Let’s Get Personal - Chapter 3

My trip to the gynecologist

I saw the same gynecologist twice. He prescribed me with a cream to apply, when I returned with no improvement he assessed me again and saw no ‘serious’ issues with my vagina.

I hate that.

Don’t tell me it’s not serious. What I’m not dying? I didn’t think I was. I understand that I don’t have cancer, I didn’t think I did. But what’s the solution? What are we going to do next?

Being in pain every. single. day. is not serious? Being un able to have penetrative sex is not serious?

Because I think it is.

At the end of the second appointment, he made it clear there was nothing else he could do so I asked for a specialist referral. As we left the exam room, he walked into his office across the short hallway and sat at his desk.

He didn’t say anything.

He didn’t acknowledge me.

Did he expect me to just leave?

I walked to his office door frame and said “Are you going to write me a referral to a specialist?”

He replied with, “Well if you’d like it. But it’ll take a year anyway to get an appointment.”

See that right there? The assumption that my problem would be gone in a year. I knew better. And got him to write the referral.

I didn’t know much about vaginal health when trying to get diagnosed - I learned along the way. But looking back, the one thing that was always clear to me, was this gut wrenching feeling that the pain was not going to go away on its own. We’ve hit three years now and counting. And that’s ok, because I’m improving. But what I hated the most, was when I was made to feel crazy about an experience I knew wasn’t going away. I could feel it in my body. Something was wrong, not just in my vulva, in my entire body.

But when people didn’t know what to say, they said this…

“Maybe it’ll go away when summer starts and you’re less stressed.”

“Maybe it’ll go away when you get your next period.”

“Maybe it’ll go away when we go on our trip and you’re more relaxed.”

Enough.

I think hope is a wonderful thing. But false hope? No thanks.

I’m well aware that these statements weren’t meant to be insensitive. On the contrary, everyone was trying to make me feel better. I just hated being constantly told things were going to be ok, when I knew that was not the case.

No one was hearing me. I just wanted someone to tell me I wasn’t crazy. That the pain was real, that they understood my experience. But no one in my life could do that for me, because they did not have the answers. My hope is that one day, people are more educated on women’s health issues so that we can all point each other to the correct resources, and so that’s why I’m here sharing my story.

Stay tuned for my next chapter, where we get a little closer to that moment, the moment where someone finally acknowledged what I had been through.