consider basically just Tuesday. I brought the Sex Ed hat, and made sure that there were a few other random comfort objects about my person and bag, just to make doubly sure. I, very unwisely, went before I left. This did mean that despite chugging the rest of my water bottle in the waiting room, I was not prepared to give the obligatory urine sample for pregnancy testing purposes. Oops. I did, however, specify on the intake form that I am agender, with "they" pronouns. There was no sensible place to put it, so I put it near the top in some blank space. This seems like a helpful clarification.
These things always require the ritual weighing. I observed that the number had changed by (mumble); given that the factors driving the change involve proper meds, and also rather better stamina, I am not inclined to argue.
Doctors' offices also render me a shaky and tense mess. My blood pressure was ... oi. The assistant entered my information, got to meet my sex ed hat (she is a crocheter herself), called one of her compatriots over to meet my sex ed hat, and then sent me off to the bathroom to try and get enough to test.
I dropped the first sample cup in the toilet. I had rather better luck with the second one.
The uterus inspector and I talked, after that, and she answered my questions. I declared my preference in favor of ditching the uterus if the balance shifts, rather than trying to keep it; I have neither practical nor sentimental reasons to keep it. The reason that I'm (still) too old for the HPV vaccine is because people over a certain age tend to get the bad side effects at a medically unacceptable rate. The pattern of bleeding following penetration thing that I'd observed made her declare it was time for an endometrial biopsy. I asked for the cervical nerve block, please, and I'd already had the ibuprofen beforehand.
I was, in fact, bleeding at this point in time. This was quite all right with her, as that's the best time for this procedure. We assumed our positions after the usual interlude of undressing and gowning up. She did the breast exam; I asked about that bit on the right side I'd been curious about. Nah, not to worry.
She got the equipment set up, ultrasound and all. Of the various ultrasound operators I've had doing the internal wand, she's the best so far. She located the uterus; its position seems unremarkable.
The order had to be: cervical sample gathering for testing, cleaning, nerve block injection, biopsy, IUD insertion. She did the thing with the speculum. My cervix was being helpful, and was right there! She began with the poking to get test samples for the various screenings.
A short time later, there my cervix was not. It was "being squirrely", she said, and had to make a call to summon a different speculum with a little more authority.
We took this opportunity to re-group. I had been intermittently looking at Twitter via my watch, which meant that at one point while she was still up in my business, I went *snerk* and she checked to make sure that I was okay. It was not, in fact, something she had done wrong, it was something that a library patron had done *very* wrong. Sorry, twitter-friend, for laughing at your pain, but at least you helped distract me from the very real terror of getting an apparently surprisingly large chunk of plastic shoved up my bits? Also the bit where she described the likely sensation of injecting the anaesthetic into the cervix as "like a bee sting". That was not a super comforting description. However, a certain amount of poking and scraping later, I was still not feeling bee-stung.
I should take a moment to describe the equipment used for the local anaesthetic. She used a plastic syringe, with a terrifyingly thick needle to draw out of the bottle. She then promptly took the thick needle off and dropped it in the sharps bin, and opened another package, this one with a very fine, very long needle, mostly encased in a very long plastic tube, vaguely the shape and thickness of an anti-yeast-cream applicator. The idea is that the plastic tube allows for safe insertion of the needle without risk of poking a vaginal wall by accident.
The person with the new speculum knocked on the door, handed over the speculum, and offered to stay in case her presence would be needed to calm down a possibly-frantic patient. The doctor reassured her that in fact her presence was not needed, as the patient was doing just great. This was true! I'm pretty comfortable with the concept of speculums, given that my circa-2002 favorite was vaginal fisting (with the boyfriend with very nice large hands).
So, new speculum in place, she re-located my cervix, and began prying it open.
