I’m sitting here in bed, as I have been for the past three days with a giant ovary. Yup. According to the ultrasound report, my left ovary is 8 times the size of my right. Why, you ask? Because I have developed a cyst, which has rather inconveniently decided to start hemorrhaging, causing me excruciating stabbing pain (so much so that I’ve named it ‘Vlad the Impaler’), the frequent need to urinate, mood swings, bloating and an inordinate amount of gas. So basically, there’s something growing inside of me sucking the life force out of me. Is this what pregnancy is like?? It’s got me thinking about what a rough deal women have sometimes. No I’m not going to go all feminist on you and start freeing the nipple left, right and centre, I’d just like to highlight some of the atrocities we have to face in every day life. There’s a caveat here that not all of these are restricted to women (I don’t want to offend any of my afflicted male readers) but it is predominantly us ladies who bear the brunt.
Periods. A guy friend of mine used to say ‘Don’t trust anything that bleeds for seven days and doesn’t die’. I used to find this saying equally abhorrent and intriguing, when you think about it, periods are kind of fucked up. Apart from the obvious inconvenience of BLOOD COMING OUT OF YOU FOR DAYS ON END, you also get blessed once a month with: pain so severe it can bring you out in cold sweats and cause you to nearly pass out, psychotically irrational mood swings and emotional outpourings which I’d imagine makes your partner or anyone around you pray for a swift and immediate death, bloating which makes you appear 6 months pregnant (or like you’ve just won a pie eating contest), and potentially, constipation or diarrhea (or if you’re lucky enough, both). I was recently sharing some menstruation stories from my early days with my boyfriend, who at the time was a captive audience in a car on a long journey and could not get away. Such as the first time I used a tampon and was so rigid it didn’t go in properly, causing me to walk around at school like John Wayne for a good few hours hating life. And the time I had a full leakage on my first ever boyfriend’s mother’s couch at age 13. The trauma is real people.
Hair removal. Whoever the fuck decided that women being completely hairless from the eyebrows down was sexy, should identify themselves as I would like to pour a burning hot substance on their skin, wait for it to dry then rip it off violently, listening gleefully to their screams as their sensitive areas become red raw and tears of agony roll down their face….oh wait, the torture I’ve just described is just a modern hair removal technique administered to poor bitches everywhere every 4 – 6 weeks. The times I’ve dreamt of sending boyfriends to get a thorough back, sack and crack when they’ve decided to make an extremely poorly thought out joke about lack of maintenance just to give them a glimpse of the pain we go through….
UTIs. Anyone who’s ever suffered from a UTI will be wincing and crossing their legs as I describe this. Imagine having the urge to pee CONSTANTLY but the urge to pee feeling like someone is massaging your bladder with a pitchfork. And when you do relieve yourself, experiencing the sensation of a hundred thousand tiny razor blades tearing apart your urethra. As if that’s not enough, one can often be treated to some crippling nausea and a chronic fever. The other massive insult to injury is that most of the time, these are caused by sex. Sex, one of the pleasures we have in life and we can’t even escape that unscathed.
Breasts. Now I’ll be the first to say that I don’t identify with the afflictions caused by having a large bosom, however, I have many friends that do. I have one friend who’s breasts are so large I can fit my entire head into one of the cups with room to spare (this is unbeknownst to her as she was out of the room at the time I was testing this theory). Phenomenal though right?! I know that this can actually cause really bad back problems, which must be pretty shithouse. I also know that buying a bra off the shelf can be as difficult as hunting down Osama Bin Laden and that running looks fucking uncomfortable unless you strap those babies down with 20 metres of industrial strength duct tape. Some of my friends have a slim waistline and mammoth jugs, this means that if they want to wear a fitting top they must squeeze their girls in so tight they look like a couple of balloons about to pop. Pros of having large boobs are that you look like an actual woman, not a 12 year old boy. AND you can motorboat yourself. True story, I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.
Smear tests. Ah there’s nothing like lying flat on your back, legs akimbo while some stranger wearing what resembles a mining helmet inserts a large metal object into you and stares deep into your vagina. If you get a good doctor, they’ll administer some lube and try and warm up the speculum, if not it goes in cold and dry. My personal favourite is when they can’t locate the cervix so they prod around for what feels like a millennium then ask you to cough, often followed by a triumphant ‘AH HAH, GOT IT’ like they’ve found the holy grail. I once had the immense pleasure of having about 12 medical students called in to come and have a look as apparently my cervix is a medical marvel. (Maybe it is the holy grail)……anyway I do hope my lady parts have furthered their career and wish them well.
Pregnancy and Childbirth. Another thing I cannot yet identify with but man oh man, the stories I’ve heard. It must be kind of amazing to grow a person inside of you and I’m sure it’s great when they are out but I’ve got some brutally honest people in my life so I’m under no illusions that it’s a fully fledged horror show. A few of the things I’ve heard about being pregnant:
- Morning sickness
- Sore boobs
- EXTREME hormonal mood swings (aka hellbeast mode)
- Indigestion
- Back pain
- Increased hair growth in places one is not supposed to have hair
- Peeing frequently
- Peeing oneself involuntarily
- Fluid retention (aka cankles)
- Fatigue that makes one feel like something out of The Walking Dead
- Wanting to eat ALL OF THE THINGS ALL OF THE TIME!!! (Although this sounds quite good to me)
- Inability to sleep or walk like a normal person
- Adult acne
- Excessive uncontrollable gas
This is not an exhaustive list, however I think I’ve made my point. I’m not even going to go into childbirth although I will say that there is such thing as a ‘vaganus’. Oh the horror.
Saying all this, I still love being a woman and I wouldn’t swap it for a meat and two veg any day (apart from being able to pee standing up, a she-wee just does NOT cut it). I’m hoping though that if you’re a guy, next time you are about to give a woman some shit about being a psycho hose beast, please spare a thought for what we must endure in life.
– Nic (and Vlad the Impaler) xx