Scar Tissue - Paul's blog post

[Jules_rules]

Not sure if there is a more appropriate place to post this since it's not technically an episode, but anyway...

I awoke in the wee hours of Saturday morning to find a new blog post from Paul so I gave it a read while I waited for my antihistamine to help me back to sleep. It brought some stuff from my childhood/adolescence back up for me. Not quite the same situation as Paul's (goes without saying since I'm female) but there are some similar themes. Lots of TMI but here goes.

Due to some bed-wetting problems when I was young, I had to be catheterized for a procedure to rule out any physical causes. I was about eight and as they tried to get the catheter into my urethra, I resisted and flailed so much, they had to bring in extra nurses to hold me down for the procedure. Then I was required to pee, on the table, in front of everyone, for the x-ray. I knew it was a medical procedure and they weren't doing anything inappropriate and could potentially stop an embarrassing problem but it didn't change the feeling of being accosted or molested. I didn't have the additional issue of a parent watching it. In fact, it was the opposite for me as I felt abandoned by my mom and didn't understand how she could let it happen to me. I don't recall her explaining fully what the procedure would entail. If only Pull-ups or Depends were available to me then, I would have been happy to go that route. And ultimately it did nothing to help the bed-wetting problem. That stopped on its own as I got a bit older and didn't sleep as deeply (queue the life-long insomnia instead).

As an adult, I had a pap smear come back as abnormal and had to have a procedure where they would take a sample of my cervix. If I remember correctly, they froze a bit of my cervix before they picked pieces off of it, but it did nothing for the pain and the level of invasiveness was 10x that of a regular pap smear. The procedure wasn't done by my regular PCP either, so I had a stranger and her assistant, both rather cold and unsympathetic, doing the procedure. I would have given anything for the assistant/nurse to have held my hand and try to soothe me, tell me this is normal and awful and I'm doing great. Apparently, her only purpose was to be a witness that nothing inappropriate took place. When it was over, they handed me a pad for the bleeding and sent me on my way. I hadn't told anyone ahead of time that this was happening and so I had nobody to help me home afterward. I managed to find my way back to my car and proceeded to cry for I don't know how long before I drove home. Fortunately, I lived very close. Also, the results were negative.

Pretty standard, yet also incredibly invasive and demeaning are the mammograms and colonoscopy I had to have earlier than many folks thanks to a history of those cancers in my family. I know they're standard stuff and for a good reason but that doesn't change how they make me feel during the procedures as well as sometimes for days afterward. I got put under for the colonoscopy so I had a nice sleep but I have such a fear of being put under that I had several anxiety attacks prior to the needle. There actually were some concerning nodules they removed during the colonoscopy so I suppose it wasn't a needless procedure, though they fortunately did come back negative for cancer.

My mammograms always come back normal but if given the chance, I'd have my breasts removed in a heartbeat. Ok, maybe not entirely removed, but if I could get rid of 90% of them, I'd be so happy. My breasts have always been a burden to me. I had my first bra at age 7-8, which since I skipped 1st grade, put me only in 3rd grade. 3rd grade with boobs was such a lovely time. By age 10, I was no longer technically pre-pubescent and easily looked 4-5 years older than I was, and that didn't stop 'til around graduation from high school. The inappropriate looks and attention began by age 11 and although I never allowed anyone to mess with me, there were attempts. I nearly caved in to one attempt so I could feel pretty and wanted, but ultimately, I knew it was super skeezy for this husband and father to be giving me this attention. I felt deformed and horrible from day one though and refused to shower with the girls after PE classes. I was always granted the option of separate showers or even separate PE classes by school administrators who were probably as concerned as I was about how my breasts would make me a target for abuse.

As a 44-year old, my breasts have reached maximum sag and make exercise very difficult. In order to have a breast reduction, I'd have to lose a tremendous amount of weight, which is more difficult because of the breasts. Then, even if I lose the weight, there's no guarantee I would either be able to afford a breast reduction or have it covered by insurance or even be medically cleared for such a major surgery (much bigger surgery than breast augmentation). Then, I would be stuck with slightly smaller, but mostly just very saggy, deflated balloon boobs. At least with the fat, they're slightly full. They never get positive attention from guys, unless you count the gay guys I hang with, which is something I always found odd. At least when they ask to motorboat the girls, I know they're not trying to get in my pants and I don't think they'd do it if the girls were really gross. If I had my way, I'd be a B cup maximum and be able to be athletic without having to spend upward of $75 for a sports bra that doesn't really help.

So this forum post has gone in some directions I didn't expect when I started it. But that's the way these things sometimes go. This is the stuff that came up for me.