Why I am Batshit Crazy, or Adventures in Gynecologists Who Don't Have Vaginas

It has recently come to my attention that I'm probably not just randomly batshit crazy like because of a chemical imbalance or inbred stupidity or anything. I mean, I always suspected I was batshit crazy from being a poet too long, kinda like when you read so long your eyes cross. I poeted too long so my brain crossed.

But no. Turns out I'm batshit crazy because the medical establishment hates fat people and I am fat. I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which does not mean I have cysts on my ovaries. It means I'm fat. Also it means I have inflammation issues and an omega-3 imbalance (if I were a slightly saner woman I'd probably blame the batshit crazy on the omega-3 imbalance which causes memory issues and stuff but right now I'm blaming the doctors IT IS THEIR FAULT). Anyway, I've had this diagnosis for 10 years. So I know stuff.

I asked my doctor (who I trust and is a pretty good doctor) to send me to an endocrinologist to deal with PCOS, which is an endocrine/metabolic issue. He was all, "Nice try, girl, but I see you're not on birth control, you hussy. I'm sending you to the gynecologist." Which is fair, since the wonderful ob/gyn I used to see is the doctor who diagnosed me with PCOS and was treating me for 10 years. The treatment was birth control to regulate my cycle and prevent unwanted babies that would also be fat and have PCOS and probably also not have a father because men hate feminists and fat chicks.Unfortunately, the one good ob/gyn in all of the world moved to the other side of the country and I have to shop around and test drive a few new ones. So, here are my most recent adventures with the gynecologist.

1. I had to go to Planned Parenthood because my medicaid plan was FidelisCare, which I like to call INFIDEL in my head, and they are Catholic-ish and hate ladyparts. After waiting for 3 days in the PP waiting room with no food or water or cigarettes, they took my blood pressure and gave me a pregnancy test, but they didn't realize that I'm so deathfatz that you need a plus-size bp cuff for an accurate reading (which I learned by accident at the student health center after a bunch of nurses made me think I was about to die all the time from high blood pressure and I had terrible anxiety forever and then one day a new nurse whipped out a larger cuff and this sentence got overly long) and almost refused me birth control until I very loudly insisted they retake my blood pressure and then they saw that I wasn't actually on the brink of a stroke. Then the doctor, who is not actually a doctor but a physician's assistant, came in to take a pap smear but she couldn't find my cervix. I was all, "Lady," (oh yeah, she probably has a vagina which kinda makes this blog post's title wrong but oh well) "Lady, my cervix is that wall at the end of my vagina, the one you keep stabbing with the swab you are waving around." But still, she tried 3 times and then I got 3 letters over the next month from PP telling me that my pap smears were unreadable. Then she prescribed me birth control saying, "This is the one for PMDD" and then giggling nervously when I reminded her I have PCOS and not PMDD. Then she forgot to write out refills on the script and so I only had birth control for one month.

2. Then I got real health insurance from my job, and my trusted doc gave me a referral to a real gynecologist, and I called and made sure he had experience with PCOS, and the nurses told me he was director of gynecology at a really bad local hospital so I thought maybe that should count for something, and the internet said he was thorough and nice, so I figured I'd show him my hooter. But you know, by now I'm traumatized by ladybitsdoctors so I needed the moral support of my friends:

Friend: I'm sorry you have to get your devil's pocket examined by a stranger.
Me: It is the curse of Eve. My spousehole needs investigation; wish me a warm speculum.
Friend: May it be warm and small.

Also there were lots of pregnant women wearing white in the waiting room and I thought, "Who do they think they're kidding?"

3. The examination was fine except I couldn't always understand the doctor who was soft-spoken, accented, and used strange phrases. He asked if I was genetically fat. I mean, yeah, I probably am, but no one cares to ask questions like that and instead the doctors just assume I'm fat because I eat baby-flavored donuts all day while weeping in the dark. When he asked who was treating me for PCOS I was a bit disturbed though, because um, doc, that's why I was sent to you. Then he asked if my doctor had put me on metformin and I said no, my doctor says I don't need it, and since he has checked my blood insulin levels I believe him. The gyn with no vagina however, looked at me with his head all sideways like this. And then implied my trusted doctor was a failure who was ruining my life by making me stay fat.

4. Back in his office, ob/gyn of doom showed me a chart of the female reproductive cycle and what goes wrong in women with PCOS. I decided not to tell him I've borne the red flag of womanhood for almost 20 years now and have carried the fat-hate and man-hormones of PCOS for 10 years. I didn't think he would listen to me, and I was proved right when he whipped out the BMI chart, I told him according to BMI I should be dead, and he ignored me. Instead he told me I need to lose more than half of my body weight, which at nearly 30 years old is totally possible and likely to happen ever, especially since I have a metabolic disorder and science pretty much shows that once you're fat you're fat and you can get less fat and you can get healthy but you'll still be fat.

5. The ob/gyn with no vag agreed with me that I need to menstruate regularly (if you're still with me, dear reader, sorry for talking about the woman's bloody curse in public) so he prescribed me a progesterone pill or something. For 14 days of the month. I thought I ought to remind him that memory fail is a problem with PCOS, and that I can almost never remember daily pills, and so maybe I'd take those pills for 14 days but then I'd forget to start again. But I figured I'd just set a calendar reminder and my phone would beep and it would be ok. So then I asked him about the birth control pills and he said no. He said, "Take this Provera. It will give you your period." Then I told him I want birth control to prevent pregnancy and he told me not to worry. Even though in his show and tell session he mentioned that some women with PCOS sometimes ovulate normally, after not looking at my bloodwork at all he decided I don't ovulate ever and can never ever get pregnant ever. I thought about asking him if that's why all my kinky, unprotected sex never resulted in abortions, but I didn't think he'd laugh. He also mentioned birth control making me even fatter, despite the fact that I've been on the pill for 10 years and I'm freakin fat anyway, asshole. Then, after not looking at my bloodwork or even suggesting I get my blood sugar levels tested, he also prescribed metformin. Which, I would totally take if he'd at least pretended to prove to me I genuinely need it or that it's not counter-indicated by other medical conditions. But he didn't. He didn't even discuss side effects or anything like that.

6. I asked him to write the prescription I didn't want anyway in the format my prescription plan wants for the mail order pharmacy, and he told me I could get the pill locally. I agreed that I could but that my insurance did not prefer that and that it was cheaper to do as they asked me. He said something along the lines of, "It really doesn't cost that much. You don't need to send the prescription out." Because he totally knows and understands my finances better than me. Probably because I have a cunt and that makes math hard.

7. As I fled the office, near tears because I really just wanted him to listen to how I wanted to treat my illness that I've had and been researching for 10 years, it occurred to me to look up the Provera he prescribed and see what it is. Turns out I've been on it before. I  saw the generic name and had an instant panic attack. Because this medication is what my old ob/gyn used to put me on as a sort of it's-for-your-own-good punishment whenever I forgot to renew my birth control for months at a time. Old doc would give me a 3-5 day prescription during which time I did nothing but cry and scream and hyperventilate. THE NAME OF THE MEDICATION STILL SENDS ME INTO ANXIETY MODE. And this douche wants me on it for 14 days a month.

8. I cried all the way home by bus. In public. And then I realized I don't need referrals with my new insurance and so fuck this shit, I'm going to an endocrinologist and this time I'm bringing everyone I know with me to back me up when I say I want to be treated on my terms.

P.S. I don't know why I numbered the paragraphs, but it makes it easier to read, right? I thought about changing it to bullets, but then I figured I'm talking about my vagina and this is only the second blog post since I started and I don't really have readers yet and why get all fancy.