Are you my mother?

*Disclaimer:  This is about real life.  Get over it.

So since I've been on my period for pretty much the last two months, I decided to finally do something about it and make an appointment at the doctor.  Not a sham appointment, the kind I do every few months when Kaiser calls me and says Oh hey we see you haven't had an annual in something like fifteen years, you need to schedule, just to get them off the phone and then cancel it a few days out of courtesy to someone who really needs a gyno appointment at the last minute; a real one.  Where, like, I'm the one phoning in.  And I realized the day that I phoned that these things don't take a couple of minutes to do.  You don't just phone Kaiser and say, Hey, I need a gyno appointment, hook me up.  You have to hit buttons and explain things and get redirected and then disconnected a couple of times and then change your story or forget the one you told the last time and complain at how far out your appointment is and then call back and find someone who finally says, What?  You've been bleeding for the last two months?  Yeah, you should probably get in sooner.  Because my first appointment was for July 28.  And my response to that was, Okay, I'll try to phone you if I have to cancel, but if this keeps up, I'll probably be dead.  Oddly enough that wasn't enough to make her try to find me a better option.

Anyway, it's tomorrow.  And I'm not looking forward to it, because 9am is too early to start drinking and I'm WAY better at this kind of stuff after a couple of cocktails.  The doctor is a woman, though, so I guess it would be a bit inappropriate anyway.  I was never one to care about having a male gyno; actually, I preferred it.  But now with this whole situation I have going on here I figure I'm probably better served with someone who can relate.  To the fact that it's a pain in the ass and really inconvenient to bleed for two months.  

I'm forty-six.  I get it.  I'm probably starting "the change".  In fact, I'm sure I am.  But from what I've read, the beginning part of "the change" can last like eight years and I'm not down with that kind of a time frame.

So I was having coffee with Gay Neighbor Geoff this morning and thinking about the way this kind of appointment is perceived at age twenty-six and age forty-six.  Twenty-six went to the Planned Parenthood because she was too cheap to pay for a real doctor and gyno visits were not covered on her horrific health insurance plan.  Plus if you told the Planned Parenthood you were a full time student you got your birth control for free.  Twenty-six didn't care about the results of the exam, twenty-six just wanted the free birth control.

Forty-six is looking at other options.  Forty-six has been asking for the last twelve years what her uterus has ever done for her.  Forty-six just wants that motherfucker out so she can stop paying $10 for a box of Tampax every month.  Forty-six doesn't want to worry about wearing white or beige or ruining any more of her dainties because that shit isn't cheap and frankly she'd much rather spend that money on Eileen Fisher and trips to Mexico.  Forty-six is sick to death of the whole thing and curses Eve every four weeks and then every three and then every two and then fuck it every DAY when the irony of it all isn't lost on the girl that never ever wanted kids.  Well, except for that one drunk night in Louisville Kentucky back in 1994.  But only that one night.  

So tomorrow forty-six will get to work early and then leave at 8:30 so she can spend an hour convincing a doctor to remove all the icky useless used up malfunctioning parts to preserve her sanity and social life.  Then she'll return to work with a bit of news, who knows what it will be, and a handbag full of Tampax until something is decided and/or scheduled and then she'll come back here and give you her OTHER thoughts about the similarities and differences between having an abortion at twenty-eight and having a hysterectomy at forty-seven.  I'm sure there's something there.

Oh, and this IS real life.  What you believe in or don't believe in doesn't mean it isn't out there.