Guessing between everything and absolutely nothing.

I'm not sure how to say this, so I'm just gonna go ahead and break it to you, blogworld.

My ovaries are housing terrorists.  Or something.

I have surmised this by reading WAY between the lines at my most recent trip to the gynecologist; but I believe that history has proven that my intuition, when combined with the Internet, is a wealth of medical knowledge, and that you should *probably* book me for your next appendectomy, or laser eye surgery.

Let's just skip the part where you verbally harass me for not having been to the doctor in "awhile".  I don't really know why, exactly, except that for a period of years, there were people that constantly LIVED in my uterus--and with them came cameras and spotlights, and doctors ACTUALLY squeezing my womb with their bare hands, and well, none of them ever mentioned a problem.   And maybe I assumed we would have another baby, and that I'd land myself back in stirrups sooner than later; except that we've now reached later, and in the span of years since I've had my first baby, I've also reached the stage of life where everything is trying kill me.  If my twenties were all about eating cheeseburgers at midnight and drinking cheap beer from a never-clean tap, then my late thirties are the time to measure my cholesterol and vitamin deficiencies, and to try to guess how death will one day come to me, via mammograms and bone density screenings.  

So last week, I went in for a routine check up--and this was devastating for a couple of reasons, mainly because it required me to be WEIGHED on week #1 of my diet, and also because my chart was six inches thick and NOT DIGITAL, which is the first sign that my innards are covered with cob webs.  So the nurse practitioner asked a bunch of questions, and we had that weird banter about my childbirths and my periods, which is always awkward because I'm wearing PAPER, and we're all just trying to pretend like this isn't going to end with something called a "speculum".  

And then we come to the point of the exam when I am used to hearing that my uterus is strong enough to bench press 375 lbs.--only this time, the nurse practitoner *casually* mentions that she'd like to order an ultrasound, since it's been a few years since I've been in.  "Nothing to worry about," she says as she canoodles my fallopian tubes.  "I'm not feeling anything that worries me, I just think it would be a good idea," she says.  Except that in years past, this is the point of the examination where my uterus does it's show-stopping, triple back handspring and ends up winning the blue ribbon in the county fair, and so this ultrasound seems, suspiciously, not like a gold medal or a badge of honor.  And if it's purely arbitrary, I'm curious as to why she didn't mention this at the start of the appointment, and not, say, while fondling my egg basket.

In my experience, doctors have never thrown casual ultrasounds into anything--and to me, this hints of something terrible, or is the introduction to old age, in which I will have doctors appointments and tests done weekly to figure out what is failing me.  Either way, I don't like it--and I never imagined 36 to be the year when I start to fear that terrorists are going to explode my lady bits.

And just when I start to REALLY panic, my mind wonders WHY EXACTLY, that my nurse practitioner couldn't tell me what she was actually thinking.  About MY uterus.  There's all this protocol and political correctness, and test running to be ABSOLUTELY sure of my health, or my diagnosis--and in that span of three weeks, while I wait for my ultrasound, there's a lot of guessing and fear and anger.  Over what is likely to be an ovarian cyst.  Or maybe cancer, that terrorist bastard.  I'm just not sure why I have to guess between everything and absolutely nothing; or why I'm not entitled to know the gray area of my health and well-being.  

I got in the car and called Mike, and after he distracted me with late lunch at our FAVORITE NEW RESTAURANT, I clearly felt that the Lord wanted to comfort my soul with fake metallic pumpkins, because that's how I react to this kind of vague and unspecific news.  

By waiting and seeing.  And gluing some fake gourds to a wreath.