i've been violated.

So when Dr. Kroll's office called after my most recent yearly PAP smear and told me that there were abnormal cells I was a little freaked out, but I was able to get over that. They referred me to an gynecologist and scheduled me for April 10th (today). I remember being told that the GYN would take a closer look at my cervix and put a solution on it to determine what strain of virus I had. In fact, I was really under the impression that I was having another PAP smear with more advanced cytology and pathology testing. PAP smears are no picnic, so I wasn't looking forward to it, but you deal with it. That's life as a woman.

So I get to the office and sit in the waiting room, surrounded by pregnant women. No, really, every one of them was pregnant. The nurse calls me back and takes my weight and BP and all that normal stuff they do when you go to the doctor. My BP was actually a little high, but since I was about to have a huge metal apparatus shoved up me I figured that was normal. She asks me to give a urine sample (which means I peed on my hand because I've never, ever managed to pee in a cup without doing so) and then met me in the hallway and took me to the exam room.

That's when she dropped the bomb on me. It turns out I was having a colposcopy today. For those of you who haven't experienced this, allow me to enlighten you:

-The doctor came in, talked to me, then proceeded to shove the aforementioned metal thing up in my vagina and spread it apart. Not confortable, but no big deal. SOP for gyn exams.

-Second, she took a q-tip and wiped vinegar all over my cervix. It doesn't tickle, trust me. But again, it's manageable.

-Third, she took a pair of high tech binoculars and checked out the inside of my vaj jay jay and my cervix. She saw white cells, so she scraped them off. Yes, I said scrape. And not with that bottle brush looking thing they use for PAP smears. I am pretty sure she used a machete.

-Fourth, and this is my favorite part, she tells me to give her a big cough on the count of three. I'm amused by this because it reminds me of the "turn your head and cough" part of a dude's physical. But I wasn't amused for long -as soon as I coughed she shoved something up into my cervix (like where babies come from) and cut a chunk out of it. That's when I started to cry (and don't you dare call me a wuss until you've had a part of your body cut out without any anesthetic). Better yet, we repeated that 3 times. That's right, THREE times.

-After that things got a little fuzzy, but I will tell you that there was more poking and scraping around in there. I was just too lightheaded to remember exactly what she said she was doing.

-Then my uterus began to cramp in ways I didn't realize it was capable of...oh, and I started bleeding. Pretty significantly, at least until she smeared this stuff all up in there to help it stop. And I'm talking all UP in there, which means she was basically poking the areas that she's just ripped off a chunk of with a q-tip.

When she was done she told me to take my time getting dressed and she'd see me in the hallway. I laid on the table, my legs still up in stir ups, too scared to move. I was in so much pain and I was sure that moving would make it worse. So I probably laid there for a solid 5 minutes. Eventually I took my legs down, one at a time, and slowly got my clothes on. I felt like I was going to pass out at any minute.

And I can't tell you how excited I was when she told me that if the chunks inside my cervix come back abnormal that I get to come back and have the inside wall of my cervix removed. If they don't numb me for that I'll probably murder them with the speculum. Speculums aren't sharp, but I'm positive I'd be able to do enough damage.

No one told me that this was going to happen. NO ONE. I didn't find out that I was getting pieces of my body cut out of me (without anestetic) until I was in the room half naked. I'm not happy about this. Someone should have informed me...Dr. Krolls office perhaps? Could the Ob/GYN associates have included a post-it note in my patient information pack they sent me? No, that would be too logical, too ethical. Why would they tell me beforehand? And PS, shouldn't I have had to sign some sort of consent? They technically just stole part of my body from me...we had no prior agreement that they could have it.

I don't know what giving birth is like, but after today I'm soooooo not interested in it that I think I might consider celibacy, just to be sure. Abstinence, after all, is the only 100% effective method of BC.