The numbing was clearly working, as my cervix mostly registered just pressure, and no pain. We kept up the chatter; she kept up communicating exactly what she was going to touch and an attempt at describing what I was going to feel. She was an order of magnitude off for what I was actually feeling; it was no big deal, actually. I did start to feel a small amount of cramping, as my uterus woke up to the idea that an indignity had just been visited upon it, but just the sort of very light twinge that would be a sentinal for "take your ibuprofen now or regret it for three hours" -- and I had taken my ibuprofen. So. That wasn't bad.
There was rather more junk in my uterus than she'd been expecting with the biopsy. She advised me that if things came back in any way weird, I'd be having an appointment with the cancer department; apparently they handle everything from slightly weird all the way up to hella weird. Which was a useful heads-up.
Next came the actual IUD insertion. More pressure and a small amount of pinching, and it settled home. With, apparently, blood.
The doctor did a final wave-around with the wand, to make sure that the IUD was where it was supposed to be. It took a bit of joysticking about in my nethers, but she found it, and pointed it out to me on the screen. I could sort of see a light spot, but had no idea what I was looking at. It's an acquired skill, reading those.
She pulled out the wand and then kind of stared at it. Despite the protective plastic cover over it, it was basically soaked in blood, as my uterus decided that between the prodding, the biopsy, the IUD, and then more joysticking, that it was *done* playing nice. All the blood, but no pain. She hung it back in the appointed place on the machine and put a glove discreetly overtop it, but the blood sat there being very bright red and biohazardous. She tossed another absorbant pad down on the floor below the bed, to catch more of the drips.
I inquired about the 5-day timeout on any vaginal activity (tampons included) -- would say external action with for example the Hitachi be forbidden? Alas, it was orgasms and anything else that might aggravate the uterus into expelling the IUD. No Hitachi. No ... anything. Woe.
I got some post-insertion instructions. Then I got dressed, and looked sadly at the bloodstained wreck of the paper over the bottom of the bed. They were going to have to basically scrub the whole room. There was blood on the bed, on the floor, on the ultrasound probe...
The assistant came back in for wrap-up, and for my blood pressure reading. The second reading was in fact still high (gosh, I wonder how that could be, what with just having my bits jimmied), so she set up an appointment for ... when would work? Tomorrow? Or Friday? I realized that I'd been thinking it was Thursday all day. So tomorrow would work, wouldn't interfere with anything. Friday had more chance of interference.
Someone knocked, and wanted to know if the assistant knew anything about an ultrasound machine. The assistant indicated the machine, but pointed out the impressively bloody probe. The other person pondered, but allowed as they could liberate a probe from somewhere else, it was the machine that was needed. They pulled off the probe, and the other assistant started wheeling it out the door.
I saw the cord stretch. "It's still plugged in!" I pointed out. Slightly chagrined, she unplugged it, then wheeled away with her prize.
That was about that. I collected my things and headed out, leaving promises to get the sex ed hat properly up on Ravelry someday. And I headed for home, a little disoriented and definitely feeling profuse bleeding, but not feeling kicked anywhere tender.
I came home to assorted encouragement on Twitter. Of particular note were the "uterus explosion" misreadings, and then a bit of sublime silliness with
After the alluded-to pot of strong tea, I felt equal to dinner out with Purple, which was largely pleasant. I finally got to introduce him to the bread pudding, which was spectacular and my entire reason for bringing him. After dessert, I looked at my phone when Purple stepped away from the table, and found that I had received an emotionally jarring text. I showed Purple, and reached across the table to take his hand while I freaked out gently, and mourned the world in which certain terrible things had not yet happened. Eventually we repaired to the parking lot, to discuss the hardships of having been the kind of grownup who lost the rock-paper-scissors for presidency of the HOA board (this was the "bagsy not-it" game), pie that has tentacles, and the way he's *mostly* a well-behaved grown-up, but there are just moments when he has to fuck with people's brains. I have rather more of those moments, and mostly I let them off harmlessly, but every now and then there's something like the helldesk software, or ... other, less innocent forms of fuckery ... and I aim myself carefully before going off.
A good 12 hours on, and the bleeding's slowed to something more normal. And now, having written all this, I shall perhaps consider bed!
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