Sometimes You Have To Go Backwards To Go Forwards

 Warning: This story is of a personal nature about women's health.

This Doctor pushed his spectacles up his nose slightly, rummaging through his papers, his brow furrowing. His caterpillar moustache twitching.


"I apologise for the unpreparedness. The computer system is down so I have to rely on the notes in your file."


"It's okay." I smiled. "I know you used to see my mother, so I feel I am in good hands." 


Once he had read through the notes, he asked to examine me, which led to a discussion.


I sat waiting with baited breath for his diagnosis.

"It appears you have what's called a labial fusion. You perhaps were born with it. In terms of your symptoms, they appear consistent with PCOS, but up until now you haven't been able to have an internal ultrasound, so it is hard to confirm. So I am going to send you to have an MRI of your lower abdomen to rule out any anomalies and that way we can also confirm whether you have follicles on your ovaries. I'll also get you a prescription for a estrogen cream to see if that can help the fusion come apart."  


Leaving the doctor's office that day felt like a small celebration. I had a diagnosis with a name. I returned home and headed straight to the internet like any millennial would. I poured over medical journals and articles, looking for people I could relate to, other women who had experienced the same. What I found instead, however, was many articles talking about how this affected the elderly and young girls under five. I found a YouTube video with an adult woman who had the condition, but otherwise there was no one. I trawled Facebook in search of support groups but there were none for adult women with labial fusions. What had started out in my mind as a small win, quickly made me feel like I was losing all over again. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scar

Image
  It was a few months after our blissful wedding, that I started seeking treatment, I was referred to someone and went to meet her at the fertility service she was the director of.  We didn't hit off immediately. I felt like she was clinical and unphased by my condition. Which of course to me felt hurtful. Something that felt debilitating, painful and uncomfortable was to her simply fixable. She also wasn't fond of my husband.  She told me that mt fusion had healed itself. That I would need to start using a dilator daily to gradually break down my hymen. If this wasn't effective then I would be scheduled for a hymenectomy.  During that appointment as she examined, I can remember flinching so bad and her taking note of my severe sensitivity. She ended up telling me that I also had something known as vulvodynia, put plainly - extreme sensitivity. She urged me to see a sexual psychologist, but it was something that really hurt my feelings. This wasn't a choice or out of fe
Read more

There's Something There That Wasn't There Before

  While Jon and I were still long distance, I started working in early childhood, which I believe kept me fit and healthy. I averaged about 10,000 steps at work a day and enjoyed getting involved in the activities the children were doing such as PE and music. I could even see my own coordination and rhythm improving, which is quite amusing! Young and still quite lean, I didn't see too many physical challenges initially. I noticed my desperation for carbs, but otherwise there wasn't really anything particularly noticeable. I didn't have acne or bad facial hair or any of those other typical tell-tale signs.  When I was probably 3 or 4 years into my job, I started getting chronic infections that I thought were thrush. I'd go to the doctors and tell them, they'd make me do countless urine tests and attempted to swab me. I remember telling the Doctor that I couldn't be swabbed, but she attempted anyway and I remember screaming out in pain as she prodded me. "We
Read more

A Definition, Not A Diagnosis

Image
  "Yes, I think you have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome" our GP said, sitting across from my mother and I. I would've about thirteen years-old, having started my period the year before, we were both concerned by how sporadic it was.  I could go four months without ever having one. Once it finally arrived though, I was met with painful cramps that would keep me up at night, so bad that I'd have to stay home from school till it was over. I remembered mentioning my lack of periods to a friend when I was in seventh grade, her response came fast and thick, "Maybe you're anorexic, Google says periods stop if you have anorexia." It was 2007, the beginning of when the world could tell you anything you wanted to know with a single click, even if it didn't happen to be true. All I could do to not cry was gulp and walk away slowly. I'd learn to do that often over the years.  But the diagnosis you ask? Back to the diagnosis, the diagnosis was purely verbal, I spe
Read more