Hysteroscopy

 It was a treat to be a burden, a problem for other people to solve, rather than always being the one to do the solving, although doubtless I’d soon grow tired of it. How will we get mother to the hospital? Who will make the dinner now, who can look after her while I get to rehearsal, and then me in the middle, a great big useless lump, smiling benignly, waiting for decisions to be made, wanting no more than to be warm, get my shoes off, get the telly on. Perhaps I shall lean in to this newly enfeebled state. I might unearth a latent love of custard creams and afternoon game shows. Just put a blanket over me, darling, and let me dribble gently to the sound of canned laughter, advertisements for funeral plans. Yes, I’m quite happy, thank you. Leave me be now.

Legs up in stirrups, five other women in the room, bustling about my gash, centre stage as always.

A kind nurse held my hand and whispered gentle nonsense at me. She asked what I did: I said I was a writer. Will you write about this? she asked. Probably, I said. I’ve already written two pieces about my troublesome womb.  I write for Kent online, Metro and Love it, as well as books, and everything that happens to me turns up somewhere. She held both my hands tight when I seemed to be struggling. You must go home bruised, I said. 

Only once, in fact, when a woman was wearing a huge heavy ring that pressed into my thumb! I still let her keep squeezing.

I shall write about all of you, I announce to the room, in feeble threat. You will all end up in Metro, with its 18 million views a month, imagine that. I probably didn’t need to threaten them: they all seemed terrifically competent. The hand holder said she was in Country Life once, she and her daughter, when they went to Whitstable and tried oysters for the first time: they got papped and interviewed for a feature, and she bought everyone she knew a copy. Her daughter is doing a masters in museum studies now. 

All the women admire my nails. Indigo blue? Or would you call it electric? I apologise for my super-retroverted uterus, describing how the blood shoots up my back when I’ve a heavy period, how tampons are useless. The consultant fingers me, scowling at my pathologically shy cervix. The blonde nurse makes a sympathetic face.

Pizza for tea, I tell the kind nurse. The others were muttering very bad, hysterectomy, but the kind nurse was preventing me eavesdropping properly, so I might as well be polite instead. You’re the third woman today to tell me she’s having pizza for tea, she says, excitedly, and I’m briefly subdued by the news of my samey small talk.

The camera going in was easy, barely worse than a smear. There was nothing to see. My womb was empty. That was a surprise. The fibroids are all wedged in the wall of my womb, which presumably makes them trickier to remove without taking out the womb itself, which I could do without. They flooded my womb with water. There was a large plastic bag between the stirrups to catch the water “so we needn’t mop up between patients”.  They used four swabs, then counted them out, over and over, all of them, to be sure they hadn’t left any in me. 

Then they took a biopsy. That was painful. I squeezed hard at that. Breathed my way through it. It was over fast.

My daughter is super clever, the nurse told me. So academic. Her first degree was medieval history. Don’t know where she gets it from. I’m the practical one. And I murmured, thank goodness you are, you’re being so helpful and kind, distracting me and letting me squeeze you. How often do you do these?

Three afternoons a week, five times each afternoon, at least.

Gosh! So many!

 I wonder if she tells all those women about her clever daughter. And then it hurts again so I snap into journalist mode and ask how long she’s been at this hospital, and if she’s always been in this department. 

Forty years! My goodness. You must have seen some changes!

She nods enthusiastically and I wonder if an interview with her would make an article. Then they’ve finished. 

Let your head meet your feet! she says. That’s always my favourite line! I sit over the plastic bag spewing out water and blood. She sits beside me and tells me not to insert anything until the discharge stops, neither tampon nor cock nor anything else. Shower, don’t bathe. No pools or hot tubs.  Take one of our pads and another for your handbag. Here’s the direct number for the gynae A&E if you start feeling ill or passing enormous chunks or gushing blood or the discharge becomes seriously offensive. You'll know if that happens. Alright dear? Feeling better are you? There are some tissues by your head.

The fingering consultant said my womb was empty and the lining thin, but that’s to be expected at my age. The fibroids are growing on the outside of my womb. There’ll be an MRI probably and then they’ll decide what to do with me. For now, I am dismissed. I go to the loo and gush more water and blood, then call my son who takes me home. I’m thirsty, as if my body is confused by all the fluid it’s expelling. To my slight disappointment I don’t feel ill. I still gawp at the telly for an hour like a concussed goldfish, but then I’m bored. I get excited about my course tomorrow instead, and start a new book. I feel fine now. Still excited. And super healthy. I want to drink heavily and enjoy a ton of filthy life-affirming fucks, and as soon as possible, this will happen.