The Proof is in the Pee.

On Wednesday morning, a man I don't know is going to shove a tiny camera up my vag.

No, I'm not entering the world of amateur pornography or meeting up with a blind date for a kinky hookup.  I'm going for a cystoscopy.

It's not something I thought I would have to worry about for at least another 10 years.  At 24, I am reasonably healthy and the idea my body might already be turning against me is almost too much to process.

I can't sweep it under the rug any longer: the tests repeatedly show abnormalities and--pardon my coarseness-- but the proof is in the pee.  It took me a long time to realize that the following schedule was not normal: not normal for me, not normal for anyone.  Pee break after breakfast.  15-minute walk to campus.  Pee break.  Start class.  Twenty minutes in, pee break.  Half-time break, pee break.  Finish class: pee break.  Walk home, pee again.  My bladder's been working harder than a poodle at the park trying to claim every tree, stump, and bush as his own.

from nikkisblog.files.wordpress.com

It started a year ago, when my doctor called to say there was blood in my urine sample.  I had waited anxiously for the results to come in, working myself up into a full-on freak-out. What if it was cancer?  Infertility? I stood in the driveway, tears streaming down my face, confronted for the first time with the possibility that I might not be able to conceive.  I had never known how much it meant to me until it was potentially taken away.  I waited and waited in ignorance, imagining scenarios, each one worse than the next, but the call never came.  It had taken so long for the results to come in that I had already packed my bags and moved to another province by the time the doctor and I finally spoke.

Map by: Julia Bolchakova on theydrawandtravel.com

"I'm out of town for awhile," I said.  "Do I need to come in?"  She said it was nothing that couldn't wait.

So I relaxed, assuming it was no big deal.  

Fast forward over a year, and now suddenly, it's important enough that I have to see a specialist and he literally has to send a camera up my urethra into my bladder to scope it out.  

I'm petrified to even step foot in the hospital, let alone know what the results will be.  I'll be devastated if I find out that having gone sooner could have ameliorated the situation.  I'm afraid of the pain; Wikipedia says it's "excruciating".  

But I've made up my mind to be cool about it, as best I can.  It'll be like being an extra on Grey's Anatomy, maybe.  I'm grateful for my mom and boyfriend who'll be going with me.  

And it'll be nice to get back to a normal pee schedule.

Anyway, gotta book it.  (Time to go breathe into a paper bag)

From babyboomeradvisorclub.com

--Jem