So my hips are precariously perched on the high edge of one of those wedge pillow things you see advertised in porn mags and fertility literature, trying not to get strangled by the sheet that keeps sliding up around my neck when she says to me…
Discombobulated? Little confused as to what’s happening in the above scenario? Wishing there’d been a little more exposition before I just dove in there?
Yeah. I felt that same way at the imaging center this week. Except I was naked from the waist down and still-glistening with sonogram jelly from my external exam.
It is SO AWESOME having a female reproductive system.
Are you up to speed yet? No? I’ll back up a little.
Remember when I had my melon-sized ovary removed last summer? More specifically, less than 24 hours after I delivered Amongst the Liberal Elite to the publisher? And less than 48 hours after a mammogram and breast biopsy? WASN’T THAT JUST THE MOST RELAXING WEEK EVER? Well, everything worked out fine. But I still have to do a little follow-up every now and again. More specifically, last Wednesday.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had a 45-minute transvaginal ultrasound, but I don’t recommend it. Yes, it’s uncomfortable, surely. But when a test is supposed to take 10 minutes and you’re still on the table after twenty, you know they’re looking at something specific. And if you’ve had as many scans, wands, biopsies, and x-rays as I have, you can usually tell what kind of results you’re going to get.
REGARDLESS, prior to Wednesday, my most recent ultrasound had taken AGES. Maybe I blocked that experience out completely because it was rather traumatic? Maybe that’s why I was fully unprepared for how this one went?
Which brings me back to my bum atop what looks like an upholstered skateboard ramp for guinea pigs when the tech hands me the light-saber length probe she’s been busily sheathing and lubing and says, “So you’ll just insert the wand and…”
“What?” I asked.
“And we’ll get started.”
“No. I do what?”
“Insert the wand,” she repeated, thrusting it closer to my hand which continued to lay dormant on the sheet.
“Like…myself? Into…myself?”
“Yup!” she answered, this time successfully delivering the hilt to me. She had to sort of tilt her head to the side to avoid taking a lubed wand to the face, handing me the apparatus as one would hand a knife or pair of scissors to a child – safe end first.
“But…but…” I stammered, trying to buy time. Reader, I have NO RECOLLECTION of this EVER having happened before. And I REALLY THINK I WOULD HAVE REMEMBERED IT IF IT HAD. I swallowed hard and said the first thing that came to mind, “But this is Jersey! We don’t even pump our own gas!”
Fortunately, my formative years in NC stuck with me and I was able to recall how nozzles and tanks work. But unlike that one incident in NC, I definitely did NOT forget to remove the nozzle before departing THAT station.
And now for your Ukulele Fridays. And yes, I’m still wearing pajamas. It’s been a long week. HAPPY FRIDAY!