I got to go to the gyno’s office today.
Notice how I said “got to”? It’s sort of like how I “let” my husband run to the store for me.
So anyway, off I go for my annual exam. I even arrive 15 minutes early. And I’m pleasantly surprised when they call me back after only a ten or so minute wait.
In the exam room I proceed to undress and redress in the seafoam green gown that opens in the front and ties on the side. And then the white sheet goes over my lap just like the nurse lady told me to do.
He’ll be right in. She promises, before leaving me alone and shutting the door behind her.
Once she’s gone I look around and notice that there isn’t a single magazine in sight. Just jars of gargantuan one swab Q-tips and a 3-D model of a baby in utero.
About this time I was wishing I’d smuggled the magazine from the lobby. Especially because I hadn’t even read the cover story about Jon and Kate and their eight.
Tick tock went the clock.
More ticking. More tocking.
And then I started to get antsy. I could hear the doctor in the next room and based on what he said I could tell he was doing another annual.
Am I weird that I was relieved by that? I mean, if he’s going to be coming in and taking a gander at my nether regions and stuff at least I can take comfort in that mine aren’t the only nether regions he gandered at today.
Weird or no?
Anyway, I heard him finish up and call the patient by name when he told her goodbye, see ya next year.
And I knew I was next because she was the one who’d been called back from the lobby just before me.
So the doctor comes into the hallway and asks the nurse if he’s supposed to go into room 2 or 3 next. I didn’t know which number I was but I knew I was next. So I corrected my posture and checked to ensure I wasn’t unnecessarily exposed.
I wasn’t.
Not that it mattered because the dyslexic nurse sent him into the wrong room. UGH.
More time to obsess.
I remembered something then. And FYI, if you’re squeamish you may want to take your exit now while you still can.
I remembered that I had a lone, relatively long black hair at the edge of my areola. TMI, I know. But you were warned. And don’t ask me where that thing came from. Hormones gone awry or something.
So I remembered that the doc would be doing a breast exam and I suddenly was happy that he went to the wrong room because I’d have been mortified if the doctor who has seen my nether regions more times and in more unflattering positions than I care to reflect upon saw that lone black hair on my areola.
So I attempted to pluck it. But it wouldn’t freakin pluck. My attempts at plucking only served to curl it up so that it no longer looked like a relatively long black hair but now it looked like a misplaced you-know-what hair.
NICE.
Anyway. Eventually it plucked.
And I let it fall to the white sheet on my lap. But then I looked down and saw it and ohmygoodness I was so glad I caught sight of it before the doctor did because you and I both know what it looked like.
And then the AC shut off and it started to get warm. So warm that I began to sweat.
Fabulous.
We don’t even want to think about the ways in which sweat manifests itself in our nether regions do we? Not to mention the fact that he’d be checking my armpits during that breast exam too.
The alternative, though, would have been a cold room. A room possibly cold enough to leave certain parts of my anatomy a little too poised if you know what I mean. And what would be going through his head if I was too poised as he did my breast exam.
Great.
The moral of this story is that the less time you’re left sitting next to naked in the doctor’s office to obsess about what-ifs, the better.
Here’s the clincher though. The doctor finally made his way in and I managed to get through that breast exam part with very few awkward silences. So he has me scootch to the edge of the table and get all stirruped up and knees fall apart yada yada yada. Here comes the spotlight from hell. He assumes the position. And guess what? No speculum.
AWESOME.
So we wait for the nurse to go fetch one from one of the other rooms. Yeah. That wasn’t awkward.
365 days until I get to do it all over again.
But please tell me now so that I can take a little nugget of comfort with me next time: am I the only freak who obsesses about these things as I’m left waiting?
Or do we all hide our bras and underwear under our discarded clothes?
One last thing. If you happen to be a male reader (of which I know of only two) then I deeply apologize for that misleading title.
Carry on.