Belly of the Beast | WomensHealthSpecialists.org

Belly of the Beast

by Katie Hodges

I have struggled with the medical community for a long time. As a large woman, I am often dismissed. My desire to know more about my own body seems to put doctors off, as if I am stepping on their toes. The more questions I ask, the less they want to answer me. But a recent experience rejuvenated me in my quest to learn about my body and share that knowledge with others.

I was facing a health crisis. Brought into the ER via ambulance I was weak and anemic due to ongoing and poorly treated irregular menstruation. I had taken iron supplements but that simply wasn’t enough to account for the blood I had lost after the last stab at medication. At that point, I was in a room in the ER at Mercy General and I was stable. I had lost almost half the blood in my body and I was a bit out of it.

I was surrounded by women. Dr. C was the attending doctor. She was rough and straight to the point. She had been honest with me since I came in the door and I liked that about her. The two nurses had been kind to me. They had both been in and out of the room for the two previous hours, checking my vitals and poking me. We were all waiting for Dr. A, the OB/GYN on call, to arrive and do my pelvic exam. She had just stepped into the room.

They threw my legs into the stirrups and grabbed a speculum. Dr. A struggled to get it to stay. She said, “We need a longer one.” and without thinking I responded, “I should have brought mine.” The room went silent.

“What do you mean, yours?” Dr. A said, suspiciously.

I groggily replied, “My speculum. I should have brought it. It’s the right size.”

The nurse returned with another speculum and handed it to Dr. A. Dr. C said with confusion in her voice, “Why do you have a speculum.”

“So I can see my cervix.” The tone of my voice failed to mask my opinion that this is the only obvious answer.

The nurses were completely silent as they listened to this dialogue. Dr. A ignored me and proceeded with my pelvic exam. Dr. C’s voice, still tinged with confusion came again. “But why?”

“Well, you can check your cervical mucus to see if you are ovulating and where you are in your cycle. It’s generally a cool thing to be able to do. I mean guys get to look at their genitalia so why can’t we?”

I looked to my right and the older nurse was looking at me with a wrinkle in her brow.

“Yes, yes, you can see your cervical mucus and it give indications about your cycle if you are trained to know what to look for.” said Dr. A in an irritated voice. She clearly thought that I am not educated enough to look at my own cervix. I wondered briefly if anyone ever though my husband was too dumb to look at his penis.

“But how?” Dr. C asked again, flabbergasted and confounded at the very idea.

Now I understood that she was struggling with the logistics. I didn’t know if she is confused at how any woman would do it, or how a woman my size could do it – but that didn’t matter. “Oh you just flip it over so the handle is on top, grab a mirror and a flashlight. With some pillows behind you it’s really not that hard. You have to get used to inserting the speculum without pinching yourself, but you learn that pretty quickly.”

At this point, Dr. A directed her conversation away from me. She pulled the speculum out and gave orders to the nurses. She was clearly done listening to this patient talk about her speculum.

***********

A few hours later they wheeled me down into the basement to get my ultrasound. The technician was a man, so hospital policy states that there has to be a female staff member present. He left to get a nurse and returned with Dr. C instead. I laid there quietly while Dr. C questioned the technician. He showed her my uterus and fallopian tubes. She seemed quite interested. At one point, I asked him to turn the monitor so I could see as well.

Dr. C looked at me. “So, you are really interested in this stuff, huh? You wanna go into medicine?”

I shook my head at her. “No, not at all. I just figure if this is part of my body, I should know how it works, you know? I can’t play a good part in keeping myself healthy if I don’t understand how my body works, can I?”

She looked at me and squinted her eyes. “Hmm.” She pondered and turned back to the ultrasound. When he had finished taking pictures, the technician unhooked the machine and wheeled it back into the next room. Dr. C started to leave and said, ‘Well, it’s time for me to go home. Good luck, Ms. Hodges.”

I called after her. “Dr. C, thanks so much for everything you did when I came in. You were great.” She turned back from the door and smiled at me. I continued. “I don’t know how you see things, but here is what I think. I feel like sometimes women these days don’t get to own much of their bodies. I mean, we are so objectified, you know?”

“Hell yeah,” she said.

“Well, I’ll tell you, I didn’t realize how much I was missing that feeling of ownership until I saw my cervix. I know it sounds strange, but here was this very vital and important part of me, hidden away and no one can get to it but me. It was a pretty powerful thing.” She stood there uncomfortably and nodded her head.

“See, I figure it’s something that all women should experience at some point in their lives if they want to. I would guess that someone like yourself, someone who actually heals for a living – you would gain even more by having an experience like that.” I looked at her again. She was watching me suspiciously, as if she was trying to decide if I was credible. “Well, if you visit the Women’s Health Specialists, they can give you all the info and supplies you need to do your own cervical exam. I mean… it’s something to think about.”

Dr. C squinted her eyes at me again. “Hmm.” She said again. She took a long pause and then turned back towards the door. “Well, thanks. And you feel better, okay? I’m going home.” And with that, she left.

I laid there on the gurney thinking Dr. C. Part of me was amazed that she could get through medical school and never see her cervix. But realistically, I know that it’s simply not something they teach. I wondered what she would do with this information. She probably wasn’t going to go run out and buy her own speculum that morning. She might not ever see her own cervix. But it didn’t really matter. I got her thinking, and the next time she picks up a speculum or runs into a patient who says that they do their own cervical exams, she will think about it again. I laid on that gurney, in the basement of a major hospital and reveled in my activism, even in the middle of my own health crisis, even in the belly of the beast